World of Young Cinema magazine Berlin 2017

the berlin 2017 issue

YOUNG CINEMA a magazine for emerging filmmakers published by daazo.com – the European Shortfilm Centre

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13/02/2017 22:30 Badehaus Musiksalon Revaler Strasse 99, (In Friedrichshain) No dresscode – more fun!

illustration by Zsófia Szemző

CONTENTS 6 16 28 48 63

Keep Your Cool and Shoot Away – Berlinale Shorts returns Mapping Your Mind – a celebration of creativity The Keyword is: Courage – Berlinale Talents rocks for the 15th time Film Embraces – we need to talk about virtual reality Flow with Film – festivals, shorts, and first features Contributors – without whom this magazine wouldn’t exist, page 3 It Starts in the Dark and Then at Some Point, There is Light – the Curator on this year’s Berlinale Shorts, page 8 Taking Care and Listening – Kimberly Drew from the 2017 Berlinale Shorts Jury on curating and optimism, page 10 The Ambiguity of the Present – an interview with last year’s Golden Bear winner, Leonor Telles, page 12 Directing with Basic Instincts – the short films of Paul Verhoeven, page 14 “The Camera Is No Longer an Obstacle” – Silver Bear winner Mahdi Fleifel on his documentaries, page 26 “Party a Lot and Be on Time the Next Morning” – talking to the organisers of Berlinale Talents, page 30 “You Always Remember the First Time” – a look back on Berlinale Talents’ history of Firsts, page 34 “Embrace the Journey” – the portrait of Berlinale regular Diogo Costa Amarante, page 36 The Talents Speak – talking to Berlinale Talents alumni and this year’s participiants, page 38 “Courage: Against All Odds” – what this year’s motto means to the Talents?, page 44 EFM Facts and Figures – your guide to the labyrinth of the Europeam Film Market, page 46 VR Is So Many Things – the different faces of virtual reality, page 50 “A Béla Tarr Film Would Be Amazing in VR!” – an interview with award–winning director György Pálfi, page 52 Same Structure, Different Path – Biennale College Cinema’s virtual reality edition, page 55 The Train Arrives Yet Again – or the dangers and possibilities of VR in cinema, page 56 Sucked Into the Screen – 10 essential virtual reality films, page 58 VR Learnings from Trial and Error – a VR manual, page 60 From the Film Idea to the Festival Circuit – the life of Pitch Page participant Broke, page 64 Festivals in Focus: Go Short and Žubroffka, page 68 Workshop Agenda – screenwriting, page 69 Festival Panorama – best festivals for first features, page 70

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ZSÓFIA SZEMZO˝

BORI BUJDOSO

Zsófi is living and working in Budapest right now but has lived in Paris for years, and all over in about 33 places. She is watching the wheels go round, investigating various ways of storytelling, and researching different ways of narration in human interaction.

Drawing these is her main task.

Zsófi’s amazing work illustrates this issue from cover to cover.

MICHEL REILHAC

Bori got an MA in Psychology, but soon decided that films were more fun, started working as a film journalist in 2005 and never looked back. She enjoys cooking and is very fond of cats, even though she is allergic to them. Read Bori’s interview with film director György Pálfi on virtual reality on page 52.

Michel has always found that art needs to feed his own personal life, experiences and encounters: when he was a dancer in the 80’s, in theatre in the 90’s, in film in the 00’s and in digital in the 10’s. Art makes no sense to him if it does not fuel his own life, helping him make it a great one way ride. Michel has written an article about virtual reality on page 60.

What was the first film that made you say “wow”?

Woody Allen’s 1983 movie, Zelig.

Star Wars, when I was still in kindergarten. My parents didn’t really care about age ratings, and see what happened?

The Ten Commandments when I was 9 years old, in a hangar theatre in Guinea, West Africa, and a snake crept between my feet as the Red Sea opened on the screen thanks to Moses’ magic.

Film of your choice for a first date?

Borgman worked for me once. It’s better to show your crazy from the get go.

The Science of Sleep

by Michel Gondry.

Shortbus.

Film of your choice for a quiet night in on your own?

Wes Anderson’s Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Could be anything from an old guilty pleasure (You’ve Got Mail is featured regularly in my living room) to a new documentary on Netflix.

The series Transparent.

I hope to be sometimes.

I wish.

South would be great, Mediterranean or tropical even better!

South! Sun, sea, good red wine.

On a movie star? Paul Newman.

All my crushes are extremely public.

Are you a Berliner?

Yes, any night when I am not sleeping wherever I am.

North or South?

Definitely North now that South is drying.

Your secret crush?

The Burning Man tribes.

Wes Anderson or the Cohen brothers?

If I had to choose what to watch right now: Wes Anderson.

That’s too cruel.

Both, really.

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COURAGE AND BRAVENESS – a letter from the editor, Zsuzsanna Deák

Dear Friends, Welcome to the Berlinale issue of our World of Young Cinema magazine.

I’m writing this letter just a few days before the Berlin Film Festival begins and I’ve already started feeling that distinctive excitement and anticipation that takes hold of me before this incredibly diverse celebration of film.

There is so much to look forward to this year: the Berlinale Shorts programme never ceases to disappoint, and I can hardly wait to lean back again and watch the new discoveries that 2017 has to offer. I expect to be shocked, upset, soothed, reassured and moved. At this year’s festival, there will be a wide range of first features where emerging talent can be admired and, of course, where the work of established directors will also return to the Berlinale Palast. Hundreds of young filmmakers will gather at the Berlinale Talents to learn, experience and network under the 2017 motto:

“Courage: Against all Odds”.

To me, the Berlinale means a celebration of courage, diversity and braveness, all of which is reflected in this magazine through the filmmaker portraits and the interviews with both this year’s organisers and last year’s winners, as well as the drawings sent to us by the filmmakers themselves of this year’s shorts competition. Page 6 kicks off our Berlinale Shorts section and a Berlinale Talents dossier can be found from page 28 onwards.

The focus of this issue is virtual reality, a topic that divides the filmmaking community.

Turn to page 48 for articles, interviews and essays on how virtual reality films are shaping the art of cinema.

Please enjoy reading this edition while queuing for the next life-changing film you’re about to watch at the Berlinale!

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illustration by Zsรณfia Szemzล

KEEP YOUR COOL SHOOT AWAY! Berlinale Shorts means creativity, diversity, and art. Its selection is always quirky and surprising, sometimes shocking, other times wonderfully calming and Zen-like. What it is definitely not, though, is predictable or boring. On the following pages, you can find a selection of articles, interviews and artwork celebrating this remarkable showcase of talent!

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IT STARTS IN THE DARK AND THEN AT SOME POINT, THERE IS LIGHT. text and photos by Maike Mia Höhne, curator of Berlinale Shorts

There is a mustering of concentration when a new season of selection screenings commences, a first encounter with this year’s catch. After numerous weeks and many films, a pattern emerges. Structures become clear, established. Each film is singular and unique – some are more unusual than others.

Watching lots of films, selecting 23, programming one historic film out of competition, and then it’s ready: Berlinale Shorts 2017.

The competition is an important aspect of Berlinale Shorts. The Golden Bear doesn’t merely shine for a moment; its significance underscores one’s actions.

One’s own artistic stance and approach.

In 2017, three Golden Bear winners return to Berlin and the competition for the best short film: David OReilly, João Salaviza and Jonathan Vinel.

It is interesting to note that the latest works of all three engage with new worlds. Salaviza, whose films have repeatedly taken people out of the social peripheries of perception and put them centre stage and into the limelight, now ventures into the dark.

Within the realm of fiction, he presents Karlon, the musician who initiated and significantly influenced Cape Verdean Creole rap in Portugal. Karlon walks the thin line of a profound crisis. Salaviza fuses documentary and fiction – by feeling the scar, the view to the rupture is closed.

Jonathan Vinel, who co-directed Tantqu’il nous reste des fusils à pompe

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(Golden Bear for Best Short Film 2014) and Notre Héritage (Berlinale Shorts 2016) with Caroline Poggi, departs from working with real actors and goes digital. Using excerpts from the computer game Grand Theft Auto V, he tells us what it means to lose one’s friends: Martin Pleure. And we cry too.

David OReilly is invited to the competition with his new computer game Everything. A revolution in the gaming world: a game which, while being played, can also be watched.

Ignoring what is usually considered essential – the world of levels and death tolls – OReilly dedicates himself wholly to the possibilities that lie in the changing of perspectives, in the immersion of the other, regardless whether it is a thing, animal or human being.

And that is how I could write about each of these films – the 2017 selection is characterised by an exceptional sensuality. The filmmakers look at us and the times we live in from different perspectives, they understand the

necessity to cross, to connect, to go beyond points of view in order for us to truly see one another.

And while many things are new nowadays, but haven’t necessarily been expressed for the first time, Berlinale Shorts continues its tradition of presenting films of historical relevance in order to create a referential context.

This year, it is the film Monangambeee from 1969 by Sarah Maldoror. The director’s considerations on how to depict the reality of oppression in film motivated her to take a different path, beyond that of descriptive realism.

Moreover, the changing perspectives of Berlinale Shorts permeate the bodies, and the films. The past encounters the present.

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Taking Care and Listening We caught up with Kimberly Drew just before the 67th Berlinale welcomes her as a member of the Shorts jury and chatted about all things that matter: curating, nurturing, being optimistic and festival snacks. interview by Cristina Gros˛an

You’re a curator with an agenda for both the online and the offline worlds, and seeing your Instagram, one can really tell that art is on your mind. What made an art lover choose to become a curator?

And is this the role for you, or do you imagine crossing over in the future to make art yourself?

I only recently began calling myself a curator. It was truly a matter of definition.

The word “curator” comes from the word cu ¯ ra ¯re, or giving care. I care deeply for the images that I share across the web and, more specifically, I care about the people who make and receive the images. On the other hand, I have never enjoyed making “art” per se. I joke with friends and say that writing emails is my art form. I'm much more on the producer side than on the practitioner side of the arts.

What do you watch these days? Shorts or feature-length films? How about documentaries?

I love documentary films. I just watched Lo and Behold on Netflix.

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You consume art in all mediums, but I’m particularly interested in asking you about cinema. Can you remember how your relationship with cinema started? What films have touched you?

I have always valued the power of art.

Since the late 19th century, images have played an integral role in recording and challenging what we know about humanity. Cinema is an intergalactic voyage that transports us beyond prejudice and into fiction.

artist’s development. What more can be done to nurture artists?

The first step in nurturing someone is alerting them that there has been a deficit.

The Black Art Incubator project is really a mirror for some of the inefficiencies that our group has encountered in the art world. We spent a year researching, plotting and constructing programmes and a mission that are centred on making sense of this world. And we’re committed to working on them.

I can't recall what kickstarted my relationship with film, but I've always been drawn to the genre of romantic comedy.

It's kind of brilliant that film can take something as heavy as love and knead it into something softer and more precious – even funny. It's pretty powerful.

As a curator, your ‘mind and eye can be anywhere anytime’, as you put it in an interview (with Doreen St. Félix in Lenny Letters, Nov. 2015). You see a lot of works and encounter a lot of contemporary artists. On the other hand, there are countless authors creating films in all kinds of forms. How can filmmakers raise visibility for their work?

How can their work ‘be noticed’?

That’s a great question. I think it’s more about intention than anything else.

What’s the goal of your film? If you’re interested in a blockbuster, go ahead and build yourself one. If you’re interested in having a huge impact, find the audience for what you’re making. I’m an ardent optimist, but that is largely due to my patience. I love my work and I would do it even if no one was watching. I think a strong foundation will keep us in love with our work which, in my opinion, is the most valuable part of the process.

You started building the Tumblr account Black Contemporary Art back in 2011, and now in 2017 it’s stronger than ever, with a large fan base and entries submitted directly via your blog. How do you make a selection of the submitted works?

The blog is managed by multiple users and always has been. The selection criteria are based on image quality, subject matter and personal taste. These tenants keep the blog fresh and dialogical.

With the rise of social media we have access to so much, instantly. How has social media changed curating?

I sincerely hope that curators always take a pulse on the world around them. On a macro level, working in museums is all about listening to the past and the future.

On a micro level, it’s about taking that information into account when plotting our moves for the present day. In sum, curation is all about taking care and listening.

You’re among the directors of the Black Art Incubator and so you see how a safe creative space can directly impact an

You’re about to watch a selection of the newest shorts from all around the world this year at the Berlinale Shorts.

What are you most looking forward to?

Discovering something to set the trend for the future generation of filmmaking?

Or rather taking the pulse of the here and now of filmmaking in the short form?

Honestly, I’m most looking forward to the snacks.

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THE AMBIGUITY OF THE PRESENT interview by Janka Pozsonyi

A fairytale of a frog that was not invited to the dance of all the animals, so it commits suicide, and the life of the Romanis, who have much in common with this tragic story.

