[WATCH] MCAST students create film interpretations of Maltese poetry

Video is unavailable at this time.

Maltese poems were the inspiration behind ten short films, produced by students, that were inaugurated today by the minister for education Evarist Bartolo. 

The films were produced by MCAST students reading for a degree in Media Studies, in collaboration with the Quality and Standards directorate within the ministry for education. The poems are part of the curriculum for Maltese literature students read before their O'Level examinations.

"The project, which has becone an annual tradition, seeks to help students to learn new skills by reimagining works people are familiar with," lecturer and Media Studies coordinator Ian Attard said.

He explained that media was being used in order to transpose and interpret works that have been around for many years.

"It is a way to reinvent and reawaken old works," he said. "The poems are therefore something they remember well, and the project helps them to build skills and exert their creativity," he said, adding that the projects had included a large number of students.

He explained that it had also presented students with the chance to interact with others.

Bartolo thanked the participants and urged them to apply their creativity in other media such as literature, drama, technology, music and art. 

The group of poems the films were based on include works by contemporary poets such as Achille Mizzi, Maria Grech Ganado, Victor Fenech and Mario Azzopardi, alongside the greats of Maltese literature like Ruzar Briffa, Dun Karm Psaila and Anton Buttigieg.

MCAST students Alexia Camilleri and Lynne Jo Fenech, told Malta Today that students had been permitted to choose whichever poem to adapt, and that the projects had taken around a month and a half.

"Since I studied Maltese at Advanced Level, the project was a unique way for me to adapt my studies to a more creative art form," Camilleri said referring to her interpretation of Anton Buttigieg's 'Niftakar'.

Speaking about her interpretation of Maria Grech Ganado's poem 'Jum San Valentin', Fenech said that she had tried to present the reality that the poem describes.

"Our aim was to show students the meaning and sense of the poems in as relatable a way as possible," he added.