Film Festival Done Differently

As a hybrid cluster of schools across Aotearoa New Zealand, we decided that this was the year to curate our own online film festival. We have been part of the Manaiakalani cluster for the last three years. We submitted films and attended the event planned by them to celebrate the creativity of learners across their cluster. We added our movies to their cluster site and learned alongside.

Beginnings

When we first started in 2022, films were supported by facilitators. Over time, as teachers gained skills and confidence. Four years later, we have teachers across a range of schools with growing skills in filmmaking.

2025 Online Film Festival

We took as our theme for the film festival, our cluster whakatauki:

Poipoia te kākano kia puawai | Nurture the seed and it will blossom

The idea of nurturing the talents and creativity of teachers and learners seemed appropriate. The aim was to give people scope to be creative while also highlighting our purpose as a cluster.

Planning 

We decided to hold our film festival in week 8 of Term 2 based on feedback from leaders. During the process, some appreciated this timeframe, and others felt it was too early in the school year. Feedback suggests this timing works well for those who participated.

We opted for a completely pre-recorded event that was played live at an agreed time - a watch party.

Our aim was to have our hybrid cluster join together to celebrate the creativity of our learners. Being a hybrid group means we need to be innovative to foster connection and clustering. A pre-recorded video also meant it kept our live event simple on the day. This required significant upfront editing. 

Reflections

For me, the learning is about communication streams, how often and what to communicate. How to offer material to support and allow people to choose to engage if they need to. 

I worked on a range of resources that could be used independently. I focused on one area each week that might support the timeline of making a film with learners.

A challenging aspect of my communication was that I received very little feedback during the two school terms of weekly communications. So I really appreciated when teachers took the time to say they found a resource or information to be helpful. Partly, this is about being a hybrid cluster, where I don't get to see people face-to-face regularly. I find that is when they might say, "Oh, I used your resource to help me with...".  

These are the slides I used to collate all the relevant resources I found for filmmaking in a school context. The time I spent reading and learning cemented my own learning.

It was a great start for our film festival. I am reminded again that it takes many people with a range of skills to make something like this happen successfully.

Ma whero ma pango ka oti ai te mahi | With red and black, the work will be complete

It was great to have people watching from a range of schools and classes, even if they did not contribute a film. Our hope is that this will encourage more participation next time.

One of our goals for the film festival was to engage learners and encourage them to read the blog posts on class blogs and write quality blog comments on the posts. While the figures in this chart are quantitative only, they give an indication of the engagement. Many of the comments are quality comments - positive, thoughtful and helpful.

   

Further Blog comments are welcome here.

Teachers need to keep a close eye on comments on their class blogs, as we had to manage a few of these.

We need to be careful with closed captioning, especially when the content is in a language other than English. Also, we need to ensure that we communicate this to the class teacher before the live event in case there are any concerns.

Others Feedback

 

Next Steps

We need to consider whether we will do a completely pre-recorded event again. It worked well, but would some live elements make it better?

I need to start planning and communicating earlier. Having film-focused toolkits in Term 1, rather than Term 2, would be helpful. 

We request that the class blogs of participants be upgraded to ensure that a film can be embedded.

Conclusion

I’ve gained a real appreciation for the amount of mahi that goes into running a film festival—especially the teamwork it takes to make it happen. I want to acknowledge and thank the Manaiakalani Film Festival crew. Your work has given us a strong foundation to build on and adapt to our own context. We’re grateful.

I'm keen to do it again and to see learners and teachers grow in their skills and creativity.