5 | Educational Film Practices

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The Development of Educational Cinema for Schools in the Soviet Union in the 1930s: From the Cinefication of Schools to the Film Lesson
Serov, Lena (2023) , S. 1-48
This article gives a comprehensive overview over the lesser-known history of the institutionalization of educational film in the Soviet Union. While Soviet cinema in general was conceived as an educator of the masses according to a communist vision, at the end of the 1920s a movement propagated the use of educational film in compulsory education and vocational training which coincided with reforms in the film industry and in education. Harnessing cinema for educational purposes in the Soviet Union had similar roots as in the West: The idea was to counter the harmful effect that according to psychologists and educators was inflicted on children by commercial cinema. Yet, there were also important differences: In the Soviet Union, the movement to bring cinema to schools was primarily a state-coordinated activity that required a large material infrastructure for distribution, rental and exhibition under the slogan of ‘cinefication of schools.’ Cinema in Soviet schools was endowed with hopes to modernize teaching by developing into a regular teaching aid. This required the participation of scientists, psychologists, pedagogues and film professionals who participated in the effective deployment of film in the classroom – turning teaching with film into genuine ‘film lessons.’