The winner of the Golden Bear of last year for Batrachian's Ballad, Leonor Telles came up with a unique narrative, mixing the tale with the history of her origins, her very own family and her memories, and she tells it with the help of an 8 mm camera.

Why did you decide to use the story of the unfortunate frog, and mix it with the festive images of the outsider Romani community in Portugal?

The tale talks about a harmonious world where everyone lives together and about a big party, so the people we saw are happy and festive. Since this is a gypsy tale and it's a metaphor for the racism against the Romani people I decided to use these images. It’s not important that they aren't Portuguese, it's more about the spirit of those images; how they make us feel. I know that many Gypsies hate

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frogs and they think they’re disgusting.

The ambiguity this feeling represents makes it an important element of the film...

Looking at the statues in the shops and hearing the narration, the connection between this fable and the Romani community is well known. When was the first time you heard the story?

Actually it's an ancient gypsy tale that I discovered in a book about Romani People, when I was doing the research for the film. At the beginning I found a bunch of footage images and I felt that I should look for a story, an old story, a tale that helped weave the images together.

Do you always shoot on film? Is it a special format to you? And will you continue to use it in the future?

I don't use it as often as I would like. I always like making films but for some situations and projects it's difficult. I do plan to use it again in the future. I really love the grainy and colourful look and also the energy and the soul, it’s very different and special.

How much of the images were from the footage you found, and how much did you shoot yourself?

Only the beginning and the end show the footage I discovered, that’s if we consider my family images “found footage”. The rest of the film was shot by us.

Your previous film Rhoma Acans was a story about you and your family, and you also used home-made material in Batrachian’s Ballad. Why is making a movie about you and your origins so important to you?

I'm not quite sure of the answer, but I think it's because of the proximity of the subject. It's very close to me and yet still perhaps far enough to be explored.

I'm half gypsy but I’ve always lived like a regular girl. I’m outside the tradition but with really tight connections to my immediate family, including my grandmother. So I think I have this near/far relationship which makes me something more than curious and its that something which drives me towards filmmaking.

Your personal attachment to the story, the format, the choice of images, and the complete visual style is put together very thoughtfully in the film. What makes this kind of artistic documentary-filmmaking interesting for you?

I'm not interested in the artistic way itself, for me this was the only possible way to express the story. This particular film required this specific form (the format, narrative, visual style, etc.) to work. I think each film should have its own unique approach and form, and my job is to find out which works best.

How did the Golden Bear change your career?

I'm not sure yet... I just know it was amazing and so far it's been a crazy adventure that allowed me to travel across the world, and that's quite something!

What would you recommend to a firsttime documentary filmmaker when they are looking for a subject to film?

I'm still a first-time documentary filmmaker, so I don't think I have any advice or recommendations to give! In my case, the only thing that I try to do is not lose the first glimpse that lead me to the film, be that either an idea, a visual image, a character, a space, a situation. The first little spark that wants me to make this or that film, I try not lose it during the all process, as sometimes it's very easy to forget what drives you. Everything about a film is difficult, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it. I started to work with things that are more close to me because I know them better, but I think in the future I'll try something more distant, from beyond my experience.

Finally, what do frogs mean to you personally? Do you feel more attached to them since the film is finished?

I'm not attached to frogs at all! Personally, I don't have any problem with them but I wouldn't put them on my front doorstep!!

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DIRECTING WITH BASIC INSTINCTS – THE SHORT FILMS OF PAUL VERHOEVEN text by Janka Pozsonyi

2016 was definitely comeback year for the legendary Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven.

Fourteen years after he introduced Basic Instinct with Sharon Stone’s sensual leglifting in Cannes, his latest film Elle got selected into competition again. Verhoeven has been chosen as the head of Jury here, at the 67th Berlinale, so following our tradition, we decided to look back at the beginning of his career, We dived into his early works, which formed his thrilling, sometimes shocking style as a filmmaker.

Paul Verhoeven originally graduated in mathematics and physics, but never used his degree. During his studies, he also attended classes at the Netherlands Film Academy.

He made his first short film, A Lizzard Too Much, in 1960. This 35-minute-long film tells the story of a woman who is married to an artist, but starts an affair with one of her students. The problem is that the young man has already got a mistress, and the time comes when the two rivals meet. The film was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

Verhoeven made a couple of shorts while still studying, which are also mostly about relationships and fatal women, just like in many of his later feature works. In 1961, he directed a short called Nothing Special, which is focused on a man who is thinking about his girlfriend while he keeps looking back at a beautiful woman in a bar. In The Hitchhikers, in 1962, he follows two men and a woman who are travelling around together on a roadtrip. The last film he made during his school years was Let’s Have a Party, in 1963. The story is about a 14 WOYC by Daazo.com

young schoolboy from a rich family who falls in love with a girl from a different class. He shot the film behind the walls of the school, and it was based on the unrequited love of Anton Wachter, who is a character in Simon Vestdijk’s 1934’s novel, called Return to Ina Damman.

After finishing university, Verhoeven joined the marines, and started experimenting more with filmmaking. For the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Dutch Navy, in 1964, he made the documentary short film The Royal Dutch Marine Corps, which gave him the first chance to shoot an action sequence, which is still a very important element of his works.

In 1966 he started focusing on directing only. Before stepping out into the world of features, Verhoeven made his biggest success with 12 episodes of a television series called Floris, which starred the thennewcomer actor, Rutger Hauer. He returned to the shorter format just one more time after that: he made an erotic, 20-minutelong comedy called The Wrestler. The story follows a concerned father who is sneaking behind his son and his lover. The problem is that the mistress is actually the wife of a wrestler, and the father tries to end their relationship before the furious husband finds out.

Looking through Verhoeven’s works, from the basics to his successful features, the passage of jealous lovers, passionate affairs and fatal relationships were there beside him all along his career, which later on got mixed together with his other passion: action and sci-fi movies. Tense and exciting stories, with a strong visual style in each and every piece of work, Verhoeven is one of those living legends of the mainstream cinema who direct with their heart and brain, but mostly their gut.

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MAPPING YOUR MIND

illustration by Zsófia Szemző

To illustrate better the relationship between directors and their work, the filmmakers whose short films have been selected for the Berlinale Shorts programme were asked to draw spontaneously something about their film, using a pencil and a piece of paper – or any other medium they could think of. Anything would do – a symbol, a landscape, fresh and raw, straight from their imagination.

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MISS HOLOCAUST

Old women prepare for an event. They wear numbers and try to succeed in the selection process. These women are Holocaust survivors and the event is a beauty pageant.

Instead of glamour, applause and the crown, their only urge is for attention. Which is all in vain.

Michalina Musielak Poland / Germany

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LE FILM DE L ÉTÉ THE SUMMER MOVIE

It is a film about motorway, tourists under transhumance, concrete picnic tables, lines to the restroom, tepid melon slices and carwashs. It is a film about a man who wants to leave and a kid holding him back. It’s a summer film.

Emmanuel Marre France / Belgium

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One day, Frederico learned about the human body at school from a teacher who explained to him that people die when their hearts stop. That evening, Frederico couldn’t sleep. He woke his mother up several times throughout the night complaining he had a pain in his chest.

Diogo Costa Amarante Portugal

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THE RABBIT HUNT

In the rural town of Pahokee FL, rabbit hunting is considered a rite of passage for young men. The Rabbit Hunt follows high school senior Chris and his family as they embark on a rabbit hunt in the fields of the largest industrial sugar farms in the US. The film records a tradition by which migrant farm workers in the communities surrounding Lake Okeechobee have been hunting and preparing rabbits since the early 1900’s.

(Kevis Burgess holding his drawing of The Rabbit Hunt.)

Patrick Bresnan USA / Hungary

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THE CRYING CONCH

A man is drawn into the footsteps of the historic Haitian slave leader; Mackandal. Following a man trapped in a curse which started centuries ago, this modern fable folds accounts of the past with the resilience of the present.

Drawing by @sumwut – Kelsey Wilson

Vincent Toi Canada

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ENSUEÑO EN LA PRADERA REVERIE IN THE MEADOW

Reverie in the Meadow is a film essay that through the observation of Gaspar, a Mexican migrant that left the “American Dream” behind to return to his country to live a simple life as a shepherd. He ponders on the violent situations that several Mexican states suffer from, due to extortion.

Esteban Arrangoiz Julien Mexico

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ESTÁS VENDO COISAS YOU ARE SEEING THINGS

Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin De Burca Brasil

Brega is an informal term applied to a whole body of mass-oriented popular music produced since the 70’s with a strong association to the idea of bad taste. In the social and professional landscape of Brega music from Recife, video clips are the catalyst of an imagined future punctuated by a powerful appetite for success as encouraged by capitalism. You are seeing things looks at this world where self-regulation and image management play a crucial role in the construction of voice, status and identity of a whole new generation of popular artists.

The film adopts a psychological and more melancholic tone to reflect on how cultural expressions respond to economic conditions.

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THE ARTIFICIAL HUMORS

The Artificial Humors is a film about humor, anthropology and artificial intelligence. It focuses on how humor is central to human relationships, used as a form of social control, and one of the most complex forms of communication. Blending a certain Hollywood aesthetic with documentary approaches, the film tells the story of an indigenous girl who falls in love with a robot that is a rising stand up comedian in Brazil.

Gabriel Abrantes Portugal

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“THE CAMERA IS NO LONGER AN OBSTACLE” Interview by Janka Pozsonyi

In the heart of a refugee camp, a young man struggles with a serious addiction while he waits for his wedding day to arrive, which will hopefully bring a brighter future. The director of several documentary shorts as well as a feature, Mahdi Fleifel won the Silver Bear Jury Prize last year for A Man Returned, a fascinating piece of direct cinema that follows a man who has been through hell and back and opens up to the camera about it with raw honesty.

How did you meet Reda?

Reda is an old friend of mine. He comes from the same alleyway as my family in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp, and I have been in contact with him on and off since we were children. When I was filming A World Not Ours I hung out with Reda quite a bit (Reda and A World Not Ours protagonist Abu Eyad are close friends) and then he was there when I went to visit some guys from the camp who had made it to Greece.

Why did you choose to follow him, and how long did you do it for?

Reda actually chose me. I was doing a residency in Beirut in the summer of 2014 and I would go to visit my family in the

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camp on weekends. Reda was getting married and asked me to film him. I was reluctant at first, as I wanted to take it easy and not take advantage of anyone who was obviously not in a good shape.

Reda eventually convinced me to film the preparations for his wedding, which was over a period of three weekends.

How did you convince him to open up for your camera about his addiction, his struggle for a better life and his love?

I have been filming in the camp with these guys for so long that they are used to my presence there. The camera is no longer such an obstacle any more. For Reda it was just like hanging out with an old friend, and there was also an element of confession towards the camera.

Your film is about several serious subjects, such as drug addiction, asking for refugee status and living in a war zone. How did you personally deal with all of this during the shooting?

The films are part of my life; they are stories about my friends and my family, so it’s not like I’m exposing myself to something completely foreign. Having the camera between myself and my reality is actually helpful, as it allows me to process and understand things, which can otherwise be quite overwhelming. There is also a certain safety in knowing that if things get really bad I can go “home”, away from all this madness.

You are a regular filmmaker, returning to the Berlinale. Did the Silver Bear change your career in any way?

It remains to be seen really, but I think it makes people take you a bit more seriously. We’re embarking on a new idea now, so we will get to test whether anything has actually changed.

You used the form of direct cinema when you talked with Reda through your camera. He reacts to it, even acts for it sometimes. Why does this form of documentary filmmaking interest you?

I think the naturalistic and spontaneous aspects of this type of filmmaking are what appeal to me, and it’s also the only way I know how to make films. It all began with making home movies and playing with Hi8 cameras in the 1980s and 1990s.

Have you screened your film in your home country? What were the reactions to it?

My initial thought here is: “what’s my home country?” We have only screened A World Not Ours in Beirut, but not yet in the camp. The audience in Beirut was very enthusiastic about it; they were really engaged. We plan on organising screenings of some of the films in the camp soon. Xenos and A Man Returned are tricky ones because the people who appear in them are known. And as they talk about very private things, we have to make sure that we are respectful to them.

A Man Returned

You made several short films and a feature documentary about life in a refugee camp. What would you recommend for a first-time documentary filmmaker about finding their core subject?

Find something that you are passionate about, as making documentaries involves spending countless hours filming and editing – you need to feel strongly about it to get through this long process. Often topics that are personal or that you know intimately are good because you have more insight into them.

Where is your main character now? Do you keep in touch with all of the people you have filmed? Do you follow their future?

