Making the Most of the Into Film Festival

The Into Film Festival is back with a packed and diverse programme of free screenings and events to engage your students in a broad range of topics. Whether you've been before or whether you're a Festival first timer, these tips will help you and your students to get the most out of your Festival experience.

Resources

We have many resources to support screenings and events at the Festival, all of which are available to download for free from our Festival Resources page. Here's a small selection of what we have on offer:

Into Film Festival Resources

The 2017 programme is divided into six strands: 

• Activate: Effecting Change
• Lets Play
• No Borders, No Boundaries
• Generation Z
• History in Action
• and Thriller.

To enhance your experience of taking part in the Festival, and draw out the themes and issues explored in the films that make up these strands, we've developed new PowerPoint resources to support the six strands of this year's Festival.

These resources are designed to be used alongside our literacy pack, which provides a range of worksheets for analysing the storyline and characters within any film, along with extended writing and simple filmmaking activities.

Review Writing

Review writing is a perfect post-screening activity, and all visitors to the Into Film Festival are encouraged to voice their opinions, create reviews, and publish their responses on the Into Film website. Our Review Writing resources - for both Primary and Secondary - are designed to introduce pupils to the art of reviewing and to help develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. They offer flexible approaches to reviewing films and can be easily adapted to suit your group after attending the Festival.

Don't forget to look out for our Review Writing competitions running throughout the term, including our ongoing Review of the Week competition. Keep an eye out for a special Into Film Festival review writing competition, which we'll be announcing details of shortly.

Discussion Topics Pre-and-Post Film

Be sure to browse our extensive catalogue of Film Guides, where over a hundred of the titles featured in this year's Into Film Festival programme will have their own accompanying guide.

Film Guides are one-page resources that explore a film's key topics and themes through informal discussion. With many curriculum-linked and education relevant films featured in the Festival programme, our Film Guides offer opportunities to spark discussions in the classroom, both before and after attending a screening.

Filmmaking Inspiration

Watching films at the Festival could well inspire young people to want to try filmmaking for themselves or experiment with techniques they have not previously considered. 

We offer many opportunities for young people to get involved with filmmaking, from simple guides outlining the basics to resources providing a more in-depth understanding of the filmmaking process.

And if you are inspired to make a short film, why not enter it into our ongoing Film of the Month competition or our annual Into Film Awards?

Try something new

Our Into Film Festival programme is packed with interesting films, including some you may not be familiar with - but don't let that put you off! Each film is accompanied by a short introduction, detailing why the film has been chosen and curated for its particular strand, and the age ranges we believe that film is suitable for.

The six Festival Strands have been devised to complement curriculum learning and current events, so you can be assured that the films you book will be not only entertaining, but also of value to you and the young people you bring along.

Discover new films on our 2017 Festival Programme

If you'd like to explore a film further you can do so using the British Board of Film Classifications BBFC insight service. This offers a way to anticipate or avoid any potential issues tackled in a film (such as sex, language, violence, or drugs), giving you a more detailed idea of what to expect before seeing it.