European cinema and ageing

In its proposal to the 2013 Lifelong Learning Programme, the CINAGE project identified the need to provide a response to the challenges presented by the rapid changes in ICT in order to ensure that senior citizens are able to actively engage in learning and cognitively stimulating leisure activities. Recognising that the interface of older age and cinema is a “fascinating yet rather unexplored territory within the andragogical learning theory”, a central element of the initial research programme was to explore the way in which contemporary European cinema portrayed the six competencies. This research was conducted in parallel to the research into active ageing and learning described in ‘Active ageing and learning for active ageing’.

In order to conduct this research each partner was responsible for establishing a Focus Group that screened a curated selection of twelve European films with the intention of arriving at the selection of a final six films that formed both part of the CINAGE Report as a whole and the curriculum for the final CINAGE Course. In each partner country, the Focus Groups met over the course of several months, watched films together and individually, and completed questionnaires about each film that related to their experiences of ageing and how that connected with the selected films.