About Vizo

VizoInstitute for Advancement of Visual Culture is non-government and non-profit cultural organization for film education, founded in March 2013.

 

Director: Katja Lika, katja.likar@vizo.si,  +386 31 569 989
Head of the Programme: Rok Govednik, rok.govednik@vizo.si, +386 30 388 853

 

Mission of Vizo is to introduce the film culture in Slovenian educational and cultural institutions with organization of film literacy programs. Therefore, Vizo is preparing qualitative, relevant and suitable programs of film lectures, seminars, workshops and discussions co-operating with kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, local and art house cinemas, libraries, festivals and other interested organizations. In the first year of foundation Vizo has developed and realized different programs and approaches for film education of children and youth and in this way made a stepping stone towards accessible and for users likeble film literacy across Slovenia. Team of Vizo has awareness that film and media education is still neglected in Slovenian educational system, and for this reason, our goal is to become one of leading organization on that field and to push film education for children and youth on a necessary nationally recognized level.

After 10 years Vizo has realized more than 600 film activities all around Slovenia and internationaly and reached more than 50.000 people.

Three our most important programmes are film education activities in school system (workshops, lectures, seminars for teachers), film platform for young people Mad About Film and promoting videoessay nationwide as creative and educational useful form of expression.

Vision of Vizo is also to implement the cultural and educational activities in the field of film culture and other visual media and the integration of visual art with other artistic expression. Beside film educational programs Vizo offers project management of film and cultural programs, organization of cultural events, production of audio-visual projects, etc. We organized also International Film Festival for Youth Eye on Film (in Slovenian is called “Film na oko”) from 2015-2017.

 

What we do:

Film platform Mad About Film

With Mad about film (MAF) we re-established a space that offers young people the opportunity to get a quality informal education on film and everything concerning film. Through mentorship, absorbing contents on the web page, specialist lectures and practical workshops, we want to engage the young people for them to start (co)creating various, film concerned contents that they are interested in. MAF is also active at Slovene film festivals, in the framework of which we regularly organize seminars at which partakers get to know various thematic fields in film as well as international guests. More: www.madaboutfilm.si.

 – Film camp Mad About Film

Every year in August we spent one week in emrace of nature in Slovenia’s one of the most beautiful parts – in south-east land called “Bela krajina” at the border with Croatia. There you can find the cleanest natural water in our country, river Kolpa, and surranding forests and hills. Accomodated in residental house with full board, we can torn our curiosity from the leash, so we organise film screenings under the night sky, film discussions at the campfire, and swimming and playing volleyball of course. We also organise mini film festival – we invite some famous young film professionals to present their films, we watch these films with local residents from the village and enjoy in their masterclass workshops. More: tabor.madaboutfilm.si 

 

VideoRez – the international youth contest for the best videoessay

VideoRez #5 is a competition for young film enthusiasts who use film and audio-visual (AV) communication to reflect on the world. VideoRez invites you to look at the world through film and video eyes, to focus on the topics that interest you the most about society, culture, youth, media, politics and film itself. VideoRez encourages new thinking, which sees in films, TV, radio, advertisements, series, music videos, journalistic contributions and more, new horizons of perceiving the world, and above all, a new hybrid way of expression. In doing so, we use ti. a collage montage film approach.

On the website https://madaboutfilm.si/videorez/ we present all idea behind this expression and creative film form, and for those who know this also regulations about the contest and the best videoessays from previous contest. The contest searches fof videoessays through two categories: secondary-school-aged young people, student-aged young people.

 

         

European projects

We regularly participate in European tenders. We have experience with Erasmus+ Youth (CineYouth – Fostering Youth creativity through application of online cinema simulator, 2022-2024), Creative Europe – MEDIA (TEHC – Teaching European History through Cinema, 2017-2018), Norway Grants – Norwegian Financial Mechanism & EEA Grants – EEA Financial Mechanism (Škratmobil – mobile socio-cultural platform for children and youth, 2015).

 

Teaching with Film in Secondary Schools

Since 2017, we have been more engaged in the direction of including high-quality program proposals in secondary school classrooms as well. If in 2017, through the European project, we started working mainly in History lessons, we later continued to introduce the film as teaching material in the classroom also in other subjects: Art History, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, Spanish, Geography, etc. We were researching different approaches specifically for the classes needed, with suggesting films and discussions led afterwards. We also stimulate students in creative work as well. We also carried out these types of activities during the restrictions due to the corona crisis.

 

Film education in pedagogical and educational institutions

It is of key importance for us for film to gain its place behind the school desks. This is our mission all the time. By giving children and youth the opportunity to gain film literacy through different projects carried out across the whole country, we introduce them with the basics of understanding the film as medium, art, and as the intersection of the web of symbolism, specific language, aesthetics, as well as social contexts.  We introduce the youngest ones in kindergartens with the film world with interactive workshops, while we present it to the older ones in primary and secondary schools with the help of multimedia lectures.

 

Film Education in Cinemas

When children and youth watch a movie in the cinema, the impressions are still fresh and their heads are filled with a bunch of questions. This is the time when it is important to talk to them about the topics of the film as well as film means of expressions, which are constructing the film as a medium and as an art. We implement this during school-organised cinema visits, cooperating with the Art Cinema Network of Slovenia, as well as with film festivals all over Slovenia.

 

 

Film education even during the corona crisis (2020-2021)

We responded appropriately even when we were forced to keep our distance from others due to health reasons. Thus, we have adapted the method of conducting film-educational talks and lectures to the online environment. With a successful adaptation, we were able to continue with the project Teaching with Film in Secondary Schools. We connected with national film distributors and also with national television.

 

“Film na oko” International film festival for children and youth

From 2015 to 2017 Vizo Institute as the producer organized the first international film festival for children and youth in Slovenia, called “Film na oko (in English: “Eye on Film”), together with 11 cinematographs of Art Cinema Network of Slovenia, We offered quality film contents to the interested audience and tried to follow the goal – film education, with an even richer programme, more (international) guests, as well as a reinforced festival team. More you can read in the festival catalogue from 2017.

 

Workshops of sound equipping and synchronising of animated films

The first project that we have established with Vizo in 2013 were Workshops of sound equipping and synchronising of animated film. We wish to present the sound to children and youth as one of the key film components that often goes forgotten, and we wish to do that in a creative way. The workshops are age-adapted and their goal is always sound equipping an animated film.

 

Vizo’s School of Criticism

The images of the mass media have flooded our society and we can no longer imagine communication without the visual component that prevails over the written and verbal communication. That is why Vizo School of Criticism’s goal is to help the youth with shelling off layers of contexts and decoding of visual culture, as well as to provide them with a place where they can express themselves creatively as well as critically. With that purpose, Vizo is organising a series of diverse workshops thematically connected to visual culture, which consists of a theoretical as well as a practical, creative part, both carried out under the watchful eye of acknowledged mentors. The goals of workshops aren’t artistic results, but getting to know art as a means of expression.

 

Film and literature

Vizo mentors also prepare regular lectures on the topic of the interconnection of film and literature. In these realms, we cooperate with various libraries across the country, among others with the strongest network of Slovene libraries, Ljubljana City Library, for which we have prepared eight lectures for a more demanding audience this year.

 

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