Making Movies That Matter
Inspiration and Footage for Student Video Projects about Issues That Matter

Mountainfilm’s year-round education initiative offers teachers and students a unique opportunity to view and think about films that have been screened at our festival. Our program emphasizes 21st century skills—critical thinking, visual literacy, creativity, and technology – and provides meaningful content for Media Arts classes as well as for Language Arts, Social Studies and Science classes.

Making Movies That Matter (MMTM) works like this:  A classroom screening of an issue-based, content-rich documentary is followed by guided, hands-on, digital editing projects in which students use footage from the source film to craft their own short video reactions to themes and issues raised.

In order to implement MMTM in the classroom, teachers and students will need access to computers and film-editing software. It takes approximately 10 computer hours for students to complete a 1-3 minute project. 

Guidelines for teachers and digital footage for student projects are now available at a password-protected site.  Our current MMTM library includes the following, with new films being added every month:

BAG IT

What starts as a documentary about plastic bags quickly expands into a provocative (and amusing) investigation of how plastic affects our lives, our bodies and our planet.

SCHOOLING THE WORLD

This film is a compelling voice in the conversation about globalization, one that calls into question some of our basic assumptions about education.

 
DYING TO TELL THE STORY

The sister of a young journalist killed in Somalia in 1993 wants to better understand her brother’s life and death and to find out what motivates journalists around the world to risk their lives in combat zones.

AMERICAN OUTRAGE 

Accused by the BLM of trespassing on public land without a permit, two Shoshone sisters fight against the government's confiscation of hundreds of their horses and cattle. The sisters contend that the land is traditional grazing land and that the real issue is newly discovered gold deposits.

If this sounds like a program that you’d like to incorporate into your classes, please contact Mountainfilm’s Education Director, Ellen Shelton.

Here are a few sample student projects: