Being and Becoming

   A Film by Clara Bellar

Q&A sessions

German dad on illegal unschooling

Q&A sessions (french)

Q&A sessions (portuguese)

Trailer

Being and Becoming - Trailer from pourquoi pas productions on Vimeo.


Film screenings & release info.

To pre-order the DVD go to: http://www.editions-instant-present.com/etreetdevenir

Non exhaustive list of the Q&A guests around Being & Becoming

Check the release map

UNITED STATES

CANADA

MEXICO

FRANCE
and francophone countries

For the details of the release in the francophone countries, please visit the French website

ARGENTINA

For more information on the release in Argentina, please visit this web page: educartefamilia

AUSTRIA

BELGIUM

NETHERLANDS

BRAZIL

BULGARIA

CHILI

For more information on the release in Chili, please contact Verónica Chiapa and/or Claudia Bravo : iocarichile@gmail.com

COLOMBIA

FINLAND

GUATEMALA

GERMANY

Programming contact : harbor@alexkoryakin.de


GERMAN-SPEAKING SWITZERLAND

INDIA

MOROCCO

POLAND

SPAIN

UNITED KINGDOM

UKRAINE

PAST EVENTS

Film screenings & release info.

Being and Becoming explores the theme of trusting children and their development, and invites us to question our learning paradigms and options.

The filmmaker takes us on a journey of discovery through the US, France, the UK and Germany (where it's illegal not to go to school.) We meet parents who have made the choice of not schooling their children, neither at school nor at home, but of letting them learn freely what they are truly passionate about.

It is a quest for truth about the innate desire to learn. It belongs to a wider theme than education, connected to a change in our belief system and to our society's evolution, as well as to the importance of reclaiming one's life and self-confidence.

(99 minutes)

Film screenings & release info.

Born and raised in Paris, Clara Bellar is an actress, singer, writer, director and producer. Clara's film career took off when she met the French New Wave director Eric Rohmer after he saw her in a Parisian stage production of Sleeping Beauty. Mr. Rohmer cast her as the lead in his film Rendezvous in Paris. As an actress, she is best known for portraying the nanny robot in Steven Spielberg's A.I., and for starring in Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. This led to other starring roles in films including Kill the Poor, Oranges Amères, Romance and Rejection, This Space between us, Sleepy Time Gal, and The Pharmacist.

She has released two albums, both recorded in Brazil, My Brazilian Heart et My French Heart, with arrangements by Dori Caymmi and appearances by Chico Buarque, Ivan Lins, Joao Bosco and Milton Nascimento.

After studying film directing at New York Film Academy, Clara wrote, produced and directed the short film Watermelon Man. The film was featured in several North American festivals, including: M.A.L.I Women's Film & Performance Arts Festival; International Family Film Festival; Kids First; Carolina Film Festival; Buffalo Niagara Film Festival. Clara then wrote, produced and directed the documentary Being and Becoming, which was shot in France, Germany, the UK, and the US over the course of two years.

www.clarabellar.com

@iamclarabellar

Film screenings & release info.

Behind the camera

Written, produced & directed by Clara Bellar

Pourquoi Pas Productions


Camera & Sound

Clara Bellar and Gulu Monteiro


Additional Photography

Bob Holthaus (Germany)

Alex Tobisch (Switzerland)


Editing

Fanny Mongrolle-Fasanino

Joële van Effenterre


Sound Editing & Mixing

Pascal Ribier


Color Correction

Jean-Marie Frémont

Pixel & Décibel


Special Effects

Jérôme Heuberger


Quotes Voiceover

Gulu Monteiro

Encore Voices (Los Angeles)

In front of the camera

(in order of appearance)

Irvin Kershner

Rana Haugen Core

Naomi, Harvey, Oliver, Lennon & Yonatan Aldort

John Taylor Gatto

Nathalie Galindo

Joyce Reed

Sanni, Singa & Lumas Diesner, Manfred Köhnlein,

Claudia Renau, Fredy, Auriane, Loline & Lila Fadel

Arno, Michèle, André, Eléonore, Pauline & Antonin Stern

Ivana Durand Lanson, Merlin, Phenix & Cassidy

Valérie, Bertrand, Hugo, Océane, Baptiste, Jules, Emma, Noé & Louve Vincent

Fabienne Degorce, Joséphine & Margot Aknine

Nicolas Demeerseman & Florence Tutiau

Claire, Antoine, Martin & Marion Hérino Imbert, Rodolphe Hérino

Jean-Marc, Yrieix, Etienne & Joseph Delaunay

Jeanne Boucher, Annie & Michel Auzemery

Elena Boella

Michael, Sharon, Aaron & Rachel Tavaler

Zachary Simonsen Burt

Benjy Stevens & Jennie Stevens

Leslie Safran Barson

Augustus Day-West

Keir, Chloe & Afifah Watson

Alan Thomas

Helen Lees

Sally Garner-Gibbons, Sam Brewster, Luc & Lyla Garner-Gibbons

Joseph Cawley

Karen, Malchus & Josias Kern

TV & radios (french) :

Interviews related to the film (french) :

For German reviews & interviews, please visit the German sections of this website


