Film 1 -Belonging – A Spoken Word Poetry Film by Lammas School
English-Lithuanian-Turkish
A spoken word poetry film produced by ten year 9 students at Lammas School & Sixth Form in Leyton. The piece explores what it means to belong, what it is to feel like you don’t belong to part of your identity or culture and how language is a big part of belonging. This is a punchy, lyrical and imaginative glimpse into life as a multicultural East London teenager.
(Malachi Joseph-Bailey, Faiz Fazalekarim, Ramai Stennett, Aliya Butt, Iqra Abbas, Rahmoan Williams, Skirmante Gvazdziauskaite, Berfin Tekagac, Rachael Atuonwu Shanyah Inglis-Barbosa)
Film 02 – Question Mark Movie by Bulgarian Shkolo “Vasil Levski”
Bulgarian-English
The students in the movie want to emphasise that even though they are surrounded by numbers and ways to divide them into groups daily at the end of the day they are just kids.
(Iva Georgieva, Vanessa Petrova, Mirela Petkova, Stefani Petrova, Stefani Fahuri, Tiana Malcheva, Snejina Vezenkova,Viktoria Foteva, Yana Aleksieva, Kristian Pashkulev)
Film 03 Arabic Belongs to Us by -Acorn House College
Arabic-English
This film was made by an A level student who was inspired by the development of the Arabic script during the dawn of Islam. Zak feels that this has made Arabic belong to all Muslims regardless of their first language.
(Zak Karbani)
Film 04 – Hoping to Return by Hajjah Rashda al Masri School , Nablus, Palestine
Arabic-English
Hoping to Return is a film about Palestinians who have been made refugees from 1948 until today. The film includes a poem, in Arabic, written by an 11-year-old girl.
(Dana Shakhshir, Malak Hussein, Alma Assi, Merna Hasiba, Yasmeen Ashoor)
Film 05- சேரும் ஸ்வரங்கள் — Connecting Notes by Tamil Arts & Language Academy
Tamil-English
Connecting Notes takes the audience through the journey of a child who sings badly, being the odd-one out in his class. He worries and feels as if he does not belong anymore after being embarrassed as a result of a wave of laughter from his classmates. The boy is comforted by his teacher and given “magical singing talents” after a visit from two fairies. This story reflects to the audience that although you may feel at times that you are not quite fitting in, that you do always belong.
Film 06- Heti Community — Where the Heart Is by Fengshan Senior High School, Taiwan
Mandarin Chinese-English
Heti, an area by the upper reaches of the Love River in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is a community of around 25,000 residents. To enhance a sense of belonging, people living here established a committee responsible for cultural development, environmental protection, and residents’ awareness about arts and humanities. This film is produced by five students, two of them living in Heti, to interview the secretary general of the committee. They hope to keep a record of the community that stores their precious memories of childhood and teenage years before they go to college.
(Yi-Chen Chen, Meng-Ting Chiang, Pei-Ting Chen, Chin-Chieh Yang, Yu-Ning Hsu)
Film 07- In Search of Belonging by Fengshan Senior High School, Taiwan
Mandarin Chinese-English
Melody leads an ordinary life. She has her own way of life and seldom interacts with other people. Her classmate, David, on the other hand, is quite different from her. David looks confident, happy and seems to have a purpose in life. Melody decides to find out why David is so ‘neat’. Thus, she starts to follow him around. At first, she thinks that David is cool because he always carries his guitar with him. However, she gradually realises that what makes David at ease is his group of friends who share the same interests, a group that he feels he belongs to.
(Zoe Hsu, Judy Wang, David Tang, Melody Tsai, Ivan Zhang ,Veronica Yan)
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