International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

NEWS AND VIEWS EDUCATIONAL. CULTURAL AND TEACHING FILMS It is hardly to be hoped that the law recently passed by the Storthing for the protection of eagles throughout Sweden will be effectual in preventing the gradual extinction of the surviving specimens of this royal bird in Europe ; but this fact only enhances the cultural and historical value of the film «The last Eagles », produced by Bengt Berg after years of patient and arduous work. No better appreciation can be made of this film, which will preserve for future generations the splendid image of the eagle in flight, when the bird itself has long disappeared from our midst {Der Bildwart, Berlin, F. 6/308) (Cf. also Notes from the Reviews and Papers in our December issue). The Soviet Government is about to open in Moscow a cinema in which only films recording events of the day will be shown. The latest local happenings will be shown on the screen, together with the most important topical events throughout the world. Thus a veritable illustrated «newspaper» will be unfolded before the eyes of the audience, but a newspaper that the most illiterate can read and understand. If the experiment is successful the Soviets propose to extend the innovation to all the most important towns of the Federal Republic {Le Courier Cinematographique, Paris, F. 6/295). Sir James Marchant is a strenuous advocate of the teaching film in England. He has asked the Labour Government to take the matter up seriously, and particularly recommends the institution of travelling cinemas and of an office to organize on a big scale the distribution to schools of projection apparatus, etc. He expresses the view that the work done by the British Film Censorship, which passes more negative than positive films, is insufficient. « The Schoolmaster » says : « Let us get films for our pupils and offer them programmes suited to their mental development and of a kind to bear good fruit ». The production of strictly scholastic films is the question of primary importance ; the educational film, in the wider sense of the word, comes next. (From YEcole et la Vie Populaire, Paris, F. 37/104). The importance which Russia attaches to the educational film is clearly evinced by the fact that the Soviet Government has decided to appropriate for the next five financial years a very considerable amount to be devoted to the production and systematic distribution of educational films, to training the teachers who will handle them, obtaining the requisite plant and equipment ; to the upkeep and supervision of the films and apparatus, and to providing for the widest possible practice of all cinema activity of this kind {Der Bildwart, Berlin, F. 26/29). Thanks to the activity of the « Svenska » cinematographic industry the teaching film section of which is directed by Gustaf Berg — considerable use is being made of teaching films in Sweden. For several years past the efforts of the private cinema industry in this domain have received official support, for the Swedish Government has long recognized the great possibilities of the educational film. It is no exaggeration to state that Sweden at the present time is in the vanguard of all the countries that have so far introduced the use of the teaching film. {Le Cineopse, Paris, F. 37/99) Referring to the Tenth German Educational Film Week, Emile Roux-Parassac calls attention in the Cineopse to the development of the educational cinematograph in Germany, whereas in France the campaign in favour of the educational film, though it started under good auspices, seems just now to be somewhat at a standstill. He pronounces himself in favour of the creation of a national institute for the encouragement of