Pencils, felt-tip pens and crayons... doodling  instruments but also protagonists of the features of characters and stories that are told. They convey and evoke emotions in the artist and those admiring the work. The instrument par excellence in education and creativity, but also in "entertainment" ... such as cartoons! WOW-Spazio Fumetto opens in Milan, the city which gave birth to Italian cartoons, home to the Museo del Fumetto. The new area, which will be built in Viale Campania 12, is intended as a meeting place for enthusiasts, experts and admirers who want to live the adventures of their favourite characters. An open "house" for the entire city, an unusual museum setting accommodating exhibitions and events focusing on different aspects of cartoons, animation, illustrations and literature on the subject.
The link between the Fondazione Fossati  - which manages and organises the area and Lyra - the first pencil registered trademark in the world with over 200 years of history acquired, in 2008, by FILA - Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini, came about and has consolidated naturally with the commitment of the Company, as well as in education and the promotion of visual culture in teaching, to develop the creative resources present in Italy.
For this reason Lyra adhered to the intensive program of exhibitions of national and international importance, such as the presentation of cartoons tracing the Unification of Italy, and cultural activities related to the world of communication by images.
Through the partnership, initiatives such as exhibitions, workshops and educational traineeships for students will be undertaken in synergy, using the cultural heritage and established experience of educators organising activities at WOW‐Spazio Fumetto.
Lyra provides valuable support in supplying the best products for recreational and educational activities planned, dedicated to visitors and schools, to stimulate creativity and imagination using cartoons and illustrations as a support.

Unita is the result of the Matitalia competition launched in 2008 by FILA, the Committee for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy and the magazine Abitare to create a pencil to celebrate Italians and the Italian spirit.

The winner of the competition is the Venetian architect Marco Zito who managed to represent the essence of the meaning of Unità (unity/unification) by combining the two traditional forms of a pencil, that is the hexagonal and the round pencil, creating a single entity.

The designer exploited the possibility of using iconic and simple shapes present in everyone's mind, uniting two sections with two different types of wood and thus creating a "highly communicative" shape".

The events of 2011 to celebrate Italy are organised by the Italia 150 Committee in Turin, www.italia150.it, the first capital of unified Italy, where, under the name "Esperienza Italia", 9 months of events and exhibitions open to the public are planned to reflect on the process of unification and construction of the Italian identity.

In addition, Unità, and all FILA products, will be used during the educational workshops for schools.

www.italia150.it

Setting a benchmark for creativity and, with its rich range of products, icon for students of all classes, FILA - Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini stimulates the imagination of young and older artists in every moment of their lives and, for the occasion of its 90th anniversary, it is joining forces for the first time with a excellent 'friend': the Giffoni Film Festival. On 18 July 2010, in fact, the 40th edition of the children's cinema festival will be kicked off. The main theme for this year is Love. Love for the cinema, for young people, for culture.

For the first year, FILA will preside over the Festival, organising FILANGOLO, a space measuring about 40 square metres set up at the Cittadella del Cinema, where activities and laboratories dedicated to children are organised. Thanks to the programme and to a calendar of activities, children from as young as 3 years of age will be involved in playing with temperas, modelling dough, pencils, marker pens, and pastels. Moreover, they will be able to immortalise their creative efforts thanks to the small photographic set inside the space. The photos taken will constitute, every two or three days, scenographic panels that FILANGOLO itself will enrich.

For the first time in the history of the Giffoni there will also be a jury comprising the "youngest" (3+ years). In fact, FILA will dedicate the Super Be-bè Award to them: the same children will have to vote and select the short subject and the best film, the one that made them laugh, or simple the one they liked the best.

Beginning today and until May 30, you may be eligible to win a preview of all the activities proposed in the FILANGOLO during the GIFFONI EXPERIENCE CELEBRATION TOUR! The tour will see a double-decker leaving from Giffoni Valle Piana to cross the entire country, stopping at Bergamo, Genoa, Rome, and Naples. At each of these towns, the bus will stop inside a structure and dedicated events will be held for young people. A fun-filled programme will include projections, discussions, creative laboratories, and didactic activities in typical Giffoni style. Intelligent entertainment will stimulate the creativity of the public, and not only through the cinema. FILA, the new "travelling companion" of the Giffoni Experience, will provide youths with the tools they need to unleash their own Creative Energy.

