IDFAcademy 2012
The programme is ”an intensive four-day training program for emerging filmmakers, producers, and film students”. As coach for the group of filmmakers from the Black Sea Docstories workshop I am there as well and have enjoyed the well composed and organised training initiative led by Meike Statema.
Alan Berliner – see the review of his new film below – was the perfect man to start the Academy with his modest and passionate approach to filmmaking. ”Editing is the greatest joy I have in my life”, he said, at the same time as he said that he had pretty limited technical skills when he sits in front of the buttons with the material. How to use metaphors, he was asked by the young filmmakers and students, the answer was that with ”First Cousin Once Removed” he wanted to poetisise the world of Edward Honig, who had decided to give his brain to science, ”but my aim was to preserve his mind” with the film.
Sean McAllister was the man in the chair te next morning after a screening of his ”The Reluctant Revolutionary” the night before. McAllister showed clips and talked about his looking for characters, a process that can take a long time, as he exemplified with clips from his ”Japan. A Story of Love and Hate” (photo). ”I use film to empower people”, he said with reference to the development of his two male characters in the films mentioned.
Ove Rishøj Jensen from EDN made an excellent inspirational and precise 90 minutes introduction to storytelling models using the film of Geoffrey Smith, ”The English Surgeon” (the classical) and Coco Schrijber’s ”Bloody Mondays and Strawberry Pies” (circular, author driven model) as references.
With some of the filmmakers from the Black Sea countries, I had the pleasure to meet Isabel Arrate from Jan Vrijman Fund, which is now the Idfa Bertha Fund after funding comes from the Bertha Foundation. Arrate explained the rules for the fund that will have its first deadline by February 2013. From Vancouver-based Knowledge Network came Murray Battle, who in a fine way listened to and commented on projects from Georgia and Turkey making it clear what a North-American audience would love to see.
Today saturday and sunday the Academy programme goes into financing and presentation matters.
