Mas y Mas August 2011

mรกs ymรกs

monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

AUG11

Nisimasians Have Talents conversation:

Govinda Van Maele

report:

Cover image from Hello Wood Festival

Polyglot Training Kosovo Festival TV Linz

editorial Outside the Frame During its first 10 years NISI MASA initiated, developed and executed many projects that on the first glance looked unlikely to succeed. Did you ever think it was possible to form three groups of young filmmakers, put them on the train in different corners of Europe and expect them to reach the same destination in a month, while making short documentaries along their way?

Ta-dah: the Istanbul Express arrived on its destination with 15 interesting films!

The same goes for various workshops that give an opportunity to young cinema enthusiasts to visit international festivals, see new and exciting films and discuss them with people who share their passion for the Sevent Art. Of course, none of this would be possible without the creativity and devotion of the people engaged in the projects. For them NISI MASA has turned out to be a great platform for putting their talents into use.

Detail from Communication Training Kosovo (photo by Haruna Honcoopová)

However, many Nisimasians use their skills to initiate projects of their own. A lot of them are related to film: working on festivals, writing articles for various media, editing and publishing their own magazine(s), initiating projects that raise the level of film culture in their own community and finally - filmmaking. But if we step outside the domain of cinema, the situation becomes even more interesting. One can find many individuals engaged with music, theater and performing arts, even social activism and human rights.

Therefore, we decided to devote this Mas y Mas issue to special Nisimasians' accomplishments that were achieved outside of the NISI MASA's framework, especially the ones with genre-bending and/or audacious concept behind them. Hopefully you will find them interesting and inspiring! Because sometimes you get inspired most when you look outside the frame.

By Mario Kozina

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordination and Layout Mario Kozina

Contributors to this issue: Haruna Honcoopová, Hetta Huhtamäki, Mario Kozina, Matthias Lindenthal, Julien Pearly

NISI MASA (European Office) 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010, Paris, France Tel/Fax: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com

credits.

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Nisimasians Have Talents

introduction

dossier

Here it is: harvest of daring and inspiring Nisimasian's projects that were done outside of NISI MASA's network. Some of them are genre-bending festivals and workshops important for the local community. There is even a festival with a concept that rises like a middle finger to the complacent criteria of other festivals. And we didn't forget first features, a decisive point in a career of a filmmaker.

Don't Knock On the Wood Hello Wood Festival & film workshop in Hungary Last year Hello Wood launched its first edition in Hungarian village Csorompuszta near the Balaton Lake. It was thought of as an one week wood design workshop for studens in architecture, but this year it considerably grew. The original concept was expanded with two more workshops not strictly related to wood, one of them devoted to typography and the other to film. The latter was organized by two Cinetrain 2008 participants: Hungarian film director Denés Nagy and Russian cinematographer Natasha Pavlovskaya. The workshop had three tutors, experienced film directors, who worked with three student film crews. Each crew had a director, a cinematographer and an actor. The crews were given an outline for the story and characters, and they had one week to develop it, find additional actors and shooting locations in the nearby village. However, pitoresque scenery of Hungarian countryside wasn't just an attractive peace of art-direction: its spirit of improvisation, experimenting and finding original and practical solutions fuelled the creative process of filmmaking.

The film and video workshop has more local value than you would expect. Natasha explains: It's a workshop designed for Hungarian students. Hungary is a small country with a very small and closed film industry. A lot of students, especially actors, don't have the chance to stand in front of the camera until very late during their studies. This kind of workshop enables them to gain some practical experience in filmmaking and to connect with other interesting people from the industry by working together intensively during a week.

Considering the progress the festival made in one year, knocking on wood won't be necessary. Instead, check out the films on Vimeo.

by Mario Kozina Official site of the festival: www.hellowood.eu Vimeo site: www.vimeo.com/26907639

The Future Is Random First two editions of Random Film Festival How many times did you find yourself in this situation: you are sitting in a cinema during the festival, watching a horrible film and thinking how did this waste of celluloid, time and money get selected to cempete in the official program? It happens more often then anyone would prefer, and even if we put personal tastes and preferences aside, everybody knows at least one back story of questionable criteria that some of the festival programers choose to select their films with. The rumour has it that some of them don't even pre-watch the films they select.