Reda is still in Ain el-Helweh, fighting his addiction (with some moments of success); he has two children now. Reda and I are in fairly regular contact, and we’re following his future and planning how to do more things together. With regarding other people: sometimes the relationship with people you film can become quite complicated; there is a sense of responsibility and dependency that can be formed. This has happened with some people I have filmed in the past, leading to relationships breaking down.

A Man Returned

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illustration by Zsรณfia Szemzล

THE KEYWORD IS: COURAGE Berlinale Talents celebrates its 15th birthday: again, a wonderful crowd gathers together to get to know each other, learn from the experts, network, and party.

Read on to find out what has happened over the last decade and a half, how the Talent Campus became Berlinale Talents, what this year’s motto means to the alumni and current participants, and how the organisers nurture this unique programme!

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photo by Peter Himsel

“PARTY A LOT AND BE ON TIME THE NEXT MORNING” interview by Veronika Jakab

“We are on our way to find our true relation to Talents” – Berlinale Talents celebrates its 15th edition this year and as a fitting central theme to this milestone, the 2017 programme will focus on „Courage: Against All Odds”, the everyday challenges and difficulties filmmakers must face and the celebration of their bravery and fearlessness.

Using their own provocative visuals as starting points for discussion, we asked Talents project manager Christine Tröstrum and programme manager Florian Weghorn about the challenges, the achievements and future plans of organizing Berlinale Talents.

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THIS WILL GET YOU IN DEEP TROUBLE During the past years of organizing Berlinale Talents, what has gotten you in deep trouble? What were the biggest challenges you encountered?

FW: Oh God, this alone could make up a two-hour interview…(laughs) CT: Well, in the first years, there was a lot of improvisation. I distinctly remember the event in 2008 with Shah Rukh Khan: first nobody believed that the Bollywood superstar would be the most wanted guy in town, but in the end, we needed the whole police on Sunday morning in front of our theatre to bring everybody safe inside, including Shah Rukh Khan himself. It was like in the sixties, when the Beatles came to Germany for the first time: everybody was crying and all the moms and kids came to listen to him. We always said a lot of people will come but nobody believed us. But in the end, everything went smoothly.

A candidate has managed to get in the Talents programme. What can go downhill from there? What pitfalls, mistakes should a filmmaker at the Talents programme avoid?

FW: Like Dieter [Dieter Kosslick, Festival Director] always says: “Party a lot and be on time the next morning” which, I think, is the perfect advice to make the most out of Berlinale Talents. It’s a big challenge and advantage to meet 249 others. The concept behind Berlinale Talents is to overwhelm you with a bit too many people and a bit too many opportunities, so that in the end, you can choose your own very specific path to move yourself or your project forward.

But you cannot do anything wrong. We are talking a lot about “failures” this year, even with those who are considered to be super successful people in the business.

CT: We want to make clear that we are all in a process and that sometimes we have to make mistakes. Creativity needs a lot of discipline and a lot of trial and error.

Talking about failures is definitely an act of courage.

BETTER LEAVE IT TO THE BIG BOYS A certain level of professionalism is already required for applying to the Talents programme. Do you plan to open the door to aspiring students, would-be filmmakers one day? If not, why?

CT: We’d love to organize a Talents for students if you can give us another one million Euro… [laughs]

It’s actually quite easy to answer: there is a gap between attending film school and embarking on your professional career.

Not many care about your professional career when you are doing your second or third film. Of course, you can attend a lot of labs you can submit your project to script writing programs. But outside of the festival programmes and markets there are not too many ways to make yourself “visible” in a non-competitive atmosphere. To provide a platform where you can meet other people in the same position creates a very special moment.

The secret behind Berlinale Talents is that we do not only invite all different disciplines of filmmaking but also bring those people together who are at a similar level of their personal careers. In film school you are well connected to a community and you have fellows who support you. With Berlinale Talents, we strive to recreate this sense of community also for later stages of your career.

THERE IS NO AUDIENCE FOR THIS Each year, you receive thousands of applications that you need to narrow down to a couple hundred. To what types of projects, proposals do you say “okay, there really is no audience for this”?

FW: We look at each application and discuss whether – in this particular moment of time - it makes sense to bring him or her to Berlin. We’re neither judging the person nor the project in general, but rather consider the timing and the phase the work or person is currently in.

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If we think someone is not “there yet”, we encourage applicants to apply again next year.

CT: The final decision is always with the Talent. For example, today we received a cancellation from Mexico from a very talented filmmaker we have known for ten years. He declined the invitation because he felt that it’s not the right time for him to present his work at Berlinale Talents.

He offered his slot to someone else, which I think is a very admirable gesture.

Do you have any ideas, concepts for Berlinale Talents that for now might seem unachievable but you consider long-term goals for the programme?

FW: Berlinale Talents is in an interesting phase right now: I think we are on our way to find our true relation to Talents.

Preparing the 15th edition, the initiative is young enough to rebel and evolve, but mature enough to stand secure in its own identity. And we still change a lot, in the relation with our Talents, but also with the experts. We make them be again less teachers but more sharers, so that they can also come with questions: What’s the new thing, the topic or technology that drives you crazy at the moment? What do you want to learn about? The same goes for the Berlin audience as Berlinale Talents is a hugely popular public event as well. We have a lot of people coming from the film industry but we also have people from the city who are passionate cinema goers and film lovers, and they also deserve the same excellent treatment.

CT: We’d also like to come up with an even more flexible structure for the Talents community. Alumni should still be provided with orientation, but they should decide on their own terms whether they use or leave our networks. Two years ago, we came up with the idea to develop a sort of film institute, something steady and year-round. But we decided against it. It’s not about developing a tight, permanent structure; it’s about

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maintaining a network that is open to changes. And this is only possible with a certain amount of flexibility.

WHY DON’T YOU GET A REAL JOB? Can you share any success stories about the Talents Alumni?

CT: There are many! From the top of my head I would mention the opening film of this year’s panorama section: The Wound, a film from South Africa, which was developed at our very own Script Station. Furthermore, the director and the producer have both been participants at the Talents programme and the other producer will be a participant this year. In that respect, you have a very nice all-star Talents team.

Berlinale Talents celebrates its 15th anniversary. What milestones can you recall?

FW: Back in 2003, we started as a Talent Campus with 500 participants and celebrated the inception together as a vibrant get-together, more or less driven by stage-talks and good parties. After 14 editions, the summit has turned into a professional hub with quite an impact on the film community world-wide. Focusing more on the principles of lifelong learning and interdisciplinary exchange, the Talent Campus became Berlinale Talents in 2013.

Today’s 250 participants already have acquired quite some work experiences and they come to Berlin to achieve even more. But parties are of course still also very important!

Do yo

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Win Cannes Short Film Corner participation for the most inspiring one minute film!

All you have to do is to upload it to www.daazo.com/minute till

01.04.2017.

test n o C ilm F e t u in One M

“You Always Remember the First Time”

Participants: 530

Participants: 370

Participants: 347

Countries of Origin: 90

Countries of Origin: 101

Countries of Origin: 103

Motto: “Designing Your Future”

First Berlinale Talent Campus Participants: 461 Countries of Origin: 61 Name-dropping: Wim Wenders, Stephen Frears, Anthony Minghella, Atom Egoyan, Spike Lee

Talent Campus kicks off the international short film award “Football and Culture” First time talents from Swaziland, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Jordan, Ethiopia, Togo, Panama and Mozambique have qualified

2003

Name-dropping: Walter Salles, John Waters, Jasmila Zbanic, Tom Tykwer, Gael García Bernal

2006

2005

Participants: 520 Countries of Origin: 84 Motto: “Let’s Get Passionate About Film!”

First Berlin Today Award First Volkswagen Score Competition “This is one of the most important initiatives for the future of the Berlinale” (Anthony Minghella) Young filmmakers from Afghanistan, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso and Columbia apply for the first time Campus goes global: Talent workshops in Kiev, Cape Town, New Delphi Name-dropping: Eleanor Bergstein, Anthony Minghella, Walter Murch, Frances McDormand

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First edition of Sarajevo Talent Campus First time applications from Rwanda, Barbados and Morocco.

Name-dropping: Catherine Breillat, Emi Wada, Christopher Doyle, Roland Emmerich, Ridley Scott

2004

Theme: “HOME AFFAIRS – privacy, films and politics”

Theme: “Suddenly, It All Happened – The turning point in closeup” First time applications from Botswana, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mongolia and Qatar.

New hands-on programme: Campus Studio Name-dropping: Tilda Swinton, Sir David Hare, Janusz Kaminski, Farah Khan, Patricio Guzmán

2008

2007

2009

Participants: 520 Countries of Origin: 101 Motto: “At the Cutting Edge of Making Movies”

Participants: 349

Record entries for Talent Campus: 3516 applications from 121 countries

Theme: “SCREENING EMOTIONS – Cinema’s finest asset”

Name-dropping: Charlotte Rampling, Park Chan-wook, Anthony Dod Mantle, Stephen Warbeck, Jim Clark

Countries of Origin: 90

former Campus Talents are in the running for a Golden Bear for the first time (directors Fernando Eimbcke and Lance Hammer) New initiatives: Win a residency – make a short film!; Focus on Africa Name-dropping: Stephen Daldry, Julie Delpy, Maria Schrader, Mike Leigh, Shah Rukh Khan

– a look back on Berlinale Talents’ history of Firsts Participants: 303

Participants: 356 Countries of Origin: 87 Theme: “Framespotting – Filmmakers positioning themselves” First Talent Campus in Tokyo First time applications from Belize, the Comoros, Brunei, Mali and Mauritania Name-dropping: Shekhar Kapur, Harry Belafonte, Isabella Rossellini, István Szabó, Ralph Fiennes

2010

Countries of Origin: 96

Participants: 300

Theme: “Some Like It Hot – Filmmakers as entertainers”

Countries of Origin: 75

New initiative: 30 international filmmakers from the Campus present their projects in the Berlin House of Representatives

New programme manager: Florian Weghorn

Name-dropping: Anita Ekberg, Bence Fliegauf, Ken Loach, Ulrich Seidl, Paul Verhoeven

2012

2011

Theme: “2015: A space discovery”

First Doc Station Development Grant Talents open for the first time to participants with experience in developing and producing highquality drama series Name-dropping: Howard Shore, Darren Aronofsky, Marcel Ophüls, Joshua Oppenheimer, Matthew Weiner

2014

2013

2016

2015

Participants: 347 Countries of Origin: 93 Theme: “Cinema Needs Talent: Looking for the right people” New record in application numbers: 773 applications from 145 countries New hands-on programme: Talent Actors Stage New internet portal for emerging international film critics: Talent Press Name-dropping: Claire Denis, Sir Ken Adam, Christian Berger, Stephen Frears, Yoji Yamada

Participants: 300 Participants: 302 Participants: 360

Countries of Origin: 80

Countries of Origin: 79

Countries of Origin: 87

Theme: “Ready to Play?

– Breaking the rules”

Theme: “The nature of relations”

Theme: “Changing Perspectives”

New name: Berlinale Talents

Distributors to apply for the first time

First Talents Beirut

For the first time, more than 100 Alumni Talents participating with films

New main partner: Robert Bosch Stiftung Name-dropping: Juliette Binoche, Andie MacDowell, Keanu Reeves, Volker Schlöndorff; Mike Leigh

Berlinale Talents represented for the first time at the European Film Market (EFM) First short film competition organized

by Canon

Name-dropping: Meryl Streep, Michael Ballhaus, Thomas Vinterberg, Denis Côté, Molly M. Stensgaard

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“EMBRACE THE JOURNEY” He studied law, then turned to filmmaking. He started out making documentaries, then turned to fiction. He completed several short films and now turns to features. Diogo Costa Amarante’s career path has been full of twists and turns that have eventually led him straight to the 67th Berlinale to present his film Small Town.

One sunny day in Lisboa, Portugal, Diogo Costa Amarante, a trainee lawyer was on his way to the office when he came across a random flyer promoting a filmmaking workshop that was being organized by a new film festival he never heard of. Since curiosity only killed the cat, he went online to find out more about it. Long story short: Diogo got accepted, awed the organizers and received a grant to study documentary filmmaking in Barcelona. He packed his stuff, left his promising career in law behind and went for it.

Once in Spain, he finished a Master in documentary filmmaking and cinematography and made two documentaries that travelled around film festivals. Jumate/Jumate is about a little person named Camelia who works as a street busker in Barcelona and lives with her grown daughter Andrea in a shack.

Just as the story combines the vibrant theatricality of Barcelona’s street scene with the difficulties of being immigrants, Diogo mixes traditional shots with dreamlike, visually soothing images that reveal his tendency towards fiction. “I’m only happy when I find images that reverberate something to me. Oppositely, I feel I’m just being functional when I find myself obligated to shoot something under

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text by Veronika Jakab

the typical coverage scheme establishing shot – shot reverse shot.” – he reveals.

