Film education

Launched in 2023, the Soyons Critiques! programme offers lower and upper secondary school classes from the Aix-Marseille Academy the opportunity to discover, throughout the school year, a selection of films presented at FIDMarseille. Each screening is followed one week later by a critical analysis session held in the classroom and led by members of the festival team.
For the 2025–2026 school year, 13 classes, from Year 10 to Year 13, are taking part in the programme. This project is supported by Pass Culture and the Cinémathèque du Documentaire and is organised in partnership with the Aix-Marseille Academy.

Created in 2015, the Secondary School Students’ Jury forms part of FIDMarseille’s broader commitment to film education for young audiences. Following an open call, between 10 and 20 secondary school students take part in the festival as jurors and award the Secondary School Students’ Prize at the closing ceremony. This prize reflects a strong ambition: to raise awareness among a new generation of cinematic ways of seeing and of the diversity of film forms and approaches. In 2025, the Secondary School Students’ Jury celebrated its tenth edition.

In collaboration with Écrans du Sud, FIDMarseille offers accompanied school screenings, including mediation sessions and, in most cases, meetings with filmmakers. These screenings take place in partner cinemas within the network.

Throughout the year, FIDMarseille develops partnerships with art and film schools to offer students an immersive experience of the previous edition’s programme and to expose them to a wide range of works with distinctive artistic approaches. These encounters take the form of screening days followed by discussions and exchanges with the festival’s Artistic Director. Partner schools include the École des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, Pavillon Bosio (ESAP Monaco) and ECAM (Madrid).

During the festival week, FIDMarseille welcomes more than 200 students and emerging filmmakers as part of a dedicated pathway. Conceived as an immersion in contemporary cinema, this programme offers screenings, meetings with filmmakers and professionals, as well as masterclasses and discussion sessions. Open to participants from France and abroad, it supports students in developing their critical perspective and in understanding the artistic, aesthetic and professional challenges of cinema, in direct connection with the festival’s programme.

Since 2022, FIDMarseille has organised a Summer School as part of European projects involving Greece, Spain, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Moldova and Armenia. In 2025, the programme welcomed a group of young Algerian filmmakers.

Created in 2004, the Marseille Espérance Prize arose from a collaboration between FIDMarseille and the Marseille Espérance association. Since 2015, the jury has brought together between six and ten trainees from the École de la 2e Chance in Marseille. In 2024, the prize was renamed the École de la 2e Chance Prize, in partnership with the City of Marseille.
Prior to the festival, screenings are organised to enable participants to discover previous editions’ programmes, familiarise themselves with the cinema supported by FIDMarseille and prepare for their role as jurors.

FIDMarseille runs a year-round awareness-raising programme aimed at social organisations, offering a first immersion in the cinema it champions. Working closely with its social partners, the Discovery Pathway presents a selection of accessible films in free screenings, followed by engaging mediation sessions. These regular events foster connection, provide interpretative tools, and encourage dialogue and openness towards distinctive cinematic forms. They also help nurture participants’ desire to attend the festival as spectators.

Created in 2011, the Atelier du Regard is a project led by the association Lieux Fictifs and FIDMarseille at Baumettes Prison. Ahead of the festival, workshops facilitated by both teams are organised around films from the FIDMarseille catalogue. The aim is to create, within the prison, a space for encounters between images, words and lived experiences, beyond walls and cultural boundaries. During the festival, screening-discussions are held in the Baumettes cinema, attended by filmmakers and members of the FID team. Around ten competition films are presented to an audience of incarcerated volunteers, some of whom form a jury. At the closing ceremony, detainees granted exceptional permission to leave the prison personally present the Renaud Victor Prize to the winning filmmaker, on behalf of all jurors.