Keeping this in mind, imagine a festival whose art directors have the following agenda: „You don't have to send a DVD-screener of your film. We are not going to watch it, anyway.“ Sounds like a joke? Well, it's not. Actually, its one of the more original events that sprouted on the recent festival scene, and like all great ideas, this one came around quite spontaneously.

It was over breakfast when Hannaleena Hauru and Synes Elischka commented on the way that international short film festival network functions, and decided to organize the festival

whose competition will be selected – randomly. Not only the competing films, but everything about the festival is random: the time, the place, the venues, and even the random selection methods themselves. This way the festival already had two editions in Germany and Poland, while the third one is being prepared for March 2012 in Estonia.

Randomness enables the same opportunities for everybody: no calculation on the director's pedigree or the reputation the film got on the other festivals, no sucking up to European funds or corporative sponsors. The only thing that can get you in the main selection is quite simply – luck! While charmingly subverting the often hypocritical criteria of established institutions, Random Film Festival proposes a question about the hidden order beneath the things. Maybe we don't know it yet, but what if inpredictability of randomness is actually an order we still haven't recognized?

by Mario Kozina Official site: www.randomfilmfest.com

dossier

Nisimasians Have Talents

4

Breaking News Control N gets a national grant to direct their first feature

By Ian Boyle 2008

Breathe with Creativity!

Julien Pearly writes about his inspiration for organising the first edition of Live Film in Leith Live Film in Leith is a festival event that combines film, music and live performances through screening events, live studios and workshops.

It's all happening in the district in the north part of Edinburgh. The event is a result of years of exploration and search for identity in Scotland and abroad but is also the result of my encounters in cosmopolitan and creative environments.

It started during the MSc Sound Design in 2005 at the University of Edinburgh collaborating with classmates to create a live soundtrack on B&W visuals in front of an audience and in the conception of my album The Changing Man. Since then I have built an international network of talented people from singer songwriters to filmmakers, with a passion for discoveries and travelling. Pundigrion Films was a natural step in applying musicality and poetry techniques to music video and documentary filmmaking, using my background as a guide throughout a practical learning. During a year my energy went towards Workers In Song, a film music project with the aim to document and promote local bands through chapters in songs and short contents.

Links: Live Film in Leith: www.livefilminleith.co.uk Pundigrion Films: www.pundigrionfilms.blogspot.com

The funding is not enough to make the whole movie, but it is a very important start. Iulia explains: It is easy to find coproducers or apply for funding when you already have the support of your own country’s cinema fund. Together with our producer, we will try and apply for other supporting grants, maybe even go into co-production.

Iulia will direct the film, while all three of them will be involved in all the aspects of the production, shooting and post production, just like they did in their short films. At the moment, the

cast is still being discussed, but most of the team is already set. Or at least we know exactly who we want to work with, adds Iulia.

After the successes of Romanian cinema on international festival scene, we wandered wether the style and storytelling of their feature will correspond to the aesthetics of so-called Romanian new wave? The story itself may seem to be easily placed in the new wave characteristics, says Iulia, but even if we do appreciate what the more experienced filmmakers before us did, we are planning to have a different approach to the story. We will try to get as close as possible to the human emotions that the story involves. We will keep away from the coldness and realistic observation sometimes seen in other Romanian films, and instead choose a very subjective approach, as we should be dealing with the deepest human emotions.

We keep our fingers crossed that after sorting out the financial prerequisites Breaking News achieves the success as promised by its title.

by Mario Kozina

From left to right: Iulia Rugina, Oana Rasusceanu and Ana Agopian

Professional filmmaker Ray Bird shared the same vision and was the missing element to get my creative ideas into a realistic and structured framework. Having our office in the Leith area allowed us to work with the performing arts festival Leith on the Fringe to put our ideas into the local community and a real infrastructure. As an event Live Film in Leith wants to showcase the local talents and, through innovative presentation, make the audience really connect with filmmaking. As a show, it’s a chance for a film director to become the stage director of his own work, and to bring back to life an old project and passion.

