Actress Ingrid Bergman once said that movies can give ordinary people a trip “deep into the twilight of the soul.” While most diplomatic professionals embark on a slightly less ambitious journey, there is no denying that movies can provide a glimpse into a culture’s values, history and traditions, and often transport people to other times and places.

Recognizing the appeal of the silver screen, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow launched a public diplomacy outreach program in Russia that uses films to discuss American culture and language in the classroom. This American Values through Film project offers seven films to Russian university and secondary school teachers of English or American Studies. We chose popular movies that were either classics, rich in historical detail or seemed to be platforms for discussing American values. The films are Dances with Wolves, High Noon, Seabiscuit, To Kill a Mockingbird, Twelve Angry Men, All the President’s Men and Erin Brockovich.

Lesson Plans

Many teachers took advantage of our offer with great enthusiasm, including those who teach about America in Russian or in English. We asked those who received the films to write one lesson plan for each film and use it to discuss values and draw students into discussions about U.S. life and institutions.

We received lesson plans from teachers from 18 cities and used them to produce a CD-ROM on each film. The teachers created more than 1,000 pages of lesson plans, which included discussions, language-learning activities and role plays with transcripts from the films.

The CDs were distributed to teachers across Russia and to American Corners and Centers, and each American Corner received a copy of the seven films. Later, teachers involved in the project gave presentations in their communities or at major conferences, showing other teachers how to integrate film into classrooms.

Though the project focused on American values, the teachers also discussed the values of their culture, saying it was easier to do this when looking at another culture’s values. Natalya, a teacher in Omsk, said there were challenges, but she overcame them.

"My colleagues and I weren't sure we could write a lesson plan for each film in the beginning, but once we started using the films with our students, we even got ideas from them on how to make the film-viewing interesting," she said. "Students liked talking about the movies, even the older ones that they had never heard of. It was a great experience to share what we teachers knew about America."

Similarities Noted

Anna, a young teacher in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, said "Films are just one way to look for similarities between our cultures, like the idea that there are native peoples of America and native peoples of Russia who have their own languages and identities."

Other teachers liked creating their own teaching materials based on American themes for classroom use and enjoyed comparing their lessons with those of distant colleagues. Many also were proud to contribute to the CD, especially because it assisted their careers and let them share material with other colleagues.

Stephanie Funderburg, a senior English language fellow at the consulate in Novosibirsk, said the films showed the similarities between American and Russian cultures and values.

"Students could synthesize key points in the films and draw similarities between Russian and American cultures," she said, noting that the teachers enjoyed the American movies, too. "They were eager to enhance their English and learn about American culture, all while watching a feature film."

She also said the lesson plans had high credibility, since they were written by Russian educators. The CD-ROM also contained material to give teachers more ideas on how to use films to combine the study of language, culture and values. This included an introduction to using movies in a classroom, descriptions of each movie, copyright guidelines, a lesson plan checklist and online and standard bibliography.

Beyond Classrooms

We found that the films and teaching materials on the CD-ROM could be used outside classrooms. Some examples are film festivals, American Days, American Center and Corners events (where Corners have licenses to show films to small audiences for noncommercial purposes) and in research projects. Themes for discussion include corporate responsibility, honesty in politics, the power of perseverance and positive thinking, whistle-blowing, race relations, tolerance and diversity.

This year marks 200 years of U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations, and the project was a great example of Russian-American collaboration. It is also a resource for public diplomacy outreach to teachers, alumni, students and youth. A link to the lesson plans is on our Web site, http://vladivostok.usconsulate.gov/elf.html, which links to Embassy Moscow’s English Language Office. Posts can download these materials for distribution to classrooms or demonstrations.