From inside to outside Juvenile Prison project Generaction

Educating cinema in a juvenile detention centre means creating a bridge with the reality outside, opening a door to the world, and supporting the development of kids who are living their young lives in a state of imprisonment. It means offering a horizon of new visions for a future that might appear to be dark or somehow unreal. This is why GenerAction (documentary festival for young audiences, organised by Il Nuovo Fantarca in Bari, Italy) addressed teenagers in schools and in a juvenile prison.

The goal of the project is not only to promote culture in prison but to let teens with very different profiles, living in and outside prison, share moments of culture and dialogue. In a tradition of audience development, GenerAction was rolled out in the cities of Bari and Matera, in different phases.

1. training (January - February 2023): gaining knowledge about the documentary language, style and genre.

2. screening (March 2023) of various documentaries - long and short.

Among the best European productions, teenagers from the institute selected six documentaries for the festival, held from 12-14 April.

3. festival preparation: young working groups from Bari and Matera worked on different tasks, like festival communication, welcoming the audience, school invitations, the presentation of films and guests…

At present in the cinema with their tutors, the boys from the detention institute presented their selection and interviewed the authors. The selected documentaries were LUCA + SILVANA (by Stefano Lisci), NELLY & NADINE (by Magnus Gertten), THE MATCHMAKER (by Benedetta Argentario), THE FAMILY GOLD (by Emanuele Pisano), PIZZA BOY (by Gianluca Zonta), NÈSCIRI (by Ivan D’Ignoti – winner of the Short Doc Award) and THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY MOTHER (by Beniamino Barrese – winner of the Long Documentary Award).

About 600 high school students took part in the screenings. In the after- noon there was a workshop with renowned documentary makers Federica Di Giacomo and Leonardo Di Costanzo.

The strength of GenerAction is in giving young people the lead in all phases of preparing a documentary festival, and above all in creating opportunities for contact, exchange and dialogue between young people with very different lifestyles and social backgrounds. “Because culture and beauty are rights for everyone and because it is one of the tasks of a media educator to help break down the physical and social barriers that don’t allow everyone to access culture in the same way.”

Il Nuovo Fantarca’s attention for people in detention is all year round, since in 2002 the digital cinema platform aimed at prisoners in Italy was launched. The platform currently includes 21 films (more info here) and is co-financed by the Guarantor for Prisoners of the Puglia Region. GenerAction is funded by the Ministries of Education and Culture through the media education project Alfabeti Visivi.