While shooting Jumate/ Jumate, he passed by a rougher neighbourhood in Barcelona, where prostitutes were chatting with each other and smoking cigarettes to the sound of the religious songs that were coming from a church – again, an intriguing image that caught Diogo’s attention. He went in the church and met Daniel, the central character of his next documentary In January, Perhaps. The film documents the life of Daniel, a former history teacher from Romania who left his family behind and emigrated to Barcelona, hoping that after January 2009, he will be able to make enough money to return home and provide for his family. “I immediately felt connected to him. There was something completely out of place about him.

He was elegant, sensitive and clearly educated. I immediately wanted to know more about him.” Again, the images depicting the crude reality of surviving Barcelona’s streets as a homeless person are complemented by the main character’s melancholic dream-like voiceover that provides the film a unique, poetic feel.

Diogo considers films as “singular entities, ideally idiosyncratic. Its images are its body and its sounds are its soul. Or vice versa maybe both.”

Both Jumate/Jumate and In January, Perhaps were awarded with the best Spanish documentary award at the Madrid Documentary International film festivals and were selected to several prestigious festivals around the world.

Because of the success of these two films, Diogo was given a grant by the Portuguese Cultural Minister to work in the USA for a year. He started working at a production company. One thing led to another and Diogo applied and got accepted to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts program with a Fulbright Scholarship. His pre-thesis film, The White Roses premiered at the 64th Berlinale.

Completely abandoning a traditional narrative structure, this 20-minute short fiction is about the grief and loss of a family, told through an almost streamof-consciousness-like series of images, juxtapositions and masterfully composed, whimsical shots.

The White Roses, as Diogo was later told, mesmerized an unlikely audience member at Berlinale: Patti Smith. “I didn’t know I had to be there and I went to the hotel. That night when I met all the other filmmakers, everyone was asking where have I been that afternoon because turns out that Patti Smith went to the screening and said something beautiful about my film. I couldn’t believe it and cannot believe it even today.”

Because of VISA limitations, Diogo had to go back to Portugal immediately after finishing his last semester at NYU. The problem was, he still hadn’t completed his thesis film. So, he grabbed a camera and shot Small Town… again, long story short: Diogo received his final degree and has been invited to this year’s Berlinale for the premiere of his latest film.

Small Town is about a child named Frederico who learns from his teacher that if the heart stops, people die. This film seems to

Jumate

encapsulate everything that characterizes Diogo’s works: a strong emotional connection to its subjects, a dream-like narrative, and poetic, associative images that avoid all stereotypes. And as for his work-in-progress-feature film? “If you don’t mind I would skip this question. If I start to define what the film is clearly about I’ll lose all interest in writing it.”

Though the next twist and turn in Diogo Costa Amarante’s career path remains yet unrevealed, there is one thing he is very vocal about: his experiences at the Berlinale. “Back in 2009 when I was part of the Talent Campus, I made friends that remain until today. I remember to watch all the official shorts competitions.

The impression I got at that time it’s the same I have today. I love the spirit behind the program. There’s never a preferred type of film. It’s a celebration of freedom and diversity. There’s an equal respect of animation, experimental, classical narrative, essays, pure documentaries, hybrids, a beautiful journey organized by a team that refuses to lock themselves in a preconception of what good cinema is or should be. As you can imagine I’m very excited to go back there. Just sit down and watch all the shorts. Embrace the journey. “

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“INSPIRED, STIMULATED AND ENCOURAGED” BERLINALE TALENTS – THEN AND NOW text by Zsuzsanna Deák

The 2017 Participant Asha Magrati Originally from Nepal, Asha Magrati is an actor and casting director who lives in New York and who is currently developing her first feature. Her recent work, White Sun (directed by Deepak Rauniyar), premiered at the Venice and Toronto film festivals last year to rave reviews.

Berlinale Talents represents a new chapter in my career. I expect to find connections and a fresh point of view. I will need good tools as I head to direct my first feature. Attending experts’ talks and seminars will help open my horizons.

I’m a good observer. Friends even tease me by telling me I “should be a detective”.

Deepak on Asha “Asha is a hard-working improviser and collaborator. She has a good eye as well as sensitivity and a very good sense of story. Her choices of cast are great. Just like Variety wrote, “Asha shines” in what she does.”

I’m looking forward to making friends among the talents.

Someone might like my style and maybe I’ll find someone who thinks like I do. I’ll also meet a group of industry people outside the programme whom I’d like to pitch my story to.

I’m also looking forward to watching some films.

I’ve been watching clips from past Berlinale Talents and reading interviews. I’ve talked to alumni and have been working on the pitch for my first feature film.

Deepak and I have a production company based in Kathmandu, Nepal, called Aadi Production.

Later this year we’re aiming to shoot his third feature, Raja.

I’ll start casting right after the Berlinale and will also assist Deepak in direction. I’ll also be developing my first feature project, which I hope to complete in 2019.

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World of Young Cinema asked three Berlinale Talents alumni about their experiences and spoke to three others who are getting ready to participate in the extraordinary programme this year. The six of them constitute three pairs who have collaborated in highly successful productions: White Sun, selected for Venice and Toronto film festivals; The Wound, opening this year’s Panorama at the Berlinale; and The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, an Un Certain Regard award winner at Cannes last year.

Asha on Deepak ”Deepak is a good listener and a true collaborator. He doesn’t dictate, but rather digs out the best in an actor. He lets his actors improvise and allows them to use their creativity, all the while knowing what he is looking for. He is a good leader.”

Deepak Rauniyar is a writer, director and producer from Nepal. His microbudget debut feature, Highway (2012), premiered at the 62nd Berlinale and was the first Nepalese film ever to be screened at a major international festival. The film is credited for starting a new wave of Nepalese cinema.

Deepak’s second feature, White Sun, premiered in Venice and Toronto.

The Berlinale Talents gave me courage.

It was an amazing experience to be in the same room as some 300 talented filmmakers. It was very encouraging to meet and interact with filmmakers from other parts of the world who have similar goals and obstacles. And it was of course a privilege to hear firsthand from some of my favourite filmmakers on their process of working.

The Alumnus Deepak Rauniyar Filmmaking is a lonely business. It’s very easy to get depressed, which is why it’s important to meet and interact with others like ourselves, who share the same kind of dream or passion and who go through quite similar kinds of struggle.

My fondest memory are the talks given

by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Mike Leigh. They spoke at Berlinale Talents one day after each other. First it was Nuri, who talked about how he dictates every move an actor makes: look down, look up, look right, look left. He said, “I’m always talking.

My actors tell me that I turn them into monkeys.” And he advised that “the worst thing you can do is let an actor think.”

Mike Leigh’s talk was the following day.

Someone asked him what he thought about Nuri’s advice and he laughed. He said, “Why would I hire a person who can’t think?! An actor has to be able to think and participate in the process. I want a collaborator, not some statue.” Mike Leigh and Nuri Bilge Ceylan are both brilliant filmmakers as well as being my favourites, but their process of working seemed to be quite contradictory!

I learnt that there’s no right process when making a film. You’ve got to find one that suits you the best, either by dictating like Nuri Bilge Ceylan or by improvising like Mike Leigh. Or by doing something totally different.

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The 2017 Participant Cait Pansegrouw Cait Pansegrouw is a 28-year-old filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa. She is a producer and a casting director.

My strength lies in my passion and my ability to see the same kind of passion in other people. Everything else stems from that. I am adept at spotting and cultivating talent. I like to challenge norms, I like to learn and I like to meet inspiring people and have stimulating conversations. Collaboration is what I live for. All this speaks to what Berlinale Talents offers, particularly with the chosen motto for this year.

I’m pretty kooky, and I guess they chose me because of that.

I’ve had colleagues and friends attend and they’ve all had nothing but positive feedback about Berlinale Talents. I took part in Durban Talents 4 years ago and had a blast, so of course I wanted to experience the original version of the programme.

There are few things better than being in a space with other filmmakers and interrogate ideas, discuss experiences, learn from each other and celebrate film. It’s always inspiring for me to be around artists. I go back to my reality feeling motivated and hungrier to do great things.

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John on Cait “Cait was a producer AND a fantastic casting director on my film, which meant that she had a strong emotional connection to the work. She calls herself a doula, which pretty much sums it up.

She’s amazing and I will fight any director to the death if they try to steal her away from me.”

I expect to be inspired, stimulated and encouraged.

I am excited to meet my fellow talents, to learn and to share knowledge with them. I hope to carve out some new relationships and perhaps find a project or two that I’d like to pursue in the future. I am looking forward to feeling part of a larger film community. To feel part of something larger than yourself is exhilarating.

Of course I would love to meet Paul Verhoeven. He’s a legend! His point of view is fascinating, and I’m sure we could have some interesting chats about life.

I am so fortunate to be doing work that I love and that I am proud of. All I want is to be able to keep on doing just that: to continue making bold cinema that evokes dialogue, introspection and inspiration. I hope it will get easier, as it certainly is tough, particularly in a place where independent film (and appreciation for it) is still fairly infantile. I also aspire to play an important role in the movement towards forging a new wave of African cinema.

Cait on John “It’s pretty impossible to describe John in only a few words! He is a master filmmaker. It was an unbelievable privilege to collaborate with him on The Wound.

The casting process was particularly special for both of us and it is something that I will cherish forever. He is incredibly focused, courageous and smart. He constantly pushes himself and so inspires those around him to do the same, which allows for the creation of groundbreaking work. I am still trying to fully understand how fortunate I am to have had The Wound as the first feature film experience of my journey.”

John is a writer/director based in Johannesburg, South Africa. His film The Wound, which was co-produced by Cait Pansegrouw​, opens the Berlinale Panorama this year.

The Alumnus John Trengove

Script Station was very useful. Anita Voorham was my consultant and she had very meaningful insights that helped me unlock the story I was trying to tell.​​We made the film 2 years later. It was both the hardest and the best thing I’ve ever done. ​

My best memory? ​Presenting my short at Berlinale Talents was great. The Q&A was very lively and fun, and much more interesting questions arose there than at the festival screenings. ​

I had heard from friends who had gone in earlier years that they had had a good time, but apart from that I didn’t really have any specific expectations.

I guess I was hoping to be stimulated and meet interesting people. ​

​ ​I had a short film in Generation that year and I was also doing Script Station, so ​I couldn’t be as involved as I would have liked to be. I really enjoyed some of the Q&As and panel discussions. ​

Berlinale Talents reminds us that filmmaking is awesome and that we are part of an international community.

​

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The 2017 Participant Jussi Rautaniemi

Jussi Rautaniemi is a 32-year-old freelance film editor from Helsinki, Finland. He started studying film editing back in 2004 and has been an active film editor since 2007.

I think I was chosen since I have very extensive professional experience, having worked on feature documentaries, fiction, short films and film trailers. I also think that the success of the latest film I edited, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, might have had some positive effect on the selection.

Mikko on Jussi “Jussi is one of the most talented film editors in Finland, with already many features and documentaries under his belt. My background comes from writing and I have studied screenwriting and dramaturgy, and what I really admire in Jussi’s work is his ability to understand the structure as any skilled writer would.”

I am eager to meet new talented people from all around Europe.

There is only a certain amount of films made in Finland each year, so I am happy for any chance to work in films produced elsewhere.

Also there aren’t many possibilities like Berlinale Talents where film editors can network. I would like to meet directors and producers with exciting ideas and projects in mind.

Outside Berlinale Talents, I would like to meet Denis Villeneuve and talk to him about his filmmaking process. I love his films.

I hope to meet new people, although my social skills are limited since I spend most of my time in the dark of the editing room!

I have a lot of experience in different kinds of films, especially with relatively lowbudget films and documentary, as well as a few bigger films, and I have worked with both very experienced and rookie directors alike. I have insight into storytelling, perspective and tools, which enables me to come up with many kinds of solutions for problems that can occur in the editing phase.

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I have films scheduled until autumn: two very interesting features with directors I haven’t worked with before but who are both aiming for a wide European release, and a longer project which is a documentary film that I’ve been editing for a couple of weeks now. After that I hope to work even more outside of Finland with artistically ambitious projects!

Jussi on Mikko “I met Mikko while we were students in film school. He started a year or two after me, but he was already a published writer back then. I liked his first short films, and it was clear that he had a strong take on filmmaking. I was happy to hear that he and I would be working together on Olli Mäki. During the editing process the film went through some dramaturgical changes and it was good to get feedback from Mikko, since the choices were rooted in their writing process, but in a way they are different now that the material is there.”

The Alumnus Mikko Myllylahti Learning to be part of a big group of young filmmakers and other talents was important – we are all the same and we all struggle with the same issues.

