Our curated film programs and FilmEd experience—including audience voting, post-screening discussions, and Q&As led by a Festival educator—provide students with a thought-provoking, fun, and dynamic way to explore timely and important topics like race, identity, and belonging. Teachers receive pre-visit and post-visit discussion guides that encourage creativity and critical-thinking through vocabulary, discussion questions, and activity prompts.

Why field trips?
FilmEd Field Trips offer the same energetic, participatory atmosphere of the annual Festival that engages students in a lively learning environment. Programs expressly created for grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8 classes utilize short films that have been expertly curated to celebrate the beauty and complexity of our world and emphasize the experiences of underrepresented characters and filmmakers. NYICFF’s 25 years of curatorial excellence ensures that selected films have been created by a diverse group of international filmmakers and feature characters not often found on or behind the screen—namely women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, the disabled, and other historically excluded communities. Screenings take place in multiple venues and libraries in order to meet classes in their own neighborhoods.