Reaffirming its commitment to developing Franco-German and international relations, the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO) does not limit itself to project funding. In cooperation with its partners, the FGYO is involved in the organization of Franco-German cultural events, allowing young French and German people to meet and discover Franco-German culture. The FGYO cooperates with institutions, associations, companies, regions and public figures to offer young people activities and events around various cultural themes. Film, dance, science, theater… The options are endless when it comes to FGYO projects. Here are some examples:
Film review workshop
In cooperation with “Semaine de la Critique” (International Critics Week), the FGYO organizes Franco-German workshops on film critiquing during the festival in Cannes since 2015. Twenty French and German high school students from ‘sensitive’ schools or with fewer opportunities for mobility are invited to participate. Through screening and writing workshops, the project promotes film education within a Franco-German exchange. In its involvement in cultural democratization, the project also makes younger generations aware of film.
Infos
https://cannes.dfjw.org/das-festival/
Franco-German residence and hip-hop event on the 30th anniversary of the Paris-Berlin city partnership!
On September 2nd, 2017, the FGYO successfully celebrated thirty years of Paris-Berlin twinning. It showcased the diversity of Parisian and Berliner urban culture with the Ghetto Style movement association from Roubaix and the Berliner Streetdance Connection association.
Over the course of a week, young hip hop enthusiasts from France and Germany came together to prepare for an entirely freestyle show on August 31st at La Place, the Mecca of Parisian hip hop. Through this form of artistic expression, the dancers’ street dance portrayed soccer, boxing and vocals around their theme of “Fluidifions la Street”. On Saturday, September 2nd, the “Fusion Concept World Final” took place at the Cirque d’Hiver, where artists from around the world showcased their talents in battles that even the celebrity judges had difficulty critiquing in front of the impressed crowd.
Infos https://www.dfjw.org/heisse-beats-und-coole-moves-anlaesslich-des-30-jaehrigen-jubilaeums-der-staedtepartnerschaft-paris und https://www.dfjw.org/einladung-zum-hiphop-event-fluidifions-la-street-am-31-august-2017-im-pariser-hiphop-zentrum-la
Web series on pop culture, science, and science fiction
“Tomorrow Maybe” is a six-part series made up six-minute episodes, produced by String Theory and released on Arte Future. Hosted by two young Youtubers from France and Germany, Charlie Danger and Phil Hauser, it deals with pop culture, science and science fiction. The host of “Tomorrow Maybe” is a Youtuber who, just like the viewers, is fascinated by the “imaginary worlds” of fiction. His curiosity leads him to understand and explain to the public that scientifically they do not exist yet, and under what conditions utopias of this kind might be possible in the future. In a light and optimistic tone, this pop culture content is the pretext for true scientific reflection. Organized by the FGYO, an advance screening followed by a discussion with the Youtubers and a cocktail hour took place on Thursday, June 15th at Les Grands Voisins in Paris. By supporting this web-series, the FGYO is dedicated in promoting accessibility to the sciences, engineering and digital technology.
“Le Carnet bleu”: Franco-German interdisciplinary project to raise awareness of environmental issues, citizenship, cultures and mobility
In cooperation with the City of Lille and the Northern Conseil d’Architecture d’Urbanisme et de l’Environnement (CAUE), dedicated to urban and quality of life development, the Goethe-Institut Lille put forward “Le Carnet bleu”. Launched in 2013, the project is supported by the Hauts-de-France Regional Council within the context of Franco-German cooperation.
For the third consecutive year, high school students from the Lycée Pasteur in Lille and the Lise-Meitner-Gesamtschule Köln-Porz created “Le Carnet bleu” available on the CAUE’s digital platform, S-PASS Territoires. The approach has expanded from research on water to covering sustainable urban development and structural transformations.
From their research of the Rives de la Haute Deûle, the body of the students’ work in the “Carnet Bleus” covered observations, analyses, and research. For students of the Lycée Pasteur, these included studies on EuraTechnologies, a former site of the textile industry. Students from the Lise-Meitner-Gesamtschule focused their work on l’Euroforum Köln Nord, in the port of Mühlheim, former industrial site of the Klöckner Humboldt Deutz (KHD) motor factory.
The week-long exchange took place from April 25th to 29th 2016, in partner cities, Cologne and Lille. This exchange format, with a shared Cologne-Lille trip, allowed the students to get to know each other and to experience an intensive week of discoveries and joint productions. The FGYO supports a number of projects that encourage young people to take an interest in issues of sustainable development and environmental protection.
Infos https://www.dfjw.org/nachhaltigkeit
“Starke Stücke”
Since 1994, the festival “Starke Stücke” has showcased a variety of youth-targeted theater programming within a space for intercultural dialogue. The festival is held in a diverse set of venues, such as community centers, youth and cultural centers, and education and theater institutions. Since 2009, the festival has been under the umbrella of co-sponsor, KulturRegion FrankfurtRheinMain.
Just as with other disciplines, theater has the ability to break down barriers and build bridges between different cultures. It opens doors to other forms of artistic expression like dance, music, literature, and visual arts in which language is among the methods of expression. Through this project, the FGYO aims to foster a dialogue between young people from Germany and France as well as to generate interest and enjoyment in working on theater pieces and dramatic writing.