When presenting my project I learned how important it is to be who you are, even though it may sometimes feel embarrassing in front of important decision-makers and producers.

Mikko Myllylahti is a filmmaker and writer from Finland. His most recent work is the screenplay for the 2016 film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.

He is also a poet and has written four published collections.

I was surprised to see how closely the Berlinale Film Festival is involved in Berlinale Talents and what an important part the latter seems to play.

Apart from the wonderful experience from the Script Station lab, I really enjoyed staying in the hostel and sharing a room with different people. It was like going back to summer school!

In my experience, the most important professional knowledge in the film industry usually comes from personal connections. So I would say that in the end what will stay with me is the people I met.

Berlinale Talents is a unique opportunity to meet highly talented young film professionals and actors from all around the globe.

The fact that it takes place in Berlin, one of my favourite cities in the world, also helps!

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“COURAGE: AGAINST ALL ODDS” – this is the motto of Berlinale Talents in 2017. What does it mean to the BT alumni and this year’s participants? They told World of Young Cinema their thoughts.

CAIT Fimmaking in itself is a courageous undertaking. It’s a serious commitment, mentally, physically, emotionally and it takes years of your life. It requires real tenacity to see it through and to remain motivated and passionate. I like to think of a producer as a doula, which means we need to incubate the creative team and keep everyone focused on the bigger picture. Each individual requires a different kind of fostering in order to produce their best work and it’s our job to manage this.

Producing also requires a fighting spirit.

We’re at the front lines, driving the process and telling everyone else to never give up.

It’s quite a hefty emotional investment, but the rewards are unparalleled.

There’s also the fact that I am a woman and because I am a young, quirky, artistic woman, I sometimes find myself fighting to be taken seriously. I am not conventional, I never have been.

Continuing to fight for what you want and what you believe in is probably the most courageous thing one can do.

JOHN ​ on't stop. There are so many reasons to D give up along the way, but to finish it, to make the idea a reality feels really good and it can change your life.​

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ASHA My existence as an actor! Even until 5 years ago, it would have been unimaginable that an actor like me could become a lead in the movies. I’m far from the old-fashioned upper caste type. Still a majority of producers believe that if someone like me is on a poster people won’t come to watch a film. It’s not only about gender, but ethnicity, face, colour.

Inside such an industry if I exist today, it’s only because of courage that someday it will change or we can change it.

DEEPAK Never give up, and be confident in what you do. I believe courage is only way to fight against all odds that as filmmaker we’ve to face from everyday life to production of a film. Take for example my latest film: first it took a long time to finance it. Once we were ready to shoot, two massive earthquakes hit the country and killed thousands of people.

The location we had chosen to shoot the film was all wiped out by the quake. We searched for another location, but that now wasn’t accessible by road. We needed

donkeys for everything to carry. Worse, as we started shooting, the country’s only import border shut down. We had no cooking gas, and had to feed almost 80 people a day. No fuel, the only way of lighting was generators. There was a time when I thought I won’t be able to finish the shooting. We ran out of money even before half of the shoot was done. The only thing kept us going was courage!

We cut down the team to 11 people, and continued shooting in whatever way it was possible. I knew that if I postpone the shoot there will be no way to begin again.

We completed in 47 days, now the film is travelling around the world! We all feel happy.

MIKKO The film industry is full of obstacles and odds that are against you. Courage is the most important thing. It is self-esteem and waking up to the fact that you are alone with no one to tell you what you should do. It is frightening but also the starting point of the freedom we all have.

JUSSI It brings to mind the whole process of the Olli Mäki film. The director Juho Kuosmanen had a great opportunity to make his first feature film and the way it was executed embodies this motto.

From choosing the subject, to the way it was shot and put together – it required courage and I also learned a lot during the process. It is fine line between when you do what you believe in and when you are just plain stubborn. A good group of talented people around are helpful in figuring that out.

I feel that courage is needed in every editing process. At some point a lot of opinions and views start to affect the process and you start to lose track of what was your own view. It takes courage to take in all the opinions and evaluate them for the good of the film, decide what is good and what is not. For a film editor, editing is not only about your own artistic views but the ambition should be finding the right way to tell that specific film.

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As part of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, the European Film Market (EFM) will open its doors on 9 February 2017. The exhibition spaces at the Martin-Gropius-Bau (MGB), the Marriott Hotel at Potsdamer Platz and the recently inaugurated Gropius Park constitute an industrial event within the Berlinale.

EFM Facts and Figures (source of data*efm-berlinale.de)

Last year’s EFM, which took place between 11–19 February on the occasion of the 66th Berlinale, was bigger and stronger than it had been in previous years. Each section of the EFM increased from 2015 to 2016, as did the number of participants, nationalities, films and screenings, etc. If you are interested in one of the world’s most significant international trade fairs for film and audiovisual content, then this is where you should be.

9 230

EFM participants

110

Nationalities

784

Films

Market screenings

1 124

532

Market premieres

1 623 Buyers

182

EFM stands and offices

(Martin-Gropius-Bau and Marriott Hotel)

543

Exhibitors

INDUSTRY

The EFM does not only indicate the name of the international fair, it also designates a venue for various programmes, discussions, panels and debates about and for the international film industry. Here is the list of subprogrammes that attract professionals.

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Berlinale Co-Production Market 12–15 February 2017

Experienced producers from around the world come to budget projects between 1 and 20 million euros Berlinale Talents Market Hub

A selection of 10 promising feature film projects will come together with a wide range of potential coproduction and funding partners from around the world.

Books at Berlinale

Twelve new literary works with outstanding potential for film adaptation will be presented at a pitching session. Producers, internationally active literary agents and representatives of publishing houses will join the conversation.

CoPro Series

For the third time, the Berlinale Co-Production Market invites producers, television representatives, distributors and further series financiers to the exclusive pitching session, where seven selected projects will be looking for co-production and financing partners.

NETWORKING The EFM is an opportunity to discuss, debate and exchange ideas EFM Industry Debates

EFM provides a unique opportunity to discuss current issues that are relevant to the international film industry. Top experts from all areas of the entertainment industry are brought together to offer their in-depth insight and to spark the debates that shape the business.

Drama Series Days

Key players get together at the first market of the year to meet, screen new series, pitch projects in development and share insight and trends that will dominate the upcoming year.

EFM Producers Hub

Martin-Gropius-Bau serves as a meeting point and working area for producers to come together with financiers and buyers and share their experience and insight in brief talks on innovative themes specific to all aspects of production.

EFM Asia

Partnering with Bridging the Dragon, the EFM hosts the SinoEuropean Production Seminar in order to gain insight into the Chinese market and to offer possibilities of networking.

EFM Startups

Game <3 Cinema

Meet the Docs

EFM Startups

American Independents in Berlin

VR NOW Con Business Mixer

This is a networking opportunity that welcomes 10 leading tech entrepreneurs from across Europe to connect them with the film and media industries.

Organised together with the European Documentary Network, this is a networking platform dedicated to the international documentary film industry.

Organised by the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the Sundance Institute, this presents new American works to international buyers, sellers and festival programmers as well as supports its filmmakers, companies and organisations.

Propellor | Speednic

This first Propellor | Speednic focuses on the question of the film industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future, and in particular on how it can work best to actively shape its own development by employing forward-thinking concepts and innovations. This is a closed networking and workshop event with 12 selected participants from the film industry and from the technology sector.

The local multiplayer event combines cinema and computer games in a shared gaming experience that plays out onto the big screen.

Ten select startups from Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Spain will present new technologies for production, distribution and marketing.

A conference and networking event where talks, presentations and discussions address the most current impulses and trends in the sector and bring virtual reality pioneers and experts together with members of the film industry.

The Next Level of Cinema

Leading companies and creatives provide interested distributors, sales agents, producers, exhibitors and cinema operators with insight into the future challenges the film industry faces, where special emphasis is placed on digitisation and innovation.

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illustration by Zsรณfia Szemzล

FILM EMBRACES Steven Spielberg said last year in Cannes that virtual reality is “dangerous because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look”. Others disagree: “virtual reality is the first step in a grand adventure into the landscape of the imagination”, says film scholar Frank Biocca.

Is VR a passing phase or is it the future? We investigated the rise of virtual reality – from the times when there was no special technology behind it, just an imaginary world to play with, to the current day, where VR is becoming the medium of much more than exciting effects in a film.

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IS SO MANY THINGS. text by Zoltan Aprily

VR is a new medium. When people saw the train arriving into the La Ciotat station in the very early Lumiere brothers’ film they jumped out of their seats and ran out of the room, petrified. Difficult to imagine? Just put on a VR headset and play Evolution of the Verse by Chris Milk to relive the moment. In one of the first “cinematic” VR experiences, a train literally runs over you before it explodes into a flock of birds. In an experience by the BBC, the legendary David Attenborough introduces you to a Brontosaurus. Yes, a Brontosaurus. You’re actually standing there looking up at the giant dinosaur.

Most of us who experience VR for the first time jump up out of our seats, and similarly to the Lumiere brothers’ audience, we might say: “Wow. How lucky are we to be around when a new medium emerges?” Even though there were early versions already in the 1980s. It’s a great challenge to invent VR’s language, tools and use. Are you ready for the challenge?

VR is experience. It’s not cinema, even though many people tend to refer to narrative VR pieces as cinematic VR. It transports you into a different space with different sets of rules. Filmmakers often fall into the trap of using a 360-degree camera the same way they would shoot a film: they shoot scenes, they act in front of the camera and they edit, all with the same approach. But when you want to tell a story in VR, game studies and game development methodologies seem to be a good starting point. However many times it may seem like it, VR is not a computer game. Just watch any of the demos made by Google Cardboard to understand the difference. You make

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decisions, you interact and you are simply there: in a new reality surrounding you.

VR is technology. Thanks to Google Cardboard, Samsung GEAR VR or the increasing variety of consumer headsets and cheaper and cheaper mobile technologies, VR is relatively accessible to everyone. Developer projects like A-Frame or software engines like Unity or Unreal make the creator’s life easier every day. 360-degree cameras are also available, and even though not all of them can give you the 3D experience yet, they are useful for experimenting. As VR has become the marketing flagship for many big companies, technology is improving in a very rapid way. VR is still a technological no-man’s-land and inspired teams of people all around the world are constantly trying to come up with breakthrough ideas. There is charm in trying to synchronise twelve cameras on your home-built camera rig and then somehow stitch the videos together with every possible software in the universe, but maybe it’s worth waiting a bit. There’s a long road ahead and sooner or later one of the standards will win.

…VR is about attention. Imagine you are in a completely pitch-black room. A small red light suddenly starts blinking to your right.

You look at the light. But then a blue light starts blinking just behind you. You turn around. Which one will you look at? Does your attention depend on their colours or on how rapidly they blink? In a VR space the viewer’s attention is everything. If you want to tell a story in VR you need to redefine the narrative tools, understand what is important in a constructed world and why, and think of how you can control attention. Or should you control it at all? Is it possible to tell your story if you are no longer the guide?

Does it remain your story? Since VR is an experience you might need to get used to the fact that the world around you is interpreted on an individual basis. Your story might no longer be yours in VR. So what do you have left? Well it’s actually more than you think. In VR you become a creator as opposed to a director; you create situations, spaces and actions. We need to be totally surrounded in order to immerse ourselves in something new.

VR is all about your senses. It tricks your brain into believing that you are somewhere else than in your physical location. But what are the senses you need to overwrite? You might think that visuals come first, followed by sounds, but try to cover your eyes and ears for a second and pay attention to your other senses. You can also feel the temperature of your room or the wind, you can touch things around you and you can feel gravity. Although HTC Vive, Oculus or even Playstation give you controllers for your hands, making it possible to see them, there are a lot of other things about the immersive VR experience that remain a challenge.

Sensing in VR is a tricky task to solve, but we’re getting there. In the meantime, it’s up to you to find out what VR really is.

Because VR is so many things.

illustration by Zsófia Szemző

VR is theory. The best thing about creating VR is that it makes you think. VR can be a tool for a lot of things: it can transport you to altered perceptions, abstract realities and exotic locations that wouldn’t be possible to visit any other way. It can be a tool for embodiment, sensitisation and empathy. Many questions arise when creating VR, because you are constructing an entire universe from scratch. In a VR experience it’s not only about what you see, but also about how you feel. Who are you? A protagonist? Are you taking part or just observing? Are you human?

What body do you have? What skills do you have? You can be Iron Man in one of the VR experiences by Marvel, you can jump into the body of a man who is slowly losing his eyesight in Notes on Blindness

by Agat Films and you can be different animals exploring a forest in In the Eyes of the Animal by Marshmallow Laser Feast.

VR is much more than just putting your camera in the middle of a crowd and broadcasting a demonstration; it can be an interesting new approach to news media, but you should always remember that...

