Abstract
The current approach to the presentation of the medium and its history in film museums lacks a critical perspective and for that reason the educational potential of these institutions is highly limited. While film museums and exhibitions remain out of touch with the current needs of film education they have little to no influence on the development of critical media literacy.
NaFilM, a project initiated by students of the Film Studies Department at Charles University, Prague, aims to create original curatorial approaches to exhibiting the history of the film medium, combining exhibition design with education. Currently, systematic methods of constructive communication in historical film expositions are developing within the project.
The goal is more strategically use the communicative and constructive aspects of the film medium to curate the overall visitor experience. Basing the museum narrative of Czechoslovak modern history not on the authority of historical canon, but rather on the logic and structure of acquiring media literacy, enables the instigation of historically contextualized critical thinking making the visitor a participant of historical reflection.
Visitor can be encouraged to learn how to read and perceive history through its images and reflections thanks to the communication allowed through the roles of film as a source which exceeds the conventional use of historical illustration and can be a more encrypted (but paradoxically more immediate) testimony of the era itself.