On Thursday 14 March, we took the Fourth Form Germanists to a GCSE German Film Study Day at the BFI where, alongside approximately 400 other German students, we watched a series of film clips ranging from a stop-motion animation to a dystopian sci-fi thriller. In addition to describing and predicting the various plotlines, they learnt to analyse specific features such as the soundtrack and camera angles. The facilitator, a film specialist from UCL, spoke solely in German, giving the students key technical vocabulary and encouraging them to share their ideas in German. Several RGS students contributed, Sami Strudwick giving particularly confident answers.
In the afternoon there was a screening of Kaspar Heidelbach’s Berlin 36, a film about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The twin plotlines of gender identity and anti-Semitism in 1930s Germany held the attention of all 400 students to the end.