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GYÖRGY PÁLFI: A BÉLA TARR FILM WOULD BE AMAZING IN VR! interview by Bori Bujdosó

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, acclaimed director György Pálfi created an exhibition of twelve virtual reality short films, each one of them recounting a reality-inspired, but fictional episode of the revolution. The director, who is in the middle of post-production on his next feature, His Master’s Voice, is extremely enthusiastic about VR technology, even if that sadly means contradicting his childhood hero.

How did the idea of the VR exhibition come about?

When I was preparing for my next film, His Master’s Voice, I started researching virtual reality. I got really excited about it.

I kind of felt like Méliès seeing Lumière’s invention for the first time, as this is a totally new opportunity for cinema that hasn’t been fully exploited yet, a new film language that is just being developed.

And just when I was getting into this, I got a call from the House of Terror Museum, that they wanted to have VR films for the 1956 memorial year, and they asked me if I wanted to direct them. Of course I said yes.

I started looking for filmmakers online, who used this technology for storytelling, but I didn’t find many.

I saw that news agencies used

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VR effectively, and that it was great for documentaries, but I realized that it was really in the very early stages as far as storytelling went.

How did you get started?

Video games helped me the most, as this media started using 360-degree images a long time ago. My main concern was how to make sure that the viewer would not miss important bits of the story. But I took that as a challenge to create films, where any direction the viewer might look is the right direction. First we thought that we would achieve this by having several stories going on at the same time within each film. But then I realized that the music, the atmosphere we created, and probably human curiosity will eventually guide the viewer to the right place to look.

So my main task was to create the film language. We were lucky, because we got to do 12 shorts, so we had the chance for 12 experiments.

What were the main technical challenges?

First of all we couldn’t find a camera that was good enough. This was in spring 2016, and most of the cameras only existed as prototypes. So we built our own, using four cameras facing in four directions, each of them covering 90 degrees of the space. The sound was also tricky, we had to have the source of the sound

Were there any unexpected discoveries during the process?

An interesting discovery came from the fact that we decided that twelve films were just too many, and we would do ten films and two sets of filmed interviews. As the camera could shoot in four directions, we could have four interviews going on at the same time in one film – not necessarily filmed at the same time, because, as I found out, the heroes of ‘56 sometimes don’t get along so well with each other!

We calibrated the sound so that an interview continues as long as you look at one interviewee, and if you look at another one, it stops, and the other one starts. If you go back to the first one, the interview carries on where you left off. We kind of expected this to be the least interesting of the films, but it turned out to be one of the most exciting ones; when the viewer

finishes watching various snippets of the four interviews, and then takes the glasses off, these four stories somehow combine into one. The viewer doesn’t remember what was said by whom, but gets a very strong impression of the stories as a whole, a personal overview of 1956.

I’m getting the sense that you probably don’t agree with Steven Spielberg, who said that VR could be dangerous, because the director loses control over the storytelling.

Many filmmakers are afraid of this, but this is just not the case. I don’t want to contradict my hero, because I learned to make films watching Indiana Jones and Jaws when I was a kid, but I have to say that this is a needless worry. As the director you decide where to put the camera, and with this choice, basically tell the viewer where to look. You can also cut the scene whenever you want, dictating the pace and the rhythm. You change the emphasis with the choice of a closeup or a wide shot, and direct attention and change mood with the use of sound and music.

These are all traditional filmmaking tools.

photoes by Róbert Szebeni-Szabó

move around corresponding to the viewer’s movement, so we used a modified video game software, which already had this feature of sensing the movements of the player, and altering the sound accordingly.

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The only tool you don’t have anymore is panning, that’s in the viewers’ hands now.

Where do you think the technology is headed?

If you combine 3D – which, in my opinion, is not that great in traditional cinema – with VR you can create an almost perfectly immersive virtual space.

I think that is the way to go, but not as a replacement of the traditional cinema experience, rather than as an enhanced form of video game, where you can interactively choose and control your own adventure. I’m sure that the same way film didn’t eradicate photography, VR won’t eradicate cinema or television. Also with the present technology, no one can wear the VR glasses for more than 10 to 15 minutes, because it makes you nauseous or gives you a headache, but I hope that this will be remedied somehow, because I would really enjoy making a feature film in 360 degrees.

If technology allowed, what kind of full length VR film would you make?

I have a plan ready. I could start shooting it the day after tomorrow. I would love to do a sci-fi movie, set inside a spaceship. I found a story that would work very well in this setting. I really like the idea that the viewer could look in any direction, but with me directing, so the viewer and I would basically explore that spaceship together.

Why make a VR film in such an enclosed space? Isn’t that very limiting?

I’m not sure I can justify it, but it might just be the case of one person painting with oil paint and another using watercolor. To turn it around: it’s hard to think of a movie that you couldn’t do in VR, if you wanted to. Imagine a Béla Tarr film in 360 degrees!

With the camera moving around for ten minutes in each scene. The viewer could look around, but time would be stretched out the same way as it is now in his films, it would have the same meaning. Sátántangó

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would be fucking amazing in VR! That said, I think a very fast-paced action movie would probably not work very well in VR, although certain action scenes could be great; instead of cutting between the hero being chased and the bad guy chasing him, the viewer could be between them, and decide which one to look at.

Will we see any influence of VR in His Master’s Voice?

Definitely. If you fold out the 360-degree space, you get a beautiful panoramic photo. I included a few of these shots in the film, which will be really interesting, as the brain is not able to compute that what you are seeing is 360 degrees folded out. I think these shots really fit our film, because it’s a sci-fi movie that takes place in the present, and these shots just somehow elevate it. For example, in “surround vision” a car starts to look like a spaceship. The space itself changes shape in a way, so that you won’t understand what you are seeing, but you will still be able to follow the story.

text by Veronika Jakab

The advanced workshop that has embellished the Venice International Film Festival since 2012 sets a new path this year with its first edition of a virtual realitythemed programme.

The goal remains the same: through a series of workshops and trainings, talented teams consisting of producers and directors from all over the world get the opportunity to cover the entire spectrum of film development, production, direction and distribution.

The virtual reality edition, however, will set itself apart from previous editions of Biennale College by the very nature of its theme: VR technology is, without a doubt, one of the most innovative and exciting technologies today. Head of Programme Savine Neirotti believes virtual reality is the way forward for filmmaking and storytelling: “VR must be explored by creatives and storytellers alike, because it will definitively invade our lives. And storytelling needs to be part of everybody’s lives! It challenges you to think immersively.

It challenges you to rethink the way stories are told.”

projects. The programme is looking for applicants with a diverse professional background and experience: “We welcome people who come from other fields but are determined to try VR and have an interesting and challenging project. There will be a series of trainers, both from the technological and the content sides, to help them through.

In general, we need people who are committed, have experience with images and visuals and are of course passionate about VR.” As part of the programme, Biennale College aims to financially support the production of up to three VR projects with ¤30,000 each, so that they can be premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in early September 2017.

The programme consists of three phases and will kick off with a seven-day workshop to be held in Amsterdam, where the selected project teams will fully develop their projects from all perspectives.

Following a selection round, the remaining teams will be invited to a second workshop to focus on the production of the selected projects and, over a three-month period, will proceed to produce and complete their projects.

The event culminates in the participation of all project teams at the Venice Production Bridge from 31 August to 2 September, where the completed VR works and other developed projects will be exhibited at the Gap Financing Market.

With the support of 12 experts from the world of production, direction and story-development, the nine selected producer-director teams will work on the development of 10-20 minute long VR The Biennale College Cinema – Virtual Reality, realised with the support of Creative Europe – Support for Training, will be collaborating with the Netherlands Film Fund and the TorinoFilmLab. For detailed information on important dates and venues, as well as the timeline, visit: http://college2016.ogilvy.it/en/ college-cinema-vr/

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illustrations by Zsófia Szemző

SAME STRUCTURE, DIFFERENT PATH: BIENNALE COLLEGE CINEMA’S VIRTUAL REALITY EDITION

The Train Arrives Yet Again – OR THE DANGERS AND POSSIBILITIES OF VR IN CINEMA text by Péter Lichter translated by Gábor Roboz

The cutting-edge cinematic technology of the past few years, virtual reality (VR), attempts to reform the art of film and put it on a completely new track based on two highfalutin catchphrases: presence and interactivity. What makes this situation ironic is the fact that in the history of film, every decade has brought one or two technological developments trying to improve the spectators’ experience based on these very phrases.

Still, cinema has essentially remained in its original form dating back around 110 years, and we can assume that VR will not be able to change it that much.

The reports of the very first screenings are surprisingly similar to those of VR: they emphasise the incredible realism, the shockingly direct nature of the moving image. The passionate reactions the first Lumiere reels provoked proved that the new medium, even in its primitive form, could impress the audience in a truly visceral way. The train rushing next to the camera generated extreme reactions from the audience of the Grand Café in Paris, not unlike to those from viewers who put VR headsets on for the first time: seeing an image moving and witnessing virtual reality enclosing around us are the two points of the same spectrum.

However, the gap between the moving image and VR is much smaller than we would initially think.

The development of the art of film has always been driven by the direct nature of the medium; its aim to provoke a more and more intense emotional reaction from the audience. The appearance of sound, coloured film, and the first experiments with 3D in the 1950s all struggled to develop the attraction of primitive cinema. The most wonderful reaction an audience can produce for a horror-director is fainting: it is no wonder that William Friedkin was merrily rubbing his hands upon hearing that dozens of unsuspecting viewers blacked out at certain screenings of The Exorcist.

The development of the language of film has almost always adapted to the audience’s need for experience and realism, albeit in small steps. After the appearance of sound, the possibility for setting up long shots and playing with the depth of field opened up, and the first great master of these techniques became Orson Welles: the director of Citizen Kane succeeded in creating the illusion of viewer participation with his long shots. In contemporary cinema, this directorial technique has become quite popular when working on action scenes: for instance, in Hard-Boiled, John Woo’s ingenious

The concept most often mentioned when talking about VR is interactivity, meaning that the viewer can have a tremendous influence on the narrative and the form of the film itself, that is, the very spectacle they watch. Again, film history offers numerous parallels: if we set aside the obvious interactivity present in video games, we can discover the roots of VR in the B-movies of the fifties. The cheap horror flicks of William Castle were no doubt extraordinary, since the directorproducer always used some gimmick to intensify the viewing experience. For instance, when screening The Tingler, possibly his most famous feature, he transmitted electricity into some seats to scare the audience at certain moments of the film.

What is more, he made a movie where the audience chose the

ending by voting, after which the projectionist put in the appropriate reel. Castle made use of several ideas, which nowadays seem somewhat primitive, to improve the spectators’ experience, struggling to break the viewers off their comfortzone, making them active participants of the film. The filmmaker essentially used the logic of theme parks that underlines visceral experience above everything else. The experiments with VR can open up similar paths: the question is whether filmmakers can venture even further.

The main question at the birth of cinema had been whether this new technology could exceed the initial excitement, whether it could step out of the shadow of its unexpected triumph: that is, whether it could create art from the visceral experience of seeing the arrival of the train. The same question and dilemma can be brought up in the case of VR as well. The most puzzling aspect is rooted precisely in the variability and openness of this technology: if I, as a viewer, can control the flow of images, then I am not a viewer anymore. Art can influence its spectator through control and form: if all this is dissolved in the interactive nature of VR, then what we get are not stories but actions. Imagine the VR version of a Hitchcock film: how can suspense work when the distribution of information is not done by the director but by the viewer?

This may be the most vulnerable feature of this new medium: the tendency that stories dissolve in attractions would have a disappointing consequence, as if the art of film has never outgrown the astonishment concerning those one-reel moving images.

The most exciting challenge for VR will be to find its own Griffith and Eisenstein. Otherwise we will still have to gaze in wonder at the arrival of the train.

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illustrations by Zsófia Szemző

cop-movie shot in 1992, we follow the participants of a shoot-out for several minutes. Recalling recent features, one might think of the movies shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, widely considered as one of the world’s leading cinematographers: Gravity and The Revenant are prime examples of his work. The reason why these movies are so effective lies in the meticulously constructed long shots: this form heightens the illusion of viewer presence to the extreme. One of the most often discussed scenes in Lubezki’s body of work can be found in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, where the camera looks around in such an airy fashion like a VR spectator marvelling at the virtual space.

The effect this inventive scene has on the viewer cannot be separated from the way it was directed, which gives us an opportunity to consider the most sensitive difference between VR and film.

Sucked Into the Screen 10 Essential Virtual Reality Films text by Bence Kránicz

Some say virtual reality is a natural enemy of cinema. At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Steven Spielberg warned that directors might find themselves unnecessary in the VR world; if viewers have the option to freely discover a screened image, there’s no need for a storyteller to point them in the right direction.

