Ex Oriente Film 2012 - Session One
Workshop for creative documentaries from Central & Eastern Europe
June 18 - 23
Roztoky u Prahy, CZE
Get a quick overview of all 13 documentary projects that attend the 2012 Ex Oriente Film.
During the first session, we had the pleasure of hosting the following tutors:
Marijke Rawie - Expert consultant, Ex Oriente Film head tutor, The Netherlands // Mikael Opstrup - EDN Head of Studies, Ex Oriente Film head tutor, Denmark // Alex Szalat - Commissioning editor, ARTE France // Sanna Salmenkallio - Music composer, Finland // Marco Wilms - Filmmaker, Germany // Stephan Krumbiegel - Editor, Germany // Peter Kerekes - Filmmaker, producer, Slovakia // Karin Hayes - Filmmaker, USA // Victoria Bruce - Filmmaker, USA // Vít Janeček -Filmmaker, Czech Republic // Jan Gogola - Filmmaker, Script Editor, Czech Republic // Filip Remunda - Director, producer, Czech Republic
See all photos from Session One in our photo gallery or on facebook.
With the exception of project sessions, parts of the programme were open to the public. On Monday, Slovak filmmaker and producer Peter Kerekes whose credits include 66 Seasons and the very successful Cooking History, discussed his approach to filmmaking and the specifics of his style.
Following a screening of Mechanical Love the night before, Finnish music composer Sanna Salmenkallio had many questions to answer on Wednesday morning as she shared unique insights into how music fits in with the overall impact a film makes. This was the first time we hosted a music composer and Ms Salmenkallio is certainly the person to enlighten our participants on the subject - she also scored the award-winning The 3 Rooms of Melancholia.
On Wednesday afternoon, German director Marco Wilms (tweets at @ComradeCouture) gave a high-energy account of how he funded, made and distributed his fashion-behind-the-wall doc Comrade Couture. Going to your first pitch with just a few stills? Marco was able to pull it off with a smart teaser, wit and determination.
Alex Szalat of ARTE France had a session on Thursday morning, and talked to head tutor Marijke Rawie (@mrawie) about the convoluted system that is TV commissioning and its multiple rounds of approval procedures. Mr Szalat played clips from several films he was involved in, including Letters from Iran, and left the session participants with valuable advice on how to navigate the world of broadcasters and TV co-production.
Stephan Krumbiegel, an accomplished German editor whose recent work includes Under Control and Gerhard Richter Painting, dedicated his session on Friday morning to film openings, and to what it takes to awe your audience within the first five minutes.
On Friday night, US filmmakers Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce (who also co-directed the 2003 documentary The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt) introduced their latest film, We're Not Broke (Sundance 2012) that takes on corporate tax dodging, a large-scale issue that has spilled over into public fury and the Occupy movement.
On the last day of Session One, Victoria and Karin shared the story behind We're Not Broke, complete with a millionaire funding miracle and Sundance disillusionment. Lesson: Awards mean very little and the work is never over. The filmmakers also gave ample examples of the options open to international filmmakers in the USA and beyond - festivals, funds, broadcasters, stock footage as well as crowdfunding websites.
Thank you everyone for attending! We look forward to Ex Oriente Film Session Two that takes place last week of October in Jihlava.
