06 – Government’s influence in films

In this post we are going to talk about the influence the European goverments have in the moviemaking of every country. In Spain, for example in 2008 the spanish goverment give 30 millions euros to help in 54 spanish full-length films and another 10 millions euros in films that have special effectsl.

05 – Recent cinema

Here you have some of the latest films that are

1 – Die Welle (La Ola/The Wave):

2 – Slumdog Millionaire:

3 -  El Orfanato:

4 – Das Leben der Anderen (The lifes of others):

02 – European film movements

Since the first filming companies started making films in Europe on the XIX century, like in art or music, diferents types of movements have depeloped in Europe.

• German Expresionism: This movement is related with the expresionism movement in art, wich, contrasting with the impresionism,  has tendency to distort reality for an  emotional effect. Related to the cinema the german impresionism,was a  creative movement in Germany before the First world war and reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. This movement started with the film The gabinet of Dr. Cagilari (1920) that was followd by other films wich  plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness and insanity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

• Italian neorealism: This movement started on the post-World War II in Italy and for this reason the italian neorealist films mostly contend with the difficult economical and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy. But also their plots and stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors. The main directors of this movement were Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti y Vittorio de Sica. Some films of this movement are :
  • Germania, anno zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
  • Ladri di biciclette (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
  • La terra trema (Luchino Visconti, 1949)

• French new wave: This movement was created in late 1950s by a group of french film diresctors who dislike with the previous moviemaking and who wanted freedom in their moviemakings and also in the filming tecnichs. Because of this they make experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative. The major figures of this movement are: Alain Resnais, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. Important films of this movement are:

  • El bello Sergio (1958, Chabrol)

  • Los 400 golpes (1959 Truffaut)

  • La guerra ha terminado (1966, Resnais)

• New German cinema: Influenced by the previous movement, the new German cinema produced a number of small motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. Their success sparked a renaissance in German film and encouraged other German filmmakers to make quality movies. The main directors of this movement are Wim Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff. And their famous films were:
  • Young Törless (1966, Schlöndorff)
  • Alice in the cities (1974, Wenders)

03 – Film awards

1-Berlinale awards: This awards that take place in Berlin every year at february is one of the most important film festivals of Europe. It was founded in 1951 and since them they have given golden and silver bears to the best unknown films.

04 – Film legacy

1. “Bienvenido, Mister Marshall” – “Welcome Mr. Marshall”

This is a film created in 1953 written by Miguel Mihura in which comedy is the main element of its success. Even if this is a Spanish film and its set in Villar del Rio, it ilustrates perfectly the American culture.

2. “La vita è bella ” – Life is beautiful

Life is beautiful was shot in 1997 and it represents the story of a man who is in a nazi concentration camp with his son and at the same time he must use all his imagination to hide the truth from his son.

The main character of this film is Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote the plot.

3. “El pianista” – The pianist

The shooting of this recent film started in 2001 and finished the next year. This German film tells the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a famous Polish Jewish in the middle of the Second World War, the height of the nazis.

4. Waking Ned Devine:

Bannen protoganizes this film full of  jokes, laughs and satire.

5. The third Man:

This work was written in 1949 and shot the next year, everything based on his preceding novel. The film tells us about Viena after the Second War War. Due to a fateful death which we witness at the begining of the flim, we get involved in the devasted Vienna of the 1940s.

6. Breaking the Waves

7. “Liegen lernen” – Learning to lie

8. “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain” – Amélie

9. Tesis

2009 Year of Creativity and Innovation

We have been reading about a project of the European Commissioner Ján Figel and these are our conclusions:

Now we know…

• … that next year will be the year of creativity and Innovation. Not only that, but we also have learnt about the European institutions:
  • European Commission, where commissioners (Ján Figel between others) propose legislation to the Parliament.
  • Then, the Parliament dashes off a draft refering to that legislation. According to this, The European Parliament and the European Council will make decisions about “Year 2009 of Creativity and innovation”.
  • The most important task of the European Council is to reinforce the unity between citizens through protecting Human Rights.
• …that Ján Figel, who is the Commissioner responsible for education, training, culture and youth,  has supported the idea of this year of creativity.

We believe….

• …this Year of creativity and Innovation will be the perfect period for evolution of the education system.
• …that this project will provide us new solutions for global problems by focusing on debates where they will discuss about those problems.
• …preoccupation for the youth from the European institutions will be appreciated.

According to us….

• We feel that a new education system will replace the boring and old-fashioned methods of learning.
• We also think that this project will have its effects in a life long term and that’s what we think should be different. By the time this solutions take place, we will be adults and we won’t give the matter further thought, unless we have children.

Creativity in our lifes….

• Ander:
  • I’ve been going to extra painting clases for 10 years and I think I have enough experience in this field. Furthermore, my mother and grandfather insisted on me to continue their music career, but I don’t like ti so much to live from it.
• Ibai:
  • i don’t have any special hobby related to creativity but I have seen lots of creative buildings. 

  

Europe Youth Week

 We fill a test to help improve the European education system and all the aspects of youth needs.

This is our IPM reference number: 511539023131431608

Europe in my map

We are exploring some geographic facts about Europe. Because of that, we played two games related to it. here you have the links of the games, click on the names to get to them:

Country location:

 Capital cities:

After completing our task related to European countries and cities, we have seen we don’t know very well the east geography: Vaduz, Warsaw, Podgorica… Appart from that, we managed to complete the map and we learned lots of things and get to know new places we didn’t even heard about before.

Our first post!!

We are exploring the creativity in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey.

Both photos we have embeded above, are the most important mosques in Istanbul: the Blue Mosque in the left and roofs of the surroundign area of the Suleiman.

In the next photo of the inside of the mosque, which reflects perfectly the heart and soul of Istanbul.

Here you have a video with its most beautiful sceneries: