International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

1047 Svenka photographers have been all over the world with their cameras. Oscar Olsson, for instance, was sent on a photographic expedition of the Svenska, and a hunting expedition to Africa, conducted by H. R. H. Prince William of Sweden ; another of the photographers of the Society, Mr Gostav Boge, was sent to the Antilles, the South Sea Islands and to the United States, to say nothing of his journeys on the Mediterranean coasts and in other European countries. Axel Lindbolm has taken his camera all over Spain, and David Sljo Sjoelander, an unrivalled expert at the filming of bird life, has been through the near East and the Arctic regions. It is natural that the majority of our films should reproduce our own country and the other Scandinavian regions, including Greenland, Island and the zones of the Arctic Ocean. Prominent among Swedish educational films are a series of biological subjects taken under scientific control ; a series illustrating the arts and crafts of past periods, and a series of reproductions of the whole of our country from the deserts of Lapland to the most southern corner of Sweden, that is to say a stretch almost equalling in length the distance between Stockholm and Naples. New expeditions set out every year both to provide for a continual renewal of the old films and to increase the stock of new pictures. The production department of the Svenska has further prepared some of the masterpieces of our national literature for the screen, such as the works of Selma Lagerlof, August Strindberg, and others. A few quotations regarding the activities of the Educational Cinema during 1930 may be of interest. Cultural films from Sweden were projected in nearly 1400 halls in the course of the year; most of them were school films, others were the property of educational or social institutions. Four million spectators assisted at these projections, and in the course of the year the demand steadily increased. During 1930 an agreement was made between the Edu cational Department of the Svenska and the educational authorities of Island, according to which the schools of Island are to be regularly provided with educational films from Sweden. The films used for school teaching in Sweden are of the standard size. According to statistics of the last year, from July 1930 to 30 June 1931, there has been an increase of about 10 per cent, compared with the preceding year. The Educational Department of the Svenska started its activities without any government subsidy while the schools and other educational institutions are subsidised. Although the Royal Direction of Education and the Council of State Censors have approved these subsidies the definite solution of the problem is so far from being settled that it has been thought advisable to address a petition to H. M. the King of Sweden, which in ■a short space of time has been signed by 1500 corporations of educationalists and teachers, or private teachers, or organisations the purpose of which is to encourage and improve popular instruction. All this development has given rise to the necessity of starting a vast and costly propaganda in order to convince the school directors that it is in their own interest to provide the necessary slides and to open their eyes to all the advantages offered by the film in visual instruction. Propaganda sheets and booklets have been distributed and a monthly review, dedicated to the development of the educational film in Sweden and abroad, has made its appearance. The Svenska, the largest and most important institution for film production in Scandinavia, has modern offices in the centre of the business quarter of Stockholm (the name of the seat itself is « Centre ») ; the Educational Department has a flight of completely equipped offices. Close to the « Centre » the Institution has a another building constructed according to a special system with absolutely fireproof deposits for the slides and films. At Rasunda, a suburb of Stockholm, the Svenska has vast and