Over the past year, 40 young people from Fermanagh have been working on film and animations exploring 'cultural diversity'.
Their films will be screened at the Ardhowen Theatre on Tuesday April 1st, at 7:45pm. The event is free, but tickets must be reserved through the Ardhowen Box Office.
The young people are Polish and Irish young people, and they have worked together using film-making and animation to learn about each other's traditional cultures, and to question what it means to live in, and be a contributor to, a multicultural society.
One of the participants explained: 'It is important we learn about other cultures because people from different parts of the world are coming here and we all have to learn to live together."
The young people began by learning film-making and animation techniques. Then they used their new skills to produce animations exploring traditional Polish and Irish cultures.
In the process of making the animations participants used the internet to research each other's cultures. This resulted in a Polish group producing an animation about Irish dance and music, and an Irish group making an animation about the traditional Polish city of Krakow. Working together as film crews, participants then interviewed themselves in different locations around Fermanagh.
It provided an opportunity for Irish participants to learn about their new friends from Poland, asking such questions as 'How did you feel coming to Ireland?', 'What was your first impression of Fermanagh?', 'In what ways have you mixed with Irish young people?', and 'In what ways are Irish youth different from Polish youth?'
The animation involved making models and puppets, and using them to bring issues to life. This included making a 'set' of Lisnaskea, and animating different aspects of local cultural diversity.
One Irish participant said: "It has been about combining cultures and learning from each other. I hope we can stay in touch with the friends we have made and maybe learn some Polish, that would really help'"
The participants also wrote and recorded their own songs, based on cultural issues. Their songs form the music to go along with their animations.
Another participant said: "Working with models, using the camera and making songs is a really fun way to get to know people and what they are like. It gives you a different perspective on things. I have realised that we are all the same except maybe we have different skin colour, eat different foods and speak a different language, and I think it is good people are coming here to live."
The Film-making and Animation programme has been facilitated by Enniskillen's Development Media Workshop, a charity that uses media to highlight social and environmental issues.
The Workshop's Director, Michael Brown, described the programme by saying: "Last year we worked with Polish and Lithuanian families to make a film called 'Setting Up Shop' which gave an insight into the lives of families moving to Fermanagh. This was a really successful project, and created huge interest for a follow-up a project working with young people. This is how our current project came about. We wanted to facilitate a creative programme of animation and film-making that would allow young people from different cultural backgrounds to work together and have fun, as well as learning new things about their respective backgrounds. Film-making and animation are ideal media because in the process of making programmes, participants carry out internet research and ask each other questions. So they learn so much."
