Our First Program in Europe!
As America celebrated its independence on July 4th, our team flew to France.
Over our first weekend in France, we met our local team, watched the World Cup (our Brazilian intern is still grieving over her country’s devastating defeat), and visited Paris to soak up the sights. Our new home, a renovated chateau in the countryside outside of Paris that now functions as a boarding school, is like something out of an 18th Century novel: rolling green hills lush with vineyards surround the estate for kilometers; the Marne River runs alongside the train tracks in a nearby village; the sun shines from 6 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night, every day an endless European summer.
We kicked off our program Sunday morning with the biggest international team we’ve ever had. Fourteen filmmakers, educators, and travelers from America, India, Brazil, and Tunisia join us this week as we host our Paris session for the very first time. During this week, we will do something we have never done before: we’ll be conducting two different programs at the very same time. And we’ll be teaching not only English, but French as well.
It begs the question, to whom are we teaching French–in France?
This time around, we’re working not only with local students but also students from around the world, including Ireland, Russia, Turkey, and Spain. Half of our team will teach the locals English while the other half challenges the internationals in French.
The exciting developments of this program demonstrate how much our organization is growing. We’re expanding our work into new countries, teaching new languages and growing our repertoire in film and education. This will be the first time Lights, Camera, Learn sets up production in France, but we already believe it won’t be the last.