The first feature is an important (if not THE most important) thing for a filmmaker, claims Iulia Rugina, one third of Control N, former NISI MASA member assossiation from Romania devoted to promoting film culture and networking among the local film enthusiasts and talents. Along with her colleagues Ana Agopian and Oana Rasusceanu she wrote a screenplay for a feature film that got the fundung from the Romanian Center of Cinematography. The name of the script is Breaking News, and it tells a story about a breaking news reporter who, for the sake of an exclusive live footage, makes a mistake that gets one of his colleagues killed.

5

Nisimasians Have Talents

dossier interview

GOVINDA VAN MAELE, the director of We Might As Well Fail

After having directed two short films and being a cinematographer for the Austrian feature documentary Muezzin (2009), Luxembourg-born Govinda van Maele decided to make a feature documentary about the rock scene in his country. Never heard of a Luxembourgish rock band? No wonder! We Might as Well Fail (2011) offers an interesting account on the connection between social security and art, giving a new meaning to the term of success.

How come you decided to make it on 16 mm, especially when most of the documentaries today are being made on HD? One very important side to shooting documentary on film is the discipline: you won't have 180 hours of material and spend too much time and energy while editing it. I also believed that shooting on film would fit the project with the distance it creates. Watching film images you feel like watching something that has passed. There's a nostalgia inherent in the film material that video completely destroys. Video communicates «Here! Now! Reality!», while the film is a lot more about the ephemeral, fantastical side of our world, that makes it just right for the documentary form.

I'm not sure if misery produces good music and wealth bad music, but I think that people who grow up in a less secured conditions have a different outlook on life than someone who grows up in a gilded cage such as Luxembourg. There are many, many reasons why art in Luxembourg knows not the success it could have, but it is definately linked to its wealth, which brings with it the fear of taking risks and hypocracy. These things, much more than the wealth itself, lead to boring art.

What about attitude(s) toward filmmaking in Luxembourg: is it different than to that of music?

Very similar. Just that the film industry benefits of generous government subsidies. There was very little filmmaking before they were introduced, because no one wanted their kids to become filmmakers. Now that there's an industry and funding there are more and more people going to film schools. Now that a certain amount of security is in place it has become acceptable. But I believe that our filmmakers have the same demons to exorcice as our musicians. There are many parallels to the music scene, and it's one of the reasons I wanted to make this film. It speaks about Luxembourg's attitude towards art in general.

Your film brings an interesting twist to the story of success, concluding that „failure is something beautiful“ and that „those who don't try cannot fail“.

Is „failure“ a form of rebellion in a well situated society?

Absolutely! Telling your friends and family that you are doing something because you love it, and not because it pays well is a rebellious act in Luxembourg. The fact that even in the underground rock scene it is something hard to come by shows you just how unheard of that is. The only way to protest against the hypocracy of the secured and safe life is to go your own way 100%, especially if it means failure. To do that in a society like Luxembourg it is a gracefull, even a heroic act.

Did you get any feedback on film from critics, professionals, rock fans…?

The film opened on the Luxembourg Film Festival and was subsequently released to cinema. It was programmed for four weeks and had less than 300 entries. That's less people than the numbers of rock musicians in Luxembourg! People don't go to see national films, even less if they're documentaries. It's not a very cinephile country. Also there are very few people who seem to have understood the subject of the film. Most critics didn't see much more than a film on uncomfortably aggresive music. Fortunately though there are some people to whom the film really means something, who feel encouraged to go their own way in life. One person like that is enough to make it worthwhile.

Some of the protagonists of your film speculate on the connection between succussful music/art and social security, claiming that best music comes from the places with „sombre mood“. What is your opinion on this?

