3 Books on Cinema and Education

Cinema in the Educational Community is an integral part of the Chania Film Festival.

Screenings, workshops and publications compose our intervention in the field.
Two new relevant publications and a reissue have been released these days on the subject of Cinema and Education.


Guide to approaching movies with children
Collective – Curator: Stavros Grosdos
Format: 20X20
Pages: 76
Year of Release: 2020
Price: 8
ISBN: 978-618-5364-25-0

A book for children to love cinema. In a club the children meet in order to enjoy movies, to discuss about them, to play, to laugh, so that viewing becomes a habit. The aim is to operate film clubs from the very first classes of the school, in order to cultivate and maintain the love for cinema.

Addressed teachers, animators, students, who wish to organize film clubs in their school. It is also addressed, of course, to all those who love cinema and want to watch films and discuss them together with other viewers.

In the first part of the book we get to know the film clubs for children. What is it, how does it first start, how is it organized, how does a children’s film club work? How are the films selected? In what ways can students of a school class create a film club?

In the second part we learn to design activities-games of approaching films with the children for kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. The actions, before and after watching the film, do not look like school exercises. For the child viewer it is about pleasure, another game. Children enjoy the film product whether they treat it as unsuspecting viewers (they are moved, laugh, cry) or their gaze is inquiring and revealing (critical viewer). Children, as critical viewers, recognize not only what the creator says (description), but also how he depicts the content (interpretation), thus recognizing the different ways in which each film is a unique creation of a unique creator. The aim is the child-viewer who feels, feels, assumes, imagines, discovers, concludes and (co)creates.

The third part offers sample approaches of six short films. They are activities, before and after viewing narrative films, animation and documentaries. Through the activities, a sequential transition is attempted from the viewing-enjoyment of the film, the spontaneous expression of impressions and the description, to the investigation of emotions, the decoding of the creator’s intentions, and finally to the expression-creation.

The organization and operation of film clubs in schools is an educational and educational program of the Chania Film Festival.
Writing of texts – Edited by Stavros Grosdos


Cinema and Creative Writing. Film grammar lessons.
2nd edition
Stavros Grosdos
Format: 17X24
Pages: 196
Year of Release: 2020
Price: 16
ISBN: 978-618-5364-22-9
Publications: PEK – Compass of the City for the Chania Film Festival

  • How do we approach a motion picture with children?
  • With what actions do children acquire skills in writing original scripts?
  • How do we turn a literary story into a script?
  • Can films be used as stimuli and technique models for writing scripts or narratives?
  • What are the steps to create digital stories?

The multitude of film literacy activities and creative writing activities proposed in this book use films as stimuli. The activity of the young and the big unfolds in the enchanting world of the cinema screen. Readers of the book, teachers, animators and animators of the workshops, parents, students and students, having approached a multitude of teaching multi-exemplary proposals, will be able to plan activities to approach films for children, inside and outside the school, to plan and implement creative writing activities with the stimuli of the films and to animate the children in the production of simple film products, in workshops with an open environment, rich in stimuli, a variety of actions and surprises.

CINEMA thoughts to disagree…
Stavros Grosdos
Format:7,2X10
Pages: 140
Year of Publication: 2021
Price: 3
ISBN: 978-618-5364-31-1
Publications: PEK – Compass of the City for the Chania Film Festival

A surprise booklet, a booklet challenge both for its size and content.

How many opinions can fit in a forty-page form with dimensions of 7 cm. for 10 cm; Fellini and Antonioni fit into such a booklet., Pasolini, Visconti, Tornatore; But also Yves Montand and Catherine Deneuve? And Biougiouklaki with Papamichael, Karezi Papagiannopoulos? And yet the author, in this miniature book, answers twenty questions about the unseen sides of cinema. Small and insignificant, but also big issues. Q&A such as: “Saturday night and I am in the mood for cinema. Which movie should I choose?” “Alone or with company in the cinema?” “If I (re)see the same movie, second or third time, will I see the same movie?” “I didn’t understand what the film wanted to say!” “Is it possible for two viewers to see a different film in the same cinema at the same time?” “What does Americanism mean in cinema?” but also: “Is criticism -and critics- useful in cinema?” “Are there any films that never end?” “Have you ever been sucked in by the movie screen?” “Is there a relationship between popcorn and the creator of a film?”

The surprises are in the content. Some answers seem unexpected and others provocative. Then you look back at the title: “Thoughts to disagree…”. As a reader you don’t just read opinions about cinema. You can’t stand the challenge of not answering. Sometimes you will agree, sometimes you will disagree, you will laugh, you will remember, you will reminisce… But you will never get angry, you will never be outraged, because humor is the best communication strategy.

The reader appropriates the questions as if they were his own. By reading the book, you write your own book about cinema. A writer, then, but as many other authors as the readers of the book.

The books are available from our online store at:
https://archive.chaniafilmfestival.com/shop/
You can also request it from your bookstore all over Greece.
Distribution: BOOKSTORE PAR’ SEMIN – E.TZANAKAKIS Charilaou Trikoupi 11 A, 10678, Athens, Tel. 210 3811201