In 2010 FILA renewed its efforts with Giotto in favour of the Let's Re-write the Future campaign promoted by Save the Children.

FILA firmly believes that the world can learn through the eyes of children and should listen to their requests and perceive their needs to improve and grow together by offering them improved conditions. Starting with education, considering the school as a place where all other rights - such as safety, nutrition and playtime -are guaranteed. Thus motivated, FILA was one of the first Italian companies to adhere to the Let's Rewrite the Future campaign with the Giotto brand, creating a special Red Pencil, which became the symbol of the initiative and was used to promote and publicize the project.

Let's Rewrite the Future is a global campaign launched in the autumn of 2006 by Save the Children, the largest international independent organisation for the defence and promotion of children's rights.The campaign established the objective of ensuring, by 2010, the fundamental right to a quality education to 8 million children who live in war-stricken countries or countries dealing with the aftermath of such conflicts. Thanks to FILA's contribution, in 2008 the no-profit organisation reached and surpassed this objective, improving the level of education for 10 million children.  Today, thanks to the Let's Rewrite the Future campaign, 1 million children can go to school, more than 20,000 teachers have been trained, and almost 5,000 classrooms have been constructed or remodelled: the equivalent of 2 schools per day!

Over recent years, funds to benefit education in war-stricken nations have increased 50% and humanitarian assistance targeted at education has doubled.

Save the Children has asked people and corporations throughout the world to support the global challenge to adequately educate millions of children while inviting international politicians to provide clear answers to problems on the right to education and other fundamental rights that are often denied. The initiative is currently in operation in all the countries in the world where the association has offices.

Milan , 14 February 2010 - For the opening of "ReMida@MUBA" in Milan in Triennale Bovisa, the collaboration between FIILA, the Italian firm that Italian students of all ages have found on their school desks for the past 90 years, and MUBA - the Milan Children's Museum - has been confirmed.

Furthermore, inspired by the Remida philosophy, an educational guide dedicated to primary and nursery school teachers will be published by a joint team from the FILA Laboratori CreATTIVI and MUBA. Through the proposed workshops, students will learn to breathe new life into pencil shavings, empty tempera containers, and crayon stubs that would otherwise be disposed of. The guide will be distributed to elementary and pre-school teachers in September 2010 to be used as an integral part of their classroom teaching, the ideal place for carrying out educational-recreational activities to encourage young students to make the most of their innate creative capacities.

The FILA-Giotto Laboratori CreATTIVI are observatories instituted by FILA back in 1998 to provide teachers with didactic materials useful in developing and enhancing the manual and artistic skills of young students.  Once again, on this occasion, the guide prepared by MUBA, colour specialists and educators was conceived to cover the themes and suggestions that may arise in the Centre, thereby becoming an important instrument for elaborating and applying the findings in a school setting.

FILA promotes training and stimulating the creativity of children of all ages. Together with the traditional brand name Giotto, MUBA has always been an extraordinary partner in this joint mission to organise and promote educational-recreational initiatives.

The partnership between FILA-Giotto and the Florence Children's Museum continues. FILA - Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini, a 100% Italian company and owner of the Giotto brand name, continues to pay homage to its native city, to one of its most respected institutions and, at the same time, to children to whom it has dedicated its expertise in the world of colour over the years, with a view to fostering creativity and expressive skills.

For years now, FILA's collaboration with the Children's Museum has been working on promoting didactic initiatives for children and adolescents. Of particular interest are the workshop activities on colour and drawing, like Painting frescoes during the 15th and 16th Centuries, which became one of the most frequently requested workshops offered by the Museum, and the Tale of the Turtle with a Sail, which combined the themes of colour and drawing with the stimulation of individual creative meditation through thematic workshops where the students were encouraged to invent their own business with Giotto materials.

