Introduction

The film collection
„Strangers in My Garden” is a collection of documentary films about migration. The films portray the lifestyles, adaptational strategies, hardships and victories of immigrants living in Europe. Separation and assimilation, new and old homes, homelands, families and friendships are reflected in the fate of individuals and communities.

The aim
In our experience, documentaries that give a sensitive and sensual portrayal of segments of reality with loveable, real-life protagonists may be an excellent means of teaching tolerance, in the struggle against prejudiced attitudes and negative discrimination. With a comprehensible story, the viewer identifies with the protagonist, imagining his situation, starting to like her, and learning to treat differences as values in both cases.
Based on this effect, and with the support of the European Union Integration Fund we created this collection in order to grant free access to documentaries of appropriate content and quality to those who wish to use them for purposes of education or culture within the framework of the programmes against exclusion and negative discrimination.

The project
In the spring of 2009 we called on European documentary directors, producers, manufacturers, distributors andother documentary organizations, asking for their submissions of documentary films dealing with the integration of migrants. Almost a hundred submissions had arrived by late summer, and we asked a professional committee to select the thirty most relevant. While presently we are busy organizing rights acquisitions and processing film data, on our website you will find a growing number of titles and data sheets under the „Films” heading. Once the work is completed, we will introduce the films with a three-day event hosted at the DocuArt Film Arts Center [1] (Bp., IX., Erkel u. 15.).

If you wish
to be notified of venues and dates, please send an email to info[at]docuart[dot]hu stating the name of the organization/school/institution you represent, and providing a brief description of how you could use the film package „Strangers In My Garden”. Thank you!

About us
The project „Strangers in My Garden” was realized by the Palantír Film Visual Anthropological Foundation, a non-profit professional film organization established for the purpose of popularizing documentary films and promoting their social use, and to form a more conscious consumer attitude toward documentaries.
The foundation has two permanent projects: the annual Dialektus Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival [2] each March, which has expanded to become a truly international event, and the maintenance and development of the DocuArt Film Arts Center [1] since march 2008. The center is home to our video library of about 1200 documentary titles accessible on location, and our 55-seat screening room for daily documentary shows.

Strangers in my garden – pedagogical manual

The “Strangers in My Garden – pedagogical manual” is the follow-up to the film collection on migration. Thanks to the grant we won from the European Union Integration Fund we have added a pedagogical manual to the film collection and catalogue. The manual contains a background study on migration, a study on the methodology of visual education as well as concrete pedagogical tools for the films organized in thematic categories. The manual is easy to use and contains ideas, essays and exercises based on experience that can be easily adapted to the curriculum and structure of high school classes. The manual is useful for high school teachers, university instructors, organizations and experts working on issues of migration and anthropologists, but we also encourage its use by students, those outside of formal education and those who have a general interest in the topic of migration.
An important element of the project is the new function that has been added to the website www.idegenekakertemben.hu [3]. This feature contains special recommendations from the pedagogical manual added to the data sheets of each movie. We have also created the opportunity for users to comment on each movie and share their experiences.
Our direct aim is to support and motivate the use of documentaries in education for integration and cultural-ethnic tolerance. On the long run, we would like to spread documentary film as a tool in education as well as in cultural events and programs in the field of migration.

The manual contains the following:

Background studies
András Kováts: On international migration a propos a documentary film collection
Ágnes Blaskó – Balázs Varga: Documentary movies in social space

Recommendations about individual films in the Strangers in my Garden film collection (Authors: Katalin Bognár, Orsolya Komlósi, Nóra Ruszkai, Éva Tessza Udvarhelyi)
Resources, relations, coexistence – The dilemmas of mixed marriages
Tradition, identity, values – Challenges of coexistence among different migrant generations
Expression, experience, tradition – Art and migration
Encounters, resources, attachment – Sport and migration
Places, spaces, new meanings – Migration and the city
At home over there or over here – transition or final destination? – Migration and returning home

Appendix
Ágnes Blaskó – Balázs Varga: Types of exercises for teaching documentary films
Regine Wenger: Pedagogical material for the documentary Yes I Am!