One of the most important activities of the Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy (CrAL) project – the pilot training in Lithuania – came to an end in June. During this training, 9 teachers from various educational institutions and film clubs in the country, together with their students, tested the innovative CrAL audiovisual production methodology.

The CrAL pilot activities in Lithuania have been crowned by a video competition, which received 15 submissions, ranging from comedy to drama, music videos and avant-garde. The aim of the competition was to encourage the teachers involved in the CrAL project to create videos with their students while testing the project’s methodology in practice. One of the requirements was that the videos must promote critical thinking, active citizenship or media literacy.

The final event on 9 June gave the audience the opportunity to watch all the videos produced. The three winners, selected by the jury, were also announced and awarded.

• One of the winners of the competition were the team of Rytas Gymnasium in Druskininkai with the video story “Ema”. Creative group revealed the story of a girl who is stressed at school and seeks peace in her dreams. While traveling through her subconscious she finds an old radio from her childhood.
• Another winner of the competition was the creative group of the Vilnius “Laisvė” Gymnasium Film Club with the video story “Pickle”. The students’ film is an ironic story about Jonas, a man in his fifties who always listens to his mother’s advice.
• The main prize was awarded to the video story “Memento”, created by the creative group of the Antanas Smetona Gymnasium in Ukmergė. 

The video “Memento” will represent Lithuania in the European CrAL Video Contest. We wish success!