France 3 Corse : "Enormous international success"
TV5 : "Magnificent documentary"
Marie-Claire Enfants : "Prepare to be surprised, shaken"
Happinez : "Gentle and authentic"
Infobébés : "Marvelous documentary"
Nexus : "The documentary that gives us hope"
Féminin Bio : "A ground breaking film that challenges our convictions"
Europe 1 : "THE documentary film event."
L’Express : "Troubling and unsettling."
Studio Ciné Live *** : "A meditation on mind expansion, an anthropological study inspired by an alternative movement, this investigation inquires into a philosophy of life that is often misunderstood and misjudged. Whether one agrees with it or not, the documentary is a success."
Télérama : “An ode to an alternative lifestyle”
Premiere : "One of this film’s greatest contributions is that it opens the debate.”
Le Monde : “Extols open-mindedness and freedom”
France Inter : "A film that points out a real problem in society.”
Famili : "We come out of it shaken. What if another path was possible…”
Nouvel Obs : "To change education - or to leave it?”
Marianne : "Raises pertinent questions”
L’enfant et la vie : "A striking documentary that places the child and their growth at the heart of all educational choices.”
Le Point : "A militant film”
Le Journal des femmes : "This film makes us feel like realizing our dreams"
Femme Actuelle : "A choice that gains more and more enthusiasts”
Version Femina : "THE FILM that places school in question”
La muse : "A captivating journey, to be seen by all means”
Parents.fr : "A beautiful film. Fascinating because the questions it raises are fundamental and because it compels a paradigm shift. At the heart of the documentary, there is philosophical reflection on happiness.”
Famili.fr : "A rare film, not to be missed”
Femina.fr : "Clara Bellar has pointedly touched upon the happiness that allows children to be and become their best. "This film opens the door to the field of possibilities. Not to be missed under any circumstances!”
Place des écoles : "Food for thought”
Santé Intégrative : "A feel good documentary - this film makes us produce oxytocin”
Mediapart : "A happy outlook on childhood and parenting”
Tagesspiegel : "An encouraging film... A film that believes in the power of every person"
Un grand pas de côté : "Deliciously disturbing”
La Vie : "Watch out, a subversive documentary”
Parents : "It shakes things up, for sure”
Click on the images to
read the articles
In French


About the Book:


About the Film:

In German
In Portuguese

Featured Authors & Editors:

Naomi Aldort
Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves

John Taylor Gatto
Dumming Us Down
Weapons of Mass Instruction

David Albert and Joyce Reed
What Really Matters

Arno Stern
Introduction to creative education

André Stern
...et je ne suis jamais allé à l'école (available in French and German)

Learner-managed learning and home education: a European perspective ‪
Edited by Leslie Safran Barson‬

Alan Thomas
How Children Learn at Home

Helen Lees
Silence in Schools

Books Mentioned in the Film:

John Holt
Learning all the Time
Freedom and Beyond
How Children Learn

Ivan Illich
Deschooling Society

A.S. Neill
Summerhill
Freedom - Not Licence!

Other Influences:

Sandra Dodd
Big Book of Unschooling

Peter Gray
Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

The Unschooling Unmanual edited by Jan & Jason Hunt

Rue Kream
Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooling Life

Alfie Kohn
Punished by Rewards
Unconditional Parenting

Pam Laricchia
Exploring Unschooling (free ebook)

Jean Liedloff
The Continuum Concept

Grace Llewellyn
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education

Scott Noelle
The Daily Groove: How to Enjoy Parenting... Unconditionally!

Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier
edited by Wendy Priesnitz

Wendy Priesnitz
Beyond School - Living As If School Doesn't Exist

Léandre Bergeron
For the Sake of Our Children

Philippe Ariès
Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life

Gabor Maté & Gordon Neufeld
Hold on to your kids

To read:

Alliance for Self-Directed Learning - https://www.self-directed.org
Life Learning Magazine - www.lifelearningmagazine.com
Naomi Aldort - http://www.aldort.com
Daily Groove - www.dailygroove.com
Continuum Concept - www.continuum-concept.org
Sandra Dodd - http://sandradodd.com
Living Joyfully - www.livingjoyfully.ca
Joyfully Rejoycing - www.joyfullyrejoycing.com
Natural Child  - www.naturalchild.org/articles/learning.html
Homeschooler Post - http://www.homeschoolerpost.com
Just add light and stir - justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com

To watch:

Peter Gray's presentations - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeE6SEu5P6dgcofCbZL0NM4er3wGqOm-x
Steve Jobs’ Stanford speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
Ken Robinson’s TED Do schools kill creativity ? - http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
Dan Pink’s TED The Puzzle of motivation - http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation?language=en

For more internet resources, Google Life Learning, Natural Learning, Organic Learning, Autonomous Learning, Informal Learning, Self Directed Learning, Self-Motivated Learning, Interest-Based Learning, Child-Led Learning, Self-Education and Unschooling.

There are local yahoo & Meetup groups in the US, UK, France, Canada, Australia and other countries.
Copyright © 2012 Clara Bellar. All Rights Reserved. Web design by Julie Klima