Targets & EU

Targeted communities

The project activities were centred in five areas with limited cinema infrastructure: two of these areas are suburban, two are rural and one is urban. The coordinator comes from the community of San Giorgio a Cremano in the Eastern part of Naples, Italy. The eastern area of Naples is highly degraded from an urban, environmental and social point of view, with a strong presence of organized crime and is considered to be the symbol of the southern productive desertification. The area of Fortetsa in Heraklion Crete (Greece) is also a degraded area with no cultural infrastructure and opportunities for the inhabitants. The urban area is Klaipeda in Lithuania, an area which, even if it’s the third city in Lithuania, given the fact that cultural life is dominated by the capital Vilnius, has only one cinema (which participates as partner in the proposal). Lesvos is an island in the North East of Greece, known as the first arrival point for immigrants and refugees in Europe. It has only one indoor cinema which, due to the covid19 pandemic, was close for the 2020-2021 season. Finally, Phalempin in France is a small rural community of around 4,000 inhabitants with very limited cultural infrastructure. Due to the profile of the targeted communities, it is obvious that the impact that the project made is huge. The project innovated entirely the cultural cinema offer in these regions and increased significantly the audience interested in the European content as well as in the process of cinema making.

European Added Value

The project brings European added value for many reasons:

First of all, it supports the promotion of European films since at least 80% of the films that were screened were European. Through the screenings but also through the discussions, the audience had the chance to get in-depth information about the variety and diversity of the European film making. The programming supported also the development of intercultural awareness between the partner countries since, for example, in every participating country there were screenings from at least one film from every other participating country.

Second, part of the project was the focus on films related to the agenda of the European Union. There are many issues that are high on the EU agenda (such as environment, cultural heritage, migration etc) and many European films that approach these themes from different aspects. The project promoted the pro-active involvement of European citizens in these thematics through the organization of discussions and debates (also with the participation of audience from different European countries) but also through a voting procedure that allowed the audience to vote for some of the themes that they would like the next screenings to focus on.

Third, the project promoted the valorisation of European cultural heritage. The project, through the small documentaries that it produced (on issues such as local traditions, language, oral history etc) but also through the digital placemaking activities, motivated local communities to use cinema as a tool in order to document their local cultural heritage and raise awareness on it not only for outsiders but also for the members of the community.