By Mario Kozina

news NISIMAZINE DOES berlinale talent campus ORIZZONTI! announcement

NISI MASA has received an exceptional invitation from the Venice Film Festival. During the upcoming 68th festival edition (31st August - 10th September) up to four journalists will have a chance to cover the Orizzonti section, with all the expenses covered by the festival.

The Orizzonti is a part of the official selection and is dedicaed to discovering new and innovative practices, auteurs and trends in contemporary cinema, equally focused on short films and features, expetimental, fiction and documentary. Nisimasians will cover the program daily on www.nisimazine.eu and shortly after the festival is over, a single online magazine will be published.

call for participants

New submissions are accepted for the tenth edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus, which will take place from February 11-16, 2012.

During the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival, 350 talented young filmmakers from all over the world will join the Campus to meet each other and learn from top experts in order to gain experience and connect themselves internationally. The Campus offers a huge variety of different programme elements and the deadline is on October 5, 2011. The focus of the Talent Campus will be on „Changing Perspectives“.

For more info visit: www.berlinale-talentcampus.de

Film journalism workshop kaunas call for participants

Kaunas International Film Festival (Lithuania), an observer member of NISI MASA, is announcing its first film journalism workshop which will take place from 28th of September to the 3rd of October. Ten young European film critics between age of 18 and 25 will be tutored by Boyd van Hoeij, freelance film critic well known for his articles in Variety, Winq, Mate and etc. This workshop will be a preperation for the first Nisimazine workshop to be held at the Kaunas International Film Festival in 2012. The applications will be accepted until the 22nd of August via email to: aiste@kinofestivalis.lt

deadline 22nd of August

Venice film festival: www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/

Cinetrain: russian winter! call for participants

After the success of the first two editions, Cinetrain is again bringing together an international crew of young cinema professionals. This time they will face a new challenge: the Russian Winter! Russian Winter is a unique documentary filmmaking experience that will take place in February 2012 in Russia, on a train trip from Murmansk to Irkutsk. So, if you are an enthusiastic and talented director, cinematographer, editor, sound mixer or a composer – get on board! The deadline for application is 15th of September.

Check out for more info on: www.cinetrain.net

eye of the sky launching a new project

Puglia experience workshop extended deadline

NISI MASA association Cinestesias from Spain, along with associations from Austria, Italy, Finland, and France, initiated a new and interesting audiovisual project named „Eye of the Sky“. Each partner country will have an assignment to do an interpretation of the sky. The different videos will be assembled to form a cadavre exquis. The resulting video will be edited, graded, sound mixed and finally – screened in Madrid. It is interesting to point out that for the occasion a horizontal screening is planned: people will watch it while lying on the ground.

The project will be launched very soon, and the project managers are meeting together at the beginning of October in Madrid.

The third edition of PugliaExperience workshop has extended the deadline for application. It takes place in Italy from October 2nd to October 21st 2011, and is designed for 16 participants from the EU and Mediterranean countries between the age of 18 and 35. The participants will be encouraged to draft and develop the stories inspired by the places, events and people of the region, and finally will have a chance to pitch their projects to international film producers. Also, the Apulia Film Commission will select one of the stories and offer a 10.000 euros contract to develop the screenplay. The workshop will cover all the costs for attending, and will be held in English. The deadline is extended until the 26th of August .

Cinestesias online: www.cinestesias.blogspot.com/

Official site: www.apuliafilmcommission.it/in-english

agenda kino kabaret praha call for participants

Cinetrain film screened at moma Between Dreams, a documentary short by a Finnish director Iris Olssen was chosen for a screening in June at MoMa in New York.

The film was made during the Cinetrain 2008, and is described as a vignette about the dreams of the sleeping passengers in a night-train from Moscow to Vladivostock.

The screening at MoMa was a part of an international tour designed for promoting Finnish documentary films, that was iniciated by Helsinki-based DocPoint festival as a part of its 10th Anniversary celebration.

