Cinecittà, with “Senza titolo”, has partnered for the second year running with the Istituto Comprensivo Guglielmo Pallavicini di Roma to create La grande macchina del cinema, an articulated didactic project for schools that explores the educational value of cinema, promotes knowledge of audiovisual and film styles, by screening masterpieces of past and present and encouraging a state of interactive and participative learning through workshop activities and actively experimenting facets of film production.   

The project, awarded the CIPS grant for Il linguaggio cinematografico e audiovisivo come oggetto e strumento di educazione e formazione (Film and audiovisual style as a focus and instrument in education and training), began in January 2023 with training sessions held at Cinecittà for teachers from the Istituto to share educational practices, projects and teaching methods that foster awareness of film and audiovisual languages in children of all ages. 

All classes at I.C. Pallavicini, from nursery school to primary and high school levels, participate in a three-session cycle of La grande macchina del cinema with educational workshops for each group where pupils collaborate on making a multimedia project thereby allowing children of all ages to discover how moving images are made and understand the articulation of the “Great Cinema Machine”. 

The sessions take place at Cinecittà and in the school and are conducted by museum educators, specialised in teaching about cinema and cultural heritage. 

During the sessions at Cinecittà, students discover the mechanisms of movie making and participate in a guided screening of extracts from fantasy films that demonstrate fiction and the evolution from Méliès to Scorsese and contemporary cinema; they use this learning later in class to produce original cinema narratives with the assistance of interactive stations. 

The project leader, Istituto Comprensivo Guglielmo Pallavicini, with partners Cinecittà S.p.A. and “Senza titolo” srl, won the “Il linguaggio cinematografico e audiovisivo come oggetto e strumento di educazione e formazione” grant. 

“La grande macchina del cinema” is a project that was created within the Piano Nazionale Cinema e Immagini per la Scuola (National Plan for Cinema and Images for Schools) promoted by MiC-Ministero della Cultura (Ministry of Culture) and MIM-Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito (Ministry of Education).