Mahgan Farhang is a writer, educator, researcher and cinema activist, especially in children's and youth cinema. For many years, she has been teaching children and teenagers by using films and animations. She held several workshops and presents research articles in the field of media, cinema, families and children.

Cinema & Family Professional Seminar Report
By:  Mahgan Farhang. Educator, researcher and CIFEJ member and Mahan Cultural Institute in collaboration with CIFEJ
 
The world is changing rapidly and technology is developing. Having media knowledge helps everyone, especially families, to receive better messages and use them well in their personal lives. So a cinema and family workshop was held on May 29, 2021by Mahan Cultural Institute with the presence of Mahgan Farhang, the member of CIFEJ as lecturer and organizer of the workshop. Mahgan Farhang talked about cinema and the impact of good films on the development of families' social behavior at the workshop, which was held for families and counselors of family counselling centers.  She showed  a short segment of various cinematic genres, then showed an example of a family film centered on children and young people, explaining the content and impact of the film.  Part of her talk at the meeting referred to the following:
Cinema can do pathology and show many social challenges so that relevant professionals can help alleviate crises, because cinema is reflective, and it is the media that can convey its message to many people.
When we talk about the media, it means content that moves widely from place to place. So cinema can be a transmitter of new content or invite thinking.
Although cinema can invite society to dialogue and bring different social groups together. Cinema, both physically and contently, can be a good factor for people to communicate with each other.  When families watch movies with their children, they have given them part of their time. This is also an emotional and family interaction and even educational one, except for a recreational and entertainment facet for the family. Children will always remember watching movies with family (their parents, sisters, brothers or friends and teachers).
A good movie can give good training to your audience, and of course this is also possible in connection with inappropriate videos. But if families, consultants and educators can make good choices using the literacy of media and cinema professionals, they will definitely succeed in furthering this work.
For example films like “My Giraffe” by Barbara Bredero can be related to the good and intimate relationships of a family, the connection between generations, the introduction of animals at the zoo and the differences.
Gholamreza Ramezani's “Knockout” film can refer to characteristics such as morality between teenagers and chivalry. Or “Binti” by Frederike Migom can address the problems of immigrant children; “Luca”, who refers to tourism and trying to make demands, and many other films that can be pointed out to their positive qualities.