In 2017, the children’s theater festival “Starke Stücke” welcomed the company Vélo Théâtre from Apt (Vaucluse) in Frankfurt (Hesse) for the magical show in French “La grenouille au fond du puits croit que le ciel est rond”. On March 3
rd, the performance at the Gallus Theater proved to be a big hit with the large audience. During that time, theater workshops were being offered to pupils from Kingersheim and Frankfurt in cooperation with the Festival Momix. In the words of Béatrice Angrand, the General Secretary of the FGYO, theater fosters an international dialogue.
At the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, during which France was invited as a guest of honor, all participants provided advocacy for cultural diversity. Franck Ristori, Deputy Consul General, discussed the importance of promoting the French language and highlighting the French cultural industries’ expertise and capacity to innovate with the written word.
Infos https://www.dfjw.org/deutsch-franzoesischer-abend-beim-theaterfestival-starke-stuecke,https://www.dfjw.org/einladung-zum-feierlichen-empfang-starke-stuecke und https://www.dfjw.org/das-deutsch-franzoesische-projekt-jugendtheater-bewerbt-euch-0
Youth newspaper “Extra”
Launched in 2004, “Extra” is a trilingual publication for young people by young people, including high school and university students. They meet in Metz, Sarrebrücken, our Esch-sur-Alzet to work together on articles on local and cultural news in the greater Saar-Lor-Lux area. Published quarterly, the newspaper tackles environment issues, cultural and political events. The newspaper is available as a supplement in Saturday editions of partner newspapers: Républicain Lorrain, Saarbrücker Zeitung and Luxemburger Tageblatt
In 2005, the magazine was awarded the FGYO’s Franco-German Award for Young Talent in Journalism. Since its inception, the editorial board has seen more than 200 young people with common interests and different language backgrounds still benefit from a very enriching experience: “Within the editorial board of ‘Extra’, we all come from the same area but thanks to our cultural, social and language differences, everyone has been able to bring a new perspective to the Saar-Lor-Lux space”, said Pauline Cavion, a former member of the editorial team. When working with a multicultural team, opinions on a subject can be very different and conflict with each other, which leads to questioning oneself and being more open-minded.
Infos http://www.stiftung-dfkultur.org/index.php?id=167, http://www.dfkr.org/index.php?id=116 undhttps://www.saarland.de/5698.htm
Märchenland. Connections through storytelling
The German Storytelling Cultural Center, “Märchenland”, presented the 3rd Franco-German Storytelling Festival, a magical celebration from May 15th to 30th in Alsace and Baden-Württemberg. In close collaboration with the Rectorate of Strasbourg and with the support of the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung and the FGYO, “Märchenland” holds dozens of events in the schools of the two regions. Their tales take many shapes including readings from professional storytellers and local politicians, “pantomime narrative” (when the tale is acted out), storytelling workshops, and Kamischibai classes and plays. For sixteen days, the children of both regions were receptive to the opportunity to discover the language and culture of their neighbor until the closing ceremonies of the festival at Europa Park, a theme park in Rust.
Infos https://www.dfjw.org/1-deutsch-franzoesische-maerchenfestival und http://www.maerchenland-ev.de/veranstaltungen/deutsch-frz-festival.html
KINEMA
Since 2007, a panel of six young French and German judges from 16 to 23 present the KINEMA award. As a part of the international film festival in Brunswick, the award is presented to first and second place French and German films for their artistic talents. The award aims to:
- initiate a dialogue between young French and German film enthusiasts within the context of the festival,
- generate interest in film culture in the partner country,
- support young directors from both countries and include them in a dialogue between young people from Germany and France,
- increase the visibility of Franco-German exchanges between Upper-Normandy and Lower Saxony.
The KINEMA award (a neologism from French “cinéma” and German “Kino”), is part of the program of the same name, which offers exchanges revolving around film between Normandy and Lower Saxony.
The award is supported by the Land of Lower Saxony, the FGYO, Antenne Métropole, the region of Normandy, Pôle Image Haute-Normandie and the Académie de Rouen.
Educ’ARTE
Launched by ARTE France, “Educ’ARTE” is their answer to streaming educational content for the academic world. Available online at www.educ.arte.tv, the service gives teachers and enrolled students access to educational videos on demand when they sign up for a yearly subscription. The platform’s online video library includes content in French and German, with close-captioning and/or audio description where required. More than 500 videos and programs are available to stream and/or to download temporarily.
The videos are chosen according to educational criteria that fit the requirements for school curriculum and can be used in class or at the school library, and equally at home for both teachers and students. Created for German courses in France and French courses in Germany, this audiovisual teaching material is a collaboration between the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO) and “Educ’ARTE”.
Through the implementation of Inter@ctions’ collaborative learning modules, videos on the “Educ’ARTE” platform are given an interactive dimension of Franco-German activities. Created by the FGYO, activities on Inter@ctions are part of the Tele-Tandem® system, which promotes project work using ICT as a means to support Franco-German school partnerships.
The activities based on the “Educ’ARTE” videos aim to get students to work in tandem with their Franco-German counterparts during synchronous or asynchronous activities. Thus, they broaden their digital skills and apply their communication skills within an intercultural context. This interactive work between French and German students takes place on the Tele-Tandem® platform, the collaborative learning platform created by the FGYO.
With the help of these audiovisual resources and the introduction to the Tele-Tandem® Franco-German digital world, teachers can give a new dimension to their course by getting their students to work together with their peers in the partner country throughout the school year.