Furthermore, as the institutional partner of Palazzo Vecchio, FILA has contributed to the creation of the book entitled Tale of the Turtle with a Sail that, in collaboration with the Public Education Board of the City of Florence, was distributed free of charge to all state and private pre-schools and primary schools (1st and 2nd grades) in Florence.

FILA, a firm that has been creating quality products capable of intelligently stimulating the imagination and creativity of children whole-heartedly for the past 90 years whole-heartedly embraces the intention of The Tale of the Turtle with a Sail to bring children closer to our history, so they may wonder at it and be stimulated to learn more (as the Museum motto says:  "Wonder is the seed of knowledge").

Duke Cosimo de' Medici had, among his many undertakings, the turtle with a sail, the illustration of which was captioned by the motto "Festina lente", which literally means "Hurry up slowly". This concept is illustrated countless times throughout Palazzo Vecchio in many different shapes and styles, but always with the same purposing of recalling two fundamental talents of this statesman: that of being able to accurately weigh decisions to be made and, therefore, act quickly and decisively.
For those who - like the Children's  Museum - work every day inside Palazzo Vecchio, the turtle with the sail has long become a friendly presence and constant reminder of how  we decide to act.  In fact, we believe that in today's world, where rushing about has become a sort of imperative even if the whys and wherefores are not clear - which erodes the time we have to reflect, to think, to converse, and to listen, every day - it is necessary to ask the museum implement the age-old method of Duke Cosimo with contemporary means. Above all, to take enough time to reflect seriously on our decisions as a turtle would.
Our Logo - which represents a turtle with a stylised sail - has a new motto: wonder is the seed of knowledge, from a famous quote of Sir Francis Bacon. These few words define how to truly know something - with both the mind and the heart  -we must know how to wonder at ourselves, our capacities, and the world around us, without forgetting that wonder is a powerful sensation of infancy, when everything is new and magical, and life itself is nothing short of a miracle.

It is our hope and our commitment to make a small contribution to today's children so that they may discover and wonder at the memories of our past, and to adults so that they may rediscover wonder through the eyes of their children, even in the museum.

Thanks to a contribution by F.I.L.A., Giotto's Birthplace was inaugurated in October 2008 in Vicchio di Mugello, the site where tradition narrates that the artist who gave rise the Renaissance was born. The project focused on the figure of the artist and his relationship with the territory. Fila-Giotto's contribution allowed the House to be reconstructed and organised to host creative workshops open to the general public, schools, youths, artists, families, and tourists, thanks to which everyone can experience the joy of Beauty, just like during the Renaissance. Students, under the guidance of Casa di Giotto staff, will be able to have first-hand experiences, produce "works of art", and meet to exchange ideas and demonstrate their own talents.

The facilities are divided into two spaces, the first dedicated to form and the other to colour, where the workshop and public events are organised.

The project for museological restoration and remodelling transformed the birthplace of Giotto not only into a site brimming with history and emotions, but also into a museum, an adventurous walk, plenty of colour, and a dynamic and avant-garde attraction.

The new Casa di Giotto does not look like a museum, in the traditional sense of the word, but rather like an experimental space for artistic encounters and creation, coming alive on week-ends and when there are special events or school trips.  This is the idea at the heart of the innovative project developed by the Town of Vicchio, thanks to contributions from FILA-Giotto, the Region of Tuscany, and the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.

There are several points of contact between Giotto, his hometown of Vicchio, and FILA - Fabbrica Italiana Lapis e Affini. In addition to the name of Giotto, the great Italian artist, being used to "baptise" one of the leading lines of the company, they also have common origins. In fact, FILA was born in Tuscany, as was the famous painter who rendered the figurative arts of Humanism and the Renaissance great. And obviously, ties with painting and creativity must never be forgotten. FILA-Giotto, in fact, embodies creativity, as it embodies quality Made in Italy, producing instruments that can be used to transform the imagination of whoever is holding one into a work of art. Because FILA loves and promotes Beauty.