It was a different type of school outing that led many of the children in Oberursel to visit the bluebox portstraße at the begnning of March. The bluebox, which normally hosts the Tuesday night cinema and the monthly Kinderkino was taking part in the “SchulKino Wochen” project, which gives school children and insight into how things in the cinema work.
A strange thought maybe, but in the days of home cinema systems, there are probably a good number of children who have never been to a cinema before to watch a film being projected into a big screen.
Michaela Klein and Sabina Imhof welcome the children
In the case of Oberursel, the week started with a film for 4th year primary school children entitled “Die Piraten!” (The Pirates!), a stop-motion animation about a group of pirates set in the Victorian period. Children from the schools in Stierstadt and Weißkirchen, as well as the primary schools “Mitte” and “Am Eichwäldchen” came to the two screenings on the Monday (4th March, 2013).
After watching the films, either someone connected with the film such as the director or one of the animators, or a media educationalist talked to the children and discussed the content of the film but also technical aspects.
After “Die Piraten” is was the job of educationalist Michaela Klein to explain how stop-animation works, discuss the liberties that the filmmakers had taken in mixing some modern elements with a historic piece, and generally find out which parts of the film the children had been most interested in.
Media Educationalist Michaela Klein talking to the children after the film
The SchulKino Wochen were taking place for the 7th time this year, with around 80 cinemas throughout Hessen taking part and showing films to more than 41,000 pupils from almost 550 schools. One of the highlights, although sadly not in Oberursel, was the showing of “Hugo Cabret”, accompanied by Christian Vogt from the company Pixomondo, who worked on the animation in the film.
Judging by the reaction of the children at the portstrasse after the film had been shown, they enjoyed learning something slightly different at this fascinating location.
About Graham Tappenden
