Film and Family. Discovering values through the films of our lives. is coordinated by Daniel Arasa, director of Cinemanetan association that promotes human, family, social and educational values through film.
The book gathers the contributions of experts in cinema and linked to this association such as Guillermo Altarriba, Isabel Rodríguez Alenza, Gloria Tomás or Alfonso Méndiz. All of them, each with their own nuances and approaches, have given rise to a useful and dynamic guide, highly recommended for parents and teachers, which offers valuable clues to understand and above all, use the audiovisual language as a vehicle of training for the youngest.
As its coordinator, Daniel Arasa, emphasizes for Omnes, "today more than ever we have to be trained to see and understand cinema, because its influence and power as a vehicle for transmitting values is very great".
Arasa points out that the changes that the audiovisual industry itself has undergone in recent decades have been very big: "not only have the technical aspects changed, but also the conception of the big issues".
Indeed, "we have gone from going to the movie theaters or watching a specific movie with the whole family in the living room to perhaps having each member of the family a device in which very different things are played, which are not watched together, and then, in addition, the rise of series, which in the end are 8, 20 or 200 small movies".
This conceptual change and, above all, the impact on the change of social behaviors or the normalization of different situations is one of the keys to understanding the book and one of the most important aspects to help parents and teachers to create dialogues and critical spaces with young people on key issues: family, women, sexuality, dignity or love.
Universal themes that appear, in one way or another, in each and every one of the cinematographic proposals that reach the screens.
Major topics
"All cinema -because series are cinema in another format-, talks in one way or another about the key themes of humanity: the person, love, family... although it does so in a tangential way", says Arasa, "in a war film, perhaps the main theme does not focus on a love relationship, but it talks about love, for example, about the family of the people who fight, their relationships at those moments..."
For Arasa, "the responsibility of filmmakers is something difficult to delimit. But I think every filmmaker should ask himself the question of whether what he is doing uplifts and dignifies the person or degrades him".
The book describes these major themes and their treatment in titles ranging from Sophie Scholl or Heidi to Padre no hay más que uno or Frozen, without forgetting series such as Gambito de Dama, Por trece razones or Homeland. Among these themes, the book highlights family, love, forgiveness...
"It's not a book that says which movies 'you can watch' or not," Arasa explains, "you have to know the reasons why it's not convenient to watch a movie or a series, for example, for minors, to explain the reasons. Banning for the sake of banning is not enough. That's why we also want to shed light on some topics that appear in series or movies that we may not recommend to anyone.
A useful book
The book Film and Family. Discovering values through the films of our lives is not only a way to has a symmetrical structure. As Arasa explains, "we wanted each of the people who write, who have been linked to Cinemanet for years, to contribute what they know and do it in their own style. The objective is to offer readers, especially parents and educators, an instrument that is useful to them, that is useful to them and gives them examples they can use.
The book gathers the experience of the more than three lustrums that Cinemanet has been dedicated to cinema and to the formation of families through the seventh art. Proof of this are the "Family" awards, which, each year, Cinemanet gives to a film released the previous year in Spain in which, in one way or another, the human, family, educational, social and civic values promoted by the organization are reflected. Another recognition is also awarded to the person in the cinematographic world (director, screenwriter, actor, actress, producer, distributor...) whose professional and vital trajectory reflects these values.