More information: www.tour.docpoint.info/node/3

Kino Euphoria on Vimeo: www.vimeo.com/groups/kinoeuphoria

Journalism Workshop Kaunas

26 august Closing Applications PugliaExperience

29-31 august

NISI MASA 10th Anniversary 31 august - 10 september

Nisimazine Special: Orizzonti Venice

15 september 15 september Closing Applications Cinetrain: Russian Winter

Apply here: www.kinopraha.cz

Euphoria Borealis, a NISI MASA member organization from Finland, organized the Kino Kabaret worshop in their native country. Kino Euphoria was initiated by Hannaleena Hauru in an authentic Kino Kaberet style, inciting many young filmmakers to test and enhance their knowledge of filmmaking during intense 9 days of shooting. Check out the fruit of their labor on the Kino Euphoria's official Vimeo site.

Closing Applications Kino Kabaret Praha

The first international KINO KABARET PRAHA will be held in the capital of Czech Republic from September 27th to October 2nd, 2011. The event welcomes all enthusiastic filmmakers to join in for six days of fun and creativity. Make short films in three periods of 33 hours! Application deadline is on September 15, 2011.

kino euphoria

22 august

Closing Applications Film

new member at the european office From the 1st of August the European Office of NISI MASA lost some free space, but gained a new member. Mario Kozina, a film critic from Croatia, was a participant of Nisimazine Cannes workshop in 2008, and recently became a NISI MASA intern. His main task will be editing Mas y Mas, your favorite NISI MASA publication, so don't be shy to contact him with your ideas for the content.

POLYGLOT: ON THE WAY TO TURKU

We live in the world of signs. We inhale them like air, and the process of breathing is called communication. Three most recent NISI MASA workshops plunged into the topic with more detail and each time with a different perspective. Can we use the language of film and video to approach the theme of multilingualism? What are the creative and unprofessional ways of using television to make a festival reportage?

How does the NGO sector function in a country traumatized by the experience of war? Find the thoughts on these questions communicated through first-hand experiences!

ON THE WAY TO TURKU...

Polyglot – On the way to Turku was a film competition, workshop and a film festival organized

by NISI MASA and its Finnish member Euphoria Borealis under the umbrella of the Turku European Capital of Culture 2011. The project had 18 winners from the video competition from 12 different European countries. And now we have reached the point where these winners would shoot documentaries about the specific multilingual life on the Swedish speaking Finns in the Turku archipelago.

Our route through the archipelago was Nauvo – Korppoo - Houtskari – Nötö – Utö – Parainen and back to Turku. The groups had very different approaches to the topic of Swedish speaking Finns. After the sunny afternoon on the deck with our artistic tutor Peter Kerekes all of them had more or less a clear idea of what they

Unlike in Nauvo, our headquarters of Polyglot was not on M/S Paloma, where everyone would gather for dinners, editing session and meetings. In Korppoo half of the group stayed in the Röda huset – the red house hostel. We had a whole house to ourselves with a big kitchen, a yard and of course - a sauna, which transformed it into the natural meeting place for the evenings. There we discussed about future: the fortune of everyone’s love lives with each other was told by a card game and we also made two minute plays of how each film is going to look like when we reach Turku. Also, there we created the first and the most memorable b-side summer hit: Sugar Tits!

In Houtskari many of the groups already started editing their material on the terrace of the guest harbour and the evenings were spend with local entertainment. After that we sailed off to our last stop Nötö and Utö where the groups were divided in two. Then it was only a quick one night stop in Parainen and quickly we went back to Turku where we were welcomed by Euphoria Borealis members and the glasses of sparkling wine. What followed were the three days of hard editing and after some

time the six groups proudly presented their works: Drifting (towards) home, Duty –velvollisuus, Destination North, Utöpia, Pikku-Kalle?

Built from Silence/Rakennettu Hiljaisuudesta.

The theme of this workshop was multilingualism and indeed we did learn much about each others: our languages, habits and much more, as we stayed as a quite tight group sharing our beds in the boat “dungeon”. Not everything was perfect in the end on this trip, but as one of the participants said - you remember not to forget.

