The paper focuses on an educational project for high school students that took place during the 2022 Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People in Greece. This workshop sought to approach the pivotal role of sound in still-image films – an innovative style of visual storytelling that merges static (instead of moving) pictures with audio elements. By unveiling the transformative power of soundscapes together with photographic narratives, this experimental procedure highlighted the close relationship between cinematic sounds and images. At the beginning, the students were initiated to the theoretical principles of cinema as an audiovisual medium and were shown particular examples from earlier still-image films, e.g. Agnes Varda’s "Salut les Cubains!" (1962) and Chris Marker’s "La Jetée" (1962). Thereupon, they were asked to observe and record a number of sounds and images inside and outside their school using only their mobile phones. During an interactive and collective editing process, following their audio recordings as the main pathway, they improvised on image composition and created their own audiovisual narrative.

Our study investigates the synergy between critically curated visuals and meticulously crafted soundtracks, illustrating how sound can deepen realistic comprehension, sensorial perception, and emotional engagement in diverse cinematic forms. Most of the time, sound is treated as a subordinate filmic aspect. Driven by contemporary audiovisual literacy that emphasizes the dialogue between sound and image, our research wishes to contribute to the understanding of the pedagogical potential of this interconnection, enabling educators to harness the powerful medium of still-image film.