Educational Resources About the films Introduction Watch the films here: Five short films from BFI Flare, the British Film Institute’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Film Festival, will for the first time be available to audiences around the world through BFI player. http://www.bfi.org.uk/BFI-Flare-five-films An Afternoon (En Eftermiddag) BFI Flare runs from 19–29 March 2015 at venues across London. On Wednesday 25 March, FiveFilms4Freedom will become a 24-hour campaign asking people everywhere to watch a film together. Some prompts for discussion: • What do you think about the films? • Do the young people in the films seem different to young people in your country? Writer Tomas Lagermand Lundme, Søren Green • How would you define diversity? Cinematographer Jonas Berlin • What value does diversity bring to society? Mathias and Frederick hang out after school. But does Mathias have the courage to tell his friend how he really feels? • Who is responsible for creating a climate for students – like those in the films – to feel confident in themselves? • Why are diversity issues hard to talk about? Director Søren Green, Denmark 2015, 9 mins FiveFilms seeks to connect people through culture, raise awareness of human rights and share the UK’s story on human rights. This resource for schools, aimed at pupils ages 14+, uses two of the films to stimulate student discussion (NB in some countries you may prefer to use this material with older students) Code Academy Director, Nisha Ganatra, USA 2014, 16 mins Share and exchange opinions with pupils from your partner school. Frankie masquerades as a boy in futuristic cyberspace to get the girl of her dreams – but can she do the same in real life? Nish Ganatra’s Code Academy An Afternoon director, Soren Green Document Title – Subtitle 2 k Subtitle 3 Schools Online Schools Online Fact Sheet The UK is generally a welcoming and friendly place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. How many people identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual? Are schools safe places for young LGBT young people? In the UK it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation or sex, and many international LGBT students study in the UK on the understanding that their rights will be respected and that they can live life as they want. The Integrated Household Survey, produced by the Office of National Statistics in the UK, gives the following figures for the period April 2011 to March 2012: In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 places a legal duty on all public bodies, including local authorities and schools, to take steps to eradicate discrimination, advance equality and foster good relations. They have to take a proactive role in tackling homophobic bullying and protect those who might be experiencing it. Follow the link to read about student societies, campaigns and support for LGBT students: http://www.educationuk.org/global/articles/ lgbt-campaign-societies-support-nusstudents-union/ What is sexual orientation? Sexual orientation is the overall term that is used to describe people’s physical and/or romantic attractions to other people. The most common labels are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. • Heterosexual (or straight) refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of another gender. • Homosexual (or gay man or lesbian woman) refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of the same gender. • Bisexual refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of another or the same gender. What is gender identity? Gender identity refers to the internal sense that people have that they are female, male, or some variation of these. For many people biological sex (which is based chromosomes and sexual anatomy) and gender identity are the same. For others, however, they may be different. The term transgender refers to individuals whose internal feelings of being male or female differ from the sexual anatomy they were born with. Transgender people may be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. 4 • 1.5 per cent of the surveyed UK population, approximately 545,000 adults, identified themselves as Gay or Lesbian. • 0.4 per cent of the surveyed UK population, approximately 220,000 adults, identified themselves as Bisexual. • 1.3 per cent identified themselves as “Other”. • 3.6 per cent of adults stated “Don’t know” or refused to answer the question. • 0.2 per cent of respondents provided “No response” to the question. • 2.7 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old young people in the UK identified themselves as Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual compared with 0.4 per cent of 65-year- old and over people In spite of this most students still hear homophobic remarks and report feeling unsafe at some point, and many are still victims of physical harassment and assault Soreen Green’s An Afternoon Are LGBT people coming out at younger ages? The average age at which young people “come out” as lesbian, gay or bisexual is 15 in the UK. For some, coming out can happen much earlier, and it is not uncommon for trans young people beginto talk about their identities at a much younger age. Is there an increase of public acceptance of LGBT individuals? There is certainly more discussion of sexual orientation in today’s popular culture and media than ever before, and surveys suggest that there is a corresponding greater acceptance of homosexuality among the public. Despite increasingly liberal views about homosexuality, a substantial minority, almost three in ten, continue to see it as always or mostly wrong. These views are not randomly distributed throughout the population, there are marked generational gaps and differences between the views of different religious groups. 5