By Hetta Huhtamäki, project coordinator

Photo by Gautier Dulion

As we set our sails to our first stop Nauvo everything indeed was perfect. All the members had arrived on time and where on board sitting at the deck taking photos and chit chatting and getting to know each other as this was the first time that most of them were face to face with their new Polyglot film team. We had already come across a long road to be at this point from getting the boat M/S Paloma to host us for the following two weeks. We chose the participants through the online video competition and the rest of the time spend on the preproduction and planning of what the six groups will shoot when they arrive to the shores of the Turku Archipelago.

wanted out of their films. And then it was just off and go and shoot! The technical tutor Karri Lehtonen and me (as a coordinator) joined different groups everyday to help with translations and other production matters, especially since our project manager Jude Lister, among her many other tasks, invented several new dishes in the tiny boat kitchen for the crew of 26 people. Hopefully a cookbook will follow!

Photo by Linda Dombrovszky

spotlight

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spotlight

LONG LIVE UNPROFESSIONALISM! Honestly I never considered journalism to be fun. Sounds like work, doesn’t it? I’m driven by the thought that you shouldn’t let something you love turn into work. Do you know those people constantly yakking about professionalism? They make unpleasantness almost sound like the Holy Grail. I mean if you told me that you were a professional housekeeper I’d assume you were getting money for it. But it would not

make the act of cleaning any different from what everybody does at home. Besides, most of us are not making a living of short films. It is our passion. So why acting like it was all serious work? Maybe a short film becomes just another accumulation of economical resources once you put it on your c.v.. Are we ruled by this cold capitalist logic even when we just try to do what we love? Damn!

I end up thinking about how we can shift our focus from the results of our projects to the

way we are working on them together. We drew ideas from the Kino Dynamique, with a basic idea to have a gathering of international video addicts who join to create tons of short movies within 48 hours. The main challenge is comparable to the Festival TV Workshop Linz, organized during Crossing Europe Film Festival with the cooperation between kino5 and NISI MASA. The idea was to form a team of strangers creating a special synergy. To do this successfully, we had to enable that every participant has the room to experiment and to shape his/hers ideas equally with others. Instead of guiding them we gave support when the participants felt they needed it. Why should you ask a highly motivated person for qualification? Even doing a live broadcasts from a TV studio proofs to be easy if you are dedicated. It is your show – we told them and they returned the favor with creativity.

Long live unprofessionalism!

By Matthias Lindenthal, tutor

COMMUNICATION TRAINING KOSOVO

FESTIVAL TV WORKSHOP LINZ

9

GEEKING IN KOSOVO

networks, viral videos, Wiki platform etc.

It is always interesting to attend workshops in parts of the word one would hardly ever get. One of these hidden places is Kosovo, a small country still suffering from the postwar trauma, which is obvious while walking on the streets with hundreds of names of missing people written on the walls. On the other hand it is a country full of young enthusiasts working on all kinds of interesting projects.

One of the most interesting parts of the new media seminar was getting to know the local NGO’s and their representatives. Very interesting project is an on-line platform Kosovo 2.0 for sharing blogs, vlogs and covering cultural events from the area. We also got a chance to talk to one of the organizers of Dokufest, one of the most important film festivals in the Balkans. On the very last day, the hosting organization 7arte arranged a trip to this beautiful, medieval town of Prizren so we could actually see where Dokufest takes place. Don’t you think it is cool to have an open-air screening with a screen over river facing mosque? Yes, Kosovo was definitely a memorable NISI MASA experience.

From 2nd to 8th of May 2011, a group of 20 young media-, audiovisual-, film-related professionals from all different kinds of backgrounds and NGO’s gathered in Prishtina, the capital of Kosovo, to learn and share experiences from these fields and get answers to how to use new media in promotion of our NGO’s. Sitting with notebooks on our laps and looking like real geeks, we were discussing how to make electronic presskit, how to use all kinds of new media tools like social

By Haruna Honcoopová, participant Kosovo 2.0: www.kosovotwopointzero.com 7arte: www.7-arte.org