Film Society of Lincoln Center Launches CineKids Educational Program

The Film Society of LINCOLN Center announced today the launch of CineKids, a new education initiative focused on bringing film into the classroom, through screenings, discussions, and production, in order to bolster visual literacy learning in neighborhood elementary schools. Funded by a $200,000 grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Film Society has engaged BRIC's arts education program to partner on the design and implementation of the program. CineKids has launched in three public elementary schools on the Upper West Side of Manhattan's Community School District 3, and includes P.S. 191, P.S. 75, and P.S. 163.

Lesli Klainberg, the Film Society of LINCOLN Center's Executive Director said: "We are thrilled to take this important step toward investing in the next generation of filmmakers and film lovers. Working with schools in our own neighborhood, we are exploring new ways to connect with our community and provide experiences that will enable students to develop core skills that will help them throughout their educational life."

Today's youth consumes media at ever-increasing rates-and at younger ages than ever before in terms of sharing, receiving, and digesting information. Elementary-aged children are using pre-designed media programs to create pre-fabricated cartoons and video games. Teens are creating videos with smartphones and uploading them instantaneously to Vine and Instagram. As modes of communication have become increasingly visual, young people's visual literacy skills need to be cultivated to inform their understanding of the media that besieges them. It is rare to bring a filmmaking program to early elementary-aged children, and even more unique to use art-house cinema as a tool for literacy.

For these reasons, the Film Society has launched CineKids to help younger children gain access to an art form to inspire their own voices and to undertake a cinematic path of expression as a foundation for literacy learning. The program allows the Film Society to have an ongoing and in-depth relationship with neighborhood schools and families. Since 2007, the Film Society has worked with organizations like Ghetto Film School, Educational Video Center, and with public high schools to bring students into screenings and discussions with filmmakers to cultivate young audiences' visual literacy and critical thinking skills. With CineKids, an even younger demographic will be reached, which is critical to the longevity of this art form and to supporting the ever-expanding population of visual learners.

"The purpose of the CineKids program is to use the viewing, discussing and making of art house films as a tool for literacy learning," said Amy Poux, the Film Society of LINCOLN Center's Director of Education. "We treat the film as text, the filmmaker as author, editing as revision, and, in this, open up the practice of literacy learning to a whole range of learners."

Public School 75 Principal Robert O'Brien said: "We are so excited to be a part of CineKids! The brilliance of this program is that it taps into the accessibility of visual imagery as a means to experience and create art-and understand literacy in new ways. Visual images surround students continually, albeit passively. CineKids changes that equation so that students become active agents in their own growing sophistication and knowledge about the world through film."

CineKids will serve approximately 500 kindergarten through 5th grade students in year one and grow to serve close to 1,000 students by year three. At each grade level children will screen classics, and new art-house films, followed by discussions, and will make films of their own inspired by these filmmaking techniques. Another integral part of the program includes the Teacher Training Institute, where participating teachers are mentored in the interdisciplinary study of aesthetic appreciation and filmmaking techniques, and use these as a tool for their own classroom practices. The program will culminate in June at the Walter Reade Theater with the Film Society's very first CineKids Film Festival, at which the children will show their final short films created through the program.

The Hearst Foundations support cultural institutions that offer meaningful programs in the arts and sciences, prioritizing those which enable engagement by young people and create a lasting impression. The Foundations also fund select programs nurturing and developing artistic talent. The CineKids program hopes to serve this priority by using the Universal language of film to help grow a younger generation of filmmakers and film lovers.

ABOUT HEARST FOUNDATIONS
The Hearst Foundations are national philanthropic resources for organizations working in the fields of culture, education, health and social services. The Hearst Foundations identify and fund outstanding nonprofits to ensure that people of all backgrounds in the United States have the opportunity to build healthy, productive and inspiring lives.

The Hearst Foundation, Inc. was founded by William Randolph Hearst in 1945. In 1948 Hearst established the California Charities Foundations, later renamed The William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Both Foundations are guided by the same charitable mission, which reflects the philanthropic interests of their founder and are managed as one entity, sharing the same funding guidelines, leadership and staff. Since inception, the Foundations have made over 19,000 grants totaling more than $925 million. The current asset value of the Foundations is approximately $825 million.

ABOUT FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of LINCOLN Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year's most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society's state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at LINCOLN Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com, follow @filmlinc on Twitter, and download the FREE Film Society app, now available for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices.