A dozen Secondary Education Institutes in Valencia have participated in the workshops organized at the IVAM, during the celebration of the VI edition of the Valencia International Film and Human Rights Festival.
Artists from Greece, Iceland and many others from Valencia, as well as the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, have selflessly collaborated with the FIC-Valencia to raise awareness among new generations, through art, about the importance of the individual and global defense of these guarantees, which belong to everyone.
The Valencian collective Fent Estudi and Álvaro Yebra, director of different short films, video clips and documentaries, worked with the Festival-winning documentary “Los años Savages” by Ventura Durall. This group, made up of 4 architects, proposed to the students of IES Abastos and Salesianos to participate in the construction of a fictitious city, as well as a creative game based on building a story together from words chosen at random.
The artist and specialist in audiovisual communication, Natalia Lozano, coordinator of most of these educational activities, invited the students of the IES No. 2 of Paiporta, the European University of Madrid, the IES Cid Campeador and Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, to feel as the protagonist of the Official Selection documentary “Gabor” (Sebastián Alfie), a director of photography who faces the making of a short film after losing his sight.
Natalia Lozano, founder of the Signos (SGNS) project, a platform for cultural and educational diversity, proposed an empathy exercise in which the students had to draw without using the sense of sight.
Arriving from Greece, Christos Karystinos, member of the activist group Theater of Oppression (Athens) proposed in a very creative way an exercise in body expression and rhythm following the documentary “The Way of Sofia” (Film Group of the Association of Greek Archaeologists ) about the story of a young deaf girl, Sofia, a painter, a graduate of the Athens School of Arts, an amateur actress and dancer who works as a teacher in primary schools.
The director of the Reykjavik Art Without Borders Festival, Iris Stefania, presented the documentary that she directed “Conoction. The story of 8 artists.” This very interesting work tells the story of eight Icelandic artists who, in pairs with other disabled artists, created pieces for an exhibition and auction held at the Reykjavik Art Museum, Kjarvalsstadir, organized by the Art Without Borders art festival in the spring. of 2014.
Through a drawing exercise with the students of IES Serra Perenxisa (Torrent) and IES VA Estellés, he wanted to convey the idea that in art there are no differences between the work of a person with a disability and another who does not have it. Art, according to the Icelandic director, can help us understand others, respect differences and, through the path of compassion and understanding, reach love.
The Vicente Ferrer Foundation presented the documentary “Happiness according to Vicente Ferrer” to the students of IES Campanar and Colegio Santa Cruz. From this, they worked with the students on the stories of some of the protagonists who appeared in this documentary, to make them aware of the amount of human rights that are currently being violated anywhere in the world.
From the Fundación Por la Justicia and the International Film and Human Rights Festival we want to thank all the artists who have participated in the workshops, as well as the teachers and students of these 10 centers, for their involvement in the fight for a more just world and tolerant.