Being and becoming European: imagining European cinema for children

The purpose of this edition of the Hillary Place papers, on new directions for educational research, provides a welcome opportunity to reflect and revisit our own work, but also the wider purpose of education research. The work I want to share is an example, not so much of a new focus, but of an attempt to find ways to ensure that my existing research, into children’s film and film education, connects to the constituencies I serve, whether that is academics, experienced educators or those working in the children’s film industry. I would like to share with colleagues a provocation piece I was commissioned to write for the Children’s Film First conference,1 which took place in September 2015, the culmination of a two year EU funded programme of activity, focused on film for children and film education.