Emanuel’s media coordinator, Mr Skinner, is working on an exciting new short film project with one of our partner schools in partnership with producer Premila Puri from Be Kind Productions and the Wandsworth-based educational charity Be Kind Movement. 

The current Year 6 pupils from John Burns Primary have participated in several modules as part of our community outreach project, Primary Ambitions. One of these modules was Filmmaking, which is taught by a team of Year 12 pupils and supervised by Mr Skinner. The John Burns pupils showed a strong talent for both filmmaking and acting, so Mr Skinner approached their teachers about the possibility of working with them on a short film project.

Mr Skinner says: “This talented group of pupils demonstrate incredible kindness to one another whilst having fantastic (and sometimes cheeky) personalities. The culture of kindness that I have witnessed in this primary school and many others that I want to capture in our short film ‘Newbie’.”

Newbie tells the story of Mike, an inexperienced student teacher, who is meeting his new class for the first time. He’s a wheelchair user and is worried the kids won’t see past his disability. However, through his interactions with the class, he soon realises that he too has lessons to learn. Mr Skinner and Premila Puri will make ‘Newbie’ at John Burns Primary this July, before the Year 6 pupils move on to secondary school.

 Not only will the film be distributed through international film festivals, but it will also be included by Be Kind Movement into their Kindness in Schools Programme™ and be screened to thousands of schoolchildren through Kindness Workshops. This programme aims to build emotional intelligence skills in children using short films and the transformative power of kindness. Current films in the programme include James’ award-winning short film ‘Fabulous‘ and Premila’s award-winning ‘Itsy‘. Premila says “Be Kind Movement are really enthusiastic about ‘Newbie’ and we are delighted to have their support to include this new film in their catalogue”.

Premila and Mr Skinner are currently approaching some high-profile actors, with the hope of getting them on board for the project. They are also trying to raise the funds needed to produce this film. If you are interested in supporting this short film project, please visit this fundraising page.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact Mr Skinner (james.skinner@emanuel.org.uk).

Mr Skinner (Media Coordinator)