From my experience working with teens, I noticed that they have rich inner worlds, but struggle to communicate their emotional experiences in a world that prioritizes academic achievements, and that is increasingly digital. Since film helps me understand different perspectives, I wanted to use film as a creative outlet for students to express themselves so others can understand them better.
Students participate in guided workshops to write scripts, storyboard, film, and edit short films, responding to a common theme. This helps students process complex feelings in a non-judgmental way while providing adults with a lens to understand their experiences more deeply.
We have been conducting ongoing research with Yale psychologists on our innovation’s effectiveness. Evidence from focus groups and screenings show that Film Stylo benefits students by serving as a therapeutic tool and adult viewers by fostering empathy and cross-cultural understanding. This dual impact has been documented through interviews and thematic coding, confirming the program’s effectiveness in promoting mental health and emotional connection through filmmaking.
Film Stylo uses a proprietary curriculum that leverages the power of film in showing someone’s perspective and inner world. The films are made from a first-person point-of-view, showing what the filmmaker sees in real life. This is supplemented by the filmmaker’s voice-over, sharing their thoughts and feelings. They combine to give the viewer direct insight into the filmmaker’s mind.
Film Stylo has been spreading within Hong Kong over the last few years, with 500 films made and 10 screening events held. 5 schools have adopted it in their IB curriculum.
Last year, we held a screening event at a school that was reported on by a major Hong Kong newspaper. The event included a panel discussion on understanding students’ perspectives through their films, with support from Hong Kong’s largest mental health charity.
In the next 2-3 years, we aim to launch educational and filmmaking workshops to reach more schools. We are also developing an EdTech product that allows teachers to run our program remotely across the world. This will leverage AI to pair classrooms from different parts of the world together and facilitate cultural exchange through films made in the program.
Film Stylo’s pilot program was run between a group of students in New Haven and one in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 to foster intercultural empathy. This formed the basis of our research into the therapeutic benefits of filmmaking, and whether the resulting films effectively foster viewers’ empathy for the filmmakers. In recent years, we have modified the program to explore possible ways to implement it into international school curricula, focusing on fostering empathy within a school community. We have also added a competitive element to motivate students to participate. Moving forward, we are planning an EdTech platform that enables teachers around the world to implement the program, and use AI to pair schools with each other to facilitate cross-cultural exchange through film.
Interested teachers or school representatives can contact Babel Film Workshop for a screening package with a selection of recent films and guided discussion questions that foster cross-cultural understanding. Hong Kong schools can request to arrange in-person filmmaking workshops, while overseas schools can request a remote version of the program.