Other filmmakers, the Oscar-winning Alejandro González Iñárritu or Hungarian director György Pálfi among them, don’t shy away from experimenting with VR, as the technology itself has become more easily accessible to wider audiences.

But virtual realities have long since been a part of the genre map, especially in science fiction, frequently questioning the relations between different layers of reality. Let’s look at ten noteworthy films that explored various virtual realities.

Tron

Last Year at Marienbad Strange Days

Matrix Avatar

Avalon

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Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Films of modernist European cinema are rarely mentioned when talking about virtual reality, but Alain Resnais’s haunting masterpiece might be considered as one of the earliest films about private worlds which seem real and feel real, but things just don’t work quite as they should. For example, no one can leave the hotel in Marienbad, everyone is doomed to drink champagne and chat in lavish dresses until the end of time. Also, there’s a creepy guy telling the heroine she promised to run away with him. When was that? We’ll never know, because time stopped – we are in hell, or a virtual reality, or a French film from the 1950s.

Tron (1982) The 1980s witnessed a rise in popularity of computer games. Hollywood, concerned that it might lose audiences to this new medium, quickly produced a cautionary tale about the dangers of gaming. Enter Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the hotshot game designer, who gets immersed into his own program, and has to fight for his life in a gladiator arena. The geometrical design of the cyberspace is hugely influential, and still looks cool, no matter the 35 years since the film’s premiere.

Strange Days (1995) James Cameron wrote and Kathryn Bigelow directed one of the emblematic films of the Y2K panic, which offers one of the more creative and shockingly cruel on-screen death scenes of the decade: a young girl is raped and murdered as she wears a VR lense, where she watches herself dying. It’s up to a shaggy-haired Ralph Fiennes to solve the crime.

Matrix (1999) The VR film that even your grandparents have seen. Matrix popularized the concept of virtual reality, supplied a new dress code for techno parties, and made Keanu Reeves the biggest star of the millennium. The

Robin Wright. As identities are dissolved in the digital world, Robin finds it almost impossible to find her son she hasn’t seen for ages. And “ages” really do mean a lot in Folman’s disturbing and heartbreaking work.

Avalon (2001) A painfully underseen film by Mamoru Oshii, the director of Ghost in the Shell, Avalon depicts an unnamed Central European society, in which fighting in a virtual reality game is not a pastime: it’s a day job. Oshii’s sepia-toned, weird sci-fi thriller is among the most exciting stories to deal with the topic of constructing new identities in postcommunist Europe, where a part of history simply vanished, like dead people in a video game.

The Call Up / Creative Control / Assassin’s Creed (2016) Last year saw a tidal wave of VR movies.

Our three titles represent different approaches to the sub-genre, ranging from mainstream, big-budget Hollywood movies to clever arthouse pieces. Michael Fassbender helmed the feature adapted from the blockbuster video game series, but Assassin’s Creed, which takes back the protagonist of the future to the era of the Spanish Inquisition, failed to appeal to wide audiences.

Avatar (2009) One man’s virtual reality is another man’s home. This might be the summary of James Cameron’s epic sci-fi, financially the most successful film of all time. The visionary director not only used the latest 3D technology, he also redefined how audiences feel in cinemas: like mesmerized and vulnerable people, who, while watching a movie, find themselves running wildly and freely in a rainforest full of secrets.

At least this is what the wheelchairbound protagonist experiences using VR technology. It’s no surprise he doesn’t want to come back to his home world.

The Congress (2013) What should an aging actress do if she doesn’t get good roles anymore but desperately needs the money? In Ari Folman’s beautiful, philosophical halfanimated, half live action film, Robin Wright allows her body to be scanned by a film studio, in order that her digital image might be used in films for all eternity.

Soon all wealthy people willingly move to VR heaven, where old age is no longer a looming proximity, and they can look like anyone – and many want to look like

Meanwhile two British sci-fis, The Call Up and Creative Control attempted to break out from the low-budget ghetto using the VR gimmick. Both stories – about video game fans taking fight to the next level, and a corporate slave envisioning a more passionate life – show that VR will continue to inspire filmmakers as long as virtual realities don’t replace fiction altogether.

And what of the future? Surely, as Super Mario Maker and Minecraft allow young gamers to design their own games, future VR films will cross the film maker / viewer divide to produce a whole new interactive cinematic experience.

The Congress

Creative Control

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illustration by Zsófia Szemző

paranoid outline, that humans are secretly controlled by and used to fuel intelligent machines, resonated well with viewers whose everyday lives had become, by 1999, largely dominated by contact with computers, television and mobile phones.

VR LEARNINGS FROM TRIAL AND ERROR

4

Don’t run before you can walk. As

text by Michel Reilhac

So… here we are…VR is the new platform everyone is talking about, right? Some loathe it, some praise it… the usual with something new.

And it is still very new indeed. 2016 was probably the year of its birth in terms of public awareness. Not a fully fledged market as of yet, and certainly not an audience driven media yet either… But something that is expected to be highly disruptive for those of us working in media and potentially to all of us.

We will see what comes of VR in the coming months and years. But in the meantime there are a few things I have already learned about VR. This is my very personal list:

ATTITUDE

1 2

3

Don’t brag. Bragging about how great VR is can only trigger antagonism.

Be realistic. VR is a new platform with fascinating possibilities and exciting future development potential. But it is not perfect and will never be. Don’t get overexcited.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

One can always be afraid of what is new and untested. But riding the wave of the future is far more exciting, creative and productive than hiding in a corner, fearful that something bad might happen.

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6

fast evolving as technology might be, it will take time for its potential to match our fantasized vision of how effective and comfortable it should be. VR is only just beginning…

Be patient and accept that trial and error is an essential part of the journey.

Don’t think that VR is going to kill everything else. Like every other medium before it (TV, video, internet did not kill cinema), VR is going to find its own place in the expansive range of story-based media.

Enjoy the ride. How often in one’s lifetime will you get a chance to contribute to invent a new creative language, a new artform (maybe…)? Now is the time, when VR is inventing itself and you can be an active part of it, creating new functions and experiences. This is an opportunity not to be missed, helping to shape its future.

APPLICATION Storytelling is the foundation. Yes VR is an experiential medium. It immerses the viewer like never before. But it remains a story based medium. And as such, the story rules. VR is just a new vehicle for our never-ending hunger for emotions, our desire to create new mysteries and adventures, our quest for a shared sense of community. VR will not thrive without vivid stories that captivate the viewer.

2

3

4

Some of what we have learned in a century of cinema also applies to VR. A filmmaker can transition to VR without having to forget everything they have learnt before or losing his/ her soul.

term. Your viewer will want to seek out new discoveries, options and avenues each time they watch the piece.

6

We need to learn how to design interaction into narration.

Interactivity in so many ways is already the new frontier in VR. Game designers have a lot to teach us. And they in their turn can learn from us storytellers how to deepen the emotional and psychological dimensions of what they do. Story and expanded game dynamics will be blending more and more through VR.

VR can help us appreciate the real world more. The same way that we still just love reading printed books, listen to music on vinyl records, wear vintage clothes… VR is going to heighten our perception of valued authenticity of what we can experience physically: friendship, good food, real trips, swimming, cuddling… It can give us a taste of the amazing things the world has to offer and encourage us to then go out and experience those things for real.

7

Presence design is key in conceiving VR stories. Since the viewer is present in the heart of the action, who is he/ she? Designing “who” is here is a brand new challenge for VR authors. And subjective point of view (POV) can be a total trap in thinking that it is the answer.

Disobeying the laws of physics is

5

a huge new creative avenue for designing unusual experiences. In VR we can play with weight, gravity, physical constraints, geography, without losing the immersive nature of the experience.

It is OK to let go of your inner control freak. The agency that VR offers your viewer contradicts the tradition of the almighty decisionmaking of the director. Embracing the fact that your audience can look away from the peak scene you have been striving to build is a form of letting go. We need to learn this in an almost psychoanalytical sense of the

8

VR applied to social networks is going to be our next learning curve.

When Facebook launches its VR platform some time in 2017 this will most probably accelerate wider adoption of VR and widespread acquisition of VR headsets. The question is not whether it will happen but how fast it will happen.

So here we are, learning from our mistakes and improving all the time.

This is only beginning…

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illustrations by Zsófia Szemző

1

CALL FOR ENTRY 2018

1 SEPTEMBER – 1 NOVEMBER 2017 FiLMFEST-DRESDEN.DE  TwiTTER #FFDD17  FACEBOOk.COM/DRESDEN.FiLMFEST

FLOW WITH FILM: illustration by Zsófia Szemző

FESTIVALS, SHORTS, AND FIRST FEATURES

In this issue, we present two festivals that offer a lot to emerging filmmakers: everyone who is interested in short films should check out Go Short and Žubroffka!

In this section, you will also find our ever-useful festival panorama and workshop agenda, and a report on the making of a short film: World of Young Cinema followed up with one of our Pitch Page participants from two years ago and found that the film has since been realised. Turn the page to read the story!

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From the Film Idea to the Festival Circuit THE LIFE OF PITCH PAGE PARTICIPANT BROKE interview by WOYC

A dark and chilling story set in a Scandinavian suburb. With the financial crisis as the backdrop, the story unfolds when a teenager’s millionaire father is declared bankrupt, causing the family unit to collapse. Rumours concerning the father make the school day a painful struggle and the privileged status is therefore challenged. The short film Broke, part of the 2015 Daazo Pitch Page has reached production and will premiere in 2017.

Norwegian director and producer Bjørn Erik Pihlmann Sørensen was picked for our previous two Pitch Page competitions for the Berlinale issue. His feature project, The Southerner, presented last year is currently in development. Broke is the second film in a coming-of-age short film

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trilogy, while the first, Reckless, premiered in 2013.

We asked Bjørn if he could tell us how the film made its way through production and how he approaches his film projects.

“The most challenging task when I made this short was the casting process. Most of the characters are young; you can’t just look them up in an archive, you have to go out and find them. My approach was

presenting the project in social media and putting out ads to get in touch with talented young people. They were asked to sign up and post their own online audition video. By doing so I was able to scan through a lot of people in a short amount of time and then contact those who might fit the part for an audition.

This was crucial and determined whether the film could go into production or not.

“Financially, the project reached just one third of the needed budget, ¤150 000, which was mostly supported by regional funding in Norway. Despite the lack of money, my network of filmmakers who contributed to the project has indisputably ensured the production value and the possibility of reaching my vision for the film. One of Norway’s largest post-production houses, Hocus Focus, became key to finishing the film by entering the production as its associated producer.

“Shooting such an ambitious script on such a low budget is demanding. We had a cast of fifteen actors as well as many extras for some scenes. I had to shoot some of the bigger scenes with two cameras to ensure coverage, and within the space of seven days we managed to shoot a total of thirteen hours of material. We even got snow.

As the story was written for a Norwegian winter landscape, it luckily snowed massively on the first day of shooting after several weeks without any at all.

“Long-term writer-colleague Einar Sverdrup and I also teach a Norwegian film course together for young filmmakers. I love being part of a vibrant and young environment, and believe this nourishes my creativity. The possibility of meeting every day as colleagues makes us very privileged as a writer and a director. This has been a very important part of developing the language of our stories, of how we approach new ideas and of the knowledge of each other’s mindset. This has resulted in numerous shorts and feature-length projects, as well as TV series. Our feature project The Southerner, which has found interest in producers both in Norway and abroad, was selected for the Pitch Page in the Berlinale issue of WOYC last year. I believe this has been an important way to build international relations. We hope to reach our goal of starting production in the near future. But first of all, Broke has to be launched and we aim for major festivals, despite its running time of a mere 35 minutes.”

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FESTIVALS IN FOCUS World of Young Cinema introduces two European short film festivals: the groovy Go Short in Nijmegen, which has become an Oscarqualifying festival this year, and the wonderfully atmospheric Žubroffka Short Film Festival with its everexpanding programme.

Go Short The Go Short International Short Film Festival is the main Dutch festival for short film. It is organised on a yearly basis in the city of Nijmegen, and this year’s edition will take place between 5th and 9th of April. Each year Go Short screens over 300 short films of up to 30 minutes and in all genres.

The competition programmes are the backbone of the Go Short festival, where an independent international jury awards the winners from a carefully picked, high-quality selection of European productions. Go Short also organises an extensive programme of talks, workshops, seminars, masterclasses, drinks and parties during the festival for all accredited guests, including the annually recurring Industry Day. Each year Go Short provides a unique and much-needed platform for established filmmakers as well as emerging talents.

It also turns Nijmegen into a bustling meeting place for professionals and around 20 000 visitors.

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The Go Short foundation aims to contribute to deepening and expanding the culture of short film, both nationally and internationally, by means of organising an annual international film festival for short films.

