Trip to the BFI.

On Wednesday we visited the British Film Institute on the London Southbank. We visited yesterday as there was an event being held on how youth is interpreted through media and film. The day started with a presentation by Matthew Hall on the growth and change of teenagers and youth over the years as well as how film has shown this. There was then a screening of the film 'My Brother, The Devil.' followed by a Q&A with one of the producers, Julia Godzinskaya. Overall, the day was fantastic as it gave us an in depth look at how media and film portrays the young in society.




The lecture on youth in media.

This lecture, which was presented by Matthew Hall, focused on the way in which film and media present the youth and how that view has changed throughout the years. He started at the very beginning when the teenagers first began to appear. This was because before, children were expected to suddenly become adults with no transition in between. We then carried on to talk about how the new group of younger people wanted to break free of everyday life and enforce their new formed society on the people of Britain. The whole point of the lecture however, was to show how media is used to present this. An example used in the lecture was "Quadrophenia" which is a film that looks at the rivalry between the 'mods' and the 'rockers' in the 1960's. The clip is the same as we watched on the day. It's a good clip to look at as it shows the youth being rebellious and not caring for others in society. We then went on to look at how youth is presented in this day and age, and to put it bluntly, it was bleak. The example we looked at was kidulthood which looks at all the common problems which faces the youth nowadays, such as teenage pregnancy, bullying, drugs, sex etc.

My Brother, The Devil.

After the lecture and a break for lunch, we were presented with the film 'My Brother, The Devil.' which was a low budget film directed by Sally El Hosaini. It was related to what we had done before, as it had a large focus on youth growing up in lower class areas such as Hackney. It did a really good job at presenting youth in a variety of different ways. As well as covering the actual youth, it covered other things that a youth may face in any enviroment such as bullying, sexuality and so on. The film in itself was an amazing film especially with the budget that it had. To the right is a trailer of the film. After the film had finished, One of the producers, Julia Godzinskaya, came in for a Q&A about the film and what the message was behind it.  

Overall, I really enjoyed visiting the British Film Institute as I felt it gave me an insight into the message behind media and film and we got to watch a good film with a deep message.