What is Euniverciné?

EUniverciné (Europe of languages, cultures and societies through young cinematographic creation) is a transnational project, which has been supported by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 Programme Cooperation Partnerships in Higher Education for the period 2022-2024. It has involved a consortium of 6 universities from 3 European countries – France, Italy, Austria– and Bosnia Herzegovina.

The project has been supported by key associated partners at local, regional or national levels:

• France : Association Univerciné (Nantes), Cinema Katorza (Nantes), Centre Culturel franco-italien and Centre Culturel franco-allemand (Europa Nantes), Université Lumière Lyon II, Conseil Régional Pays de la Loire
   
• Austria: Cinema Leokino (Innsbruck), Land Tirol authority
   
• Italy : Cinema Postmodernissimo (Perugia), Cinema festival Voci Nell'Ombra, Umbria Film Commission
   
• Streaming platform FestivalScope 

What is the aim of Euniverciné?

Through a significant relationship between European cinema, multilingualism and interculturality, the Euniverciné project has developed and experimented an innovative hybrid training programme based on the concept of an international jury for a European film festival. The project aimed to develop a training programme for students in EU universities specialised in the study of EU cinema through a cinematographic, linguistic, cultural and scientific approach. The experimentation of this EUniverciné training programme, initially designed for master students, has been implemented in 2023 and 2024 within the local French Univerciné film festivals (https://www.univercine-nantes.org/).

The key objectives of the project were the following :

• Democratize and broaden access to young European cinema in higher education 
• Raise student awareness of European cultural and artistic diversity and linguistic pluralism 
• Contribute to the multi-disciplinary nature of the training offered by perpetuating a training program in and through cinema 
• Reinforce students' acquisition of the linguistic, intercultural, digital and cross-disciplinary skills they need for employability, understanding of contemporary societies and civic participation.

What is the EUniverciné programme?

The EUniverciné programme has been designed to provide students with a specialised training in 4 phases: 

• An on-site training module in association with a local or regional festival
  • Discovery of EU cinema in original languages
  • Training module on concept of an international film festival and jury missions
  • Technical training in film subtitling
     
• An online subtitling series of workshops
  • Subtitling in min. 2 languages one or several films in competition at the local or regional festival
     
• A film festival jury deliberation session (online) 
  • Screening of films in competition via the FestivalScope platform (Relai Culture Europe)
  • Jury’s intercultural discussion and negotiation, award prize to one of the films in competition
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• A on-site cultural and scientific seminar 
  • EU Masterclass on the winning film with film director (and/or crew) 
  • Study day on the theme identified as a priority in each annual film competition
  • Students’ feedback on the film subtitling experience 

What is and will be the impact of EUniverciné ?

During two years, this project has enabled, through the participation of more than 20 teaching and research staff and 31 students, to promote and broaden access to young European cinema in higher education. 

For participating organizations, it has allowed to create or strengthen partnerships between universities but also with audiovisual and film industry professionals and with the local socio-economic world. Internally, the skills were enhanced, especially regarding pedagogical innovation and research structuring. It has allowed staff to develop professionally and humanly stimulating activities, to have a better knowledge of European projects, to improve their teaching methods as well as to develop their research work through European collaborative intelligence.

For the participating students, the project has allowed an awareness on young European cinema and skills development, and to strengthen their sense of European citizenship but also their self-confidence and self-esteem essentials to their well-being. They created strong transnational friendships and a professional and research network.

The adaptation of this program to other organization and contexts will enable to raise awareness about EU cultural and artistic diversity and linguistic pluralism, and build learners’ language, digital as well as soft skills. For organisations such as universities, schools, training centers (etc.), this programme will contribute to develop multi-disciplinary training and education offers which increase our understanding of contemporary EU societies and active citizenship.

To discover the results and productions of EUniverciné : https://eunivercine.eu/ (in French).