BACKGROUND AND MISSION

Since the rise of cinema in the early 20th century, short films have been the chosen form of expression for aspiring filmmakers and an important way for more established artists to showcase their skills. For decades, short film has taken the lead in narrative, technical and productional innovation. Short film also plays a leading role in the development of new ways of screening and distribution.

Nowadays an increasingly wide range of creatives use this form of art. This rise in popularity is due to the global development of digitisation and to the democratisation of media. The growing presence of media in our daily life has led to a rise in the production of short films.

Short film plays a significant role in the development of talent, education and the film industry. This role only becomes more important as digital and online distribution keeps on growing. Short film contributes to the developing content in fiction, documentaries, animation and art movies. It therefore makes the film industry more dynamic.

The large amount of short films on the internet is an indication of the increasing interest in this form of expression. At the same time, this abundance makes it hard to keep track of new and interesting developments. That’s why Go Short, as the main short film festival of the Netherlands, has chosen to adopt the role of gatekeeper.

CAMPUS

The world of short films is full of talent and is a great place to learn. Go Short discovers, connects and involves these talents. Professional recognition and informal encounters are brought together at the festival. Each year the Go Short Campus offers young talent support, knowledge and connections.

This recognition is a very important step for the festival (already a Baftarecognised festival) and for the Dutch film industry. It offers great international opportunities for European and Dutch filmmakers and producers. The winning films at Go Short 2017 will be the first shorts to get a place on the longlist for the Oscars® of 2018.

FIRST ENCOUNTERS

The Student Competition is an ideal place to introduce new filmmakers to the world. These first encounters keep Go Short interesting and innovative for both international and Dutch film professionals who visit the festival, which makes it the place to be to discover new talent.

OSCAR-QUALIFYING FESTIVAL

Go Short 2017 has become the first and only film festival in the Netherlands to be recognised as an Oscar-qualifying festival. This means that the winners of a Go Short Award for animation or fiction in the Dutch and European competitions immediately earn a place on the longlist of the Academy Awards®.

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS OF GO SHORT 2017 • Competitions: European, Dutch and Breaking Shorts Student • Country in focus: Spain • Director in focus: Jonas Odell (Sweden) • Theme in focus: Travelling • Special guest: Ali Asgari & Farnoosh Samadi

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Žubroffka The Žubroffka Short Film Festival has entered its second decade. While it keeps growing, the vibe and easy-going atmosphere – which makes this festival so special – have stayed the same. The festival is held annually in Białystok, the capital of the Podlasie region in Poland. For For 5 days the hometown of Dziga Vertov, the European bison and the infamous vodka Žubrówka becomes a hotspot for short film lovers.

The festival had just received financial support from the Polish Film Institute for the first time, enabling organisers to invite a record number of filmmakers and industry representatives. Over 150 accredited guests from more than 20 countries attended the rich programme that consisted of over 300 short films and attracted over 8,000 spectators.

Jury members – award-winning Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari, Lithuanian director Andrius Blazevicius, Hungarian animator Luca Tóth, New Zealand journalist Carmen Gray and Polish festival programmer Joanna Łapin´ska – awarded the Grand Prix to Zofia Kowalewska’s Close Ties, which also won a Wild Bison Audience Award and was shortlisted for the 89th Academy Awards.

The Grand Prix winner was selected out of five competitions: Eastward Window (films from post-Soviet countries), Whole Wide World (showcasing international shorts from the rest of the World) and three Polish competitions: Students, Independents and Amateurs. Žubroffka introduced a new competition this year called On The Edge and is dedicated to experimental films and video art. The jury members – Daniel Ebner, Monika Żmijewska and Jakub Socha – granted the prize to the SpanishArgentinian production by Florencia Aliberti entitled (Auto)exposicions.

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Non-competitive sidebar programmes created by Žubroffka’s organisers and guest curators were eclectic and packed.

On the first day there was a selection of animated documentaries screened at the location of a former power plant as well as various Czech and Slovakian experimental documentaries. It was also the occasion for one of the audience’s favourite programmes, Midnight Shorts, which landed at Žubroffka for the fifth time, showcasing gore and genre films inspired by cult movies and B-class cinema. Other sections included programmes of shorts from Armenia, Belarus, Iran, the Indian subcontinent and Quebec. For the second time Žubroffka also presented a special programme called Eastern Women, which is a selection of shorts directed by Eastern European female directors followed by a discussion with filmmakers on women in cinema, particularly in post-Soviet countries. Another interesting panel discussion was “Spotlight on shorts: promoting shorts in media”, which was about creating buzz and hitting the media’s headlines with short films. It was held by journalists from France, Serbia, England and Slovakia who are specialised in the short film format. Apart from panels, the festival organised various filmmaking workshops for people of all ages (where some seniors created a very special dystopian short film) to make a short film in five days to be screened at the festival’s award ceremony.

The days were long and the nights were pretty short. The Podlasie region is also quite well known for being the coldest part of Poland, so organising a film festival in the coldest month of the year and a 3-hour drive away from Warsaw sounds like a pretty bad pitch, but it is worth every minute of the ride. Žubroffka might be one little gem where you cannot only do professional networking, but you can also make new friends during an unexpected ping pong tournament!

WORKSHOP AGENDA – SCREENWRITING text by Veronika Jakab

Are you full of great movie ideas but don’t have the faintest clue of how to put them into a screenplay? Or have you already tackled the initial challenges of scriptwriting and are now looking for opportunities to improve your skills? If your answer to either of these questions is a sound YES, then browse through our screenwriting workshop and masterclass suggestions. Expand your horizons, meet great minds and write your own story – these courses offer you all that and much more!

New York Film Academy – Intensive 8-week screenwriting workshop If you have little or no screenwriting experience but are eager to learn and ready to absorb it all in one of the movie-making capitals of the world, NYFA’s courses might be ideal for you! You’ll get a unique chance to learn the tricks of the trade and develop your very own feature-length screenplay.

EICAR summer school – Writing a short Participants of EICAR’s two-week workshop in Paris will learn storytelling and scriptwriting from scratch. With a series of pitch sessions, round-table formats and one-on-one tutoring, this course will provide insight on the difference between short and feature scriptwriting methods and help you write your short film script or feature film treatment.

ScripTeast If you have already written a script and need to give it a boost, this project-based training programme held in Poland might be the one for you! The 7-day workshop, accompanied by online follow-up sessions, is designed specifically for scriptwriters from Eastern and Central Europe. It doesn’t just aim to make scripts better, it also helps you promote your project in cooperation with the network of ACE producers and the Producers Network.

http://www.eicar-international.com/film-schooleicar-summer-workshops.php Participation fee: ¤950 Deadline: on a first-come, first-served basis

London Film Academy – Screenwriting Foundation This London-based workshop introduces aspiring writers to the fundamentals of screenwriting, from character-driven storytelling to presenting and pitching your idea. By the end of the two-week course you will have completed a short film screenplay and gained in-depth knowledge and understanding of screenwriting. http://www.londonfilmacademy.com/courses/ screenwriting-foundation.asp Participation fee: £895 Deadline: depends on selected course date

https://www.nyfa.edu/screenwritingschool/8week.php Participation fee: depends on selected course Deadline: depends on selected course date

http://scripteast.pl/ Participation fee: selected applicant’s fee is covered by the workshop Deadline: 31 July 2017

MIDPOINT feature launch If you are a young and emerging screenwriter with a first or second feature film project, MIDPOINT’s professional script development programme can provide you with extensive support in the form of in-depth consultations, masterclasses by renowned filmmakers and international collaboration and networking opportunities. http://www.midpoint-center.eu/programs/56midpoint-feature-launch-2017 Participation fee: ¤1,000 Deadline: depends on the selected workshop date

Online masterclasses and courses Interested in screenwriting but don’t have the time to participate in workshops abroad?

Check out these fine and budget-friendly masterclasses available online and you can learn from the industry’s key figures without having to leave the comfort of your home.

BAFTA screenwriters free lecture series: http://guru.bafta.org/features/screenwriters-lecture-series MASTERCLASS – Aaron Sorkin teaches screenwriting: https://www.masterclass.com/classes/aaron-sorkin-teaches-screenwriting/enrolled Screenwriting masterclass with Tom Benedek and Scott Myers: http://screenwritingmasterclass.com/ Screenwriters University: https://www.screenwritersuniversity.com/

FESTIVAL PANORAMA text by Zsófia Herczeg

Short is the best form of filmmaking, as it offers opportunities to the directors, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers and basically to the whole crew to experiment with different kinds of ideas without a high degree of risk.

In addition, it provides them excellent experience in shooting, financing, producing and distributing a film without the high-octane pressure that a full feature-length feature film can generate. A short can be the hallway for a feature film, it can be an insight to the director’s style and can even grow up to be a feature one day. Every director begins with a short, some of them stay with it, but most of them dream about a full length movie. For them, as in previous years, we collected some festivals that focus on new filmmakers and their first or second feature films, which could help them with distribution.

Festival

Submission deadline

Date

Entry fee

Special first feature

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

February 28, 2017

June 30 – July 8, 2017

¤50

East of the West – Competition

BFI London Film Festival

around end of May, 2017

in October, 2017

£45

First Feature Competition – the Sutherland Award

Locarno Film Festival

early February, 2017

August 2–12, 2017

100 CHF

Concorso internazionale, the Concorso Cineasti del presente, the Piazza Grande sections

Cyprus International Film Festival

February 10, 2017

Jun 10–18, 2017

$75

Golden Aphrodite Award

Montreal Film Festival

around July, 2017

August 24 – September 4, 2017

120 CAD$

First Films World Competition

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Submission deadline

Date

Entry fee

Special first feature

San Sebastian International Film Festival

July 16, 2017

September 22–30, 2017

¤70

New Directors

Warsaw Film Festival

around July, 2017

October 13–22, 2017

¤10–20

Competition 1-2 – for directors' first and second feature films

Art Film Fest Kosice

end of March, 2017

June 16–24, 2017

–

-

Emden Norderney Film Festival

March 18, 2017

June 7–14, 2017

-

-

The Quarantine Film Festival

February 10, 2017

Summer of 2017

-

-

Animator*

February 20, 2017

July 7–13, 2017

-

-

Anim’est*

around June, 2017

October 6–15, 2017

-

-

Zlín Film Festival

March 10, 2017

May 26 – June 3, 2017

-

International competition of feature films for children, for youth and for European first feature

Reykjavik International Film Festival

around April, 2017

September 29 – October 9, 2017

-

New Visions competition

St. Petersburg International Festival of Debut and Student Films Beginning

early July, 2017

in November, 2017

-

First Feature Film Competition

Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival

April 17

August 24–27, 2017

$60

-

Festival Premiers Plans D'Angers

end of October, 2017

In January, 2018

-

European First Feature Films, French Feature Films

Film Festival Cottbus – Festival of East European Cinema

early August, 2017

November 7–12, 2017

-

-

* Oscar qualifying film festival

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illustration by Zsófia Szemző

Festival

WORLD OF YOUNG CINEMA (formerly: World of Shorts) Publisher: Dániel Deák danieldeak@daazo.com Editor in chief: Zsuzsanna Deák zsuzsanna.deak@daazo.com Art director and graphic design: Zoltán Bukovics Daazo graphic design: Zoltán Bukovics Founding designer of the magazine: Cristina Grosan World of Young Cinema authors: Zsófi Herczeg, Veronika Jakab, Janka Pozsonyi Contributors: Bori Bujdoso, Cristina Grosan, Bence Kranicz, Peter Lichter, Janka Pozsonyi, Michel Reilhac Thanks: Laura Brown, Rosalie Callway, Judit Fischer, Maike Mia Höhne, Malte Mau, Sarah Schlüssel, Christine Tröstrum, Anika Väth, Florian Weghorn Cover image: Zsófia Szemző Photographs: George Fok, Maike Mia Höhne, Konstanze Habermann, Peter Himsel, Dean Hutton, Heidi Hanna Karhu, Ludwig Nikulski Illustrations by: Zsófia Szemző | http://zsofiaszemzo.com You can also find this magazine online at: http://issuu.com/daazo/docs/berlinale2017 World of Young Cinema magazine is published by Daazo Film and Media Ltd. Published in Hungary, Feb 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is forbidden save with the written permission of the publishers. www.daazo.com I info@daazo.com

ISSN 2064-2105 (Online) – ISSN 2064-2113 (Print) Daazo.com – the European Shortfilm Centre is supported by the MEDIA programme of the EU. This material does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the EU. This magazine was printed on recycled paper.

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N.b. b.s.

Not better, but shorter.

21st Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur The Short Film Festival of Switzerland 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;12 November 2017, kurzfilmtage.ch Submission Deadline: 16 July 2017 Main Sponsor

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