Moving pictures

A new educational filmmaking project commemorates life from 1930-1960

Into Film, BBC Learning, BFI and British Council invite young people to celebrate wartime generation on film. Kids can learn what was life like in different parts of Great Britain before, during and in the aftermath of World War Two – where people worked, what their homes and schools were like and what they did for leisure?

This innovative new project is encouraging children aged 7-11 to explore and commemorate local history by recording interviews with members of the wartime generation and combining the footage with archive clips to create their own short documentaries.

Inspired by upcoming BBC Two series Britain’s Greatest Generation, the ‘Make Film – Greatest Generation’, which marks the 70th anniversary of World War Two, the project will comprise of a curriculum-linked teaching resource from Into Film, a filmmaking toolkit to aid production of the final film, and a unique collection of over 100 archive clips from the BFI and British Council archives.

The resource outlines 11 themes ranging from food, health and childhood to work, politics and war, and a variety of educational and creative activities such as creating a timeline and analysing documentary and archive film, identifying and evaluating different sources, constructing historical enquiry questions, creating a soundtrack and finding eyewitnesses to interview.

The Make Film – Greatest Generation resource is available to download from February 24 at intofilm.org/greatest-generation with archive clips available from mid-April.

Completed films will be showcased on a dedicated section of the Into Film website and all those submitted by 20 May will be considered for inclusion in a BBC Learning compilation film being made by Steve Humphries; in addition, three of the completed films submitted will be selected to be taken into the BFI National Archive as a lasting legacy.

Find out about more about ‘Make Film - Greatest Generation’ and start an Into Film Club for free access to thousands of films and education resources at intofilm.org