Conference on Film Schools in Saint Petersburg
I have for years been visiting Saint Petersburg – for the Message2Man festival or for seminars/workshops organized by dear friends Ludmila Nazaruk and Viktor Skubey. In 2016 Skubey organized the conference “How to Reach the Audience”, which was filmed and is to be found on
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXGMu-9ScJZDOvizeYvODkUzJsAql15e7
This year a one-day conference will take place with the headline “How to Educate Students to Meet the Cinema and TV Audience. Art and/or Craft”. With 4 speakers from outside Russia and 4 from Russia. Viktor Skubey (producer, president of the filmmakers non-fiction/tv guild and teacher at the St. Petersburg Institute of film and television, were the conference takes place) asked me to moderate the conference and pick the non-Russian speakers for a set-up that is classical: 30 minutes presentation, 15 minutes of discussion.
Polish Krzysztof Kopczynski will be the first foreign speaker. I have asked him
– apart from giving information on the many Polish film schools – to bring up basic questions like “can you learn to make films?”, “can you learn to make artistic films for a bigger audience…”. Do we need film schools?
Teaching at the International Film School in Cologne, Russian born Ruth Olshan, awarded director of fiction and documentary films, will give examples from the methodology, she uses, when she prepares students for a professional life outside the school.
The same goes for producer and director Riho Västrik from the Baltic film school in Tallinn, where he from 2009 has built up the documentary department and shared his experience from the many years as an active producer and co-producer in the international documentary world.
Finally Serbian filmmaker Andrijana Stojkovic, who has made documentary and fiction films, and teaches both “documentary filmmaking” and “contemporary expression of directing” will evaluate on the big step from being at a film school to the “jungle life” outside.
From Russia Pavel Pechenkin from the renowned Flahertiana in Perm will be present to talk about his building up a media education in Perm. As well as Elena Khoroshkina, who will talk on “creative thinking and innovative business development in education in culture”. From the hosting institution, Pavel Danilov (Dean of the faculty of screen arts and Head of the producers Department of the St. Petersburg Institute of film and television) will talk about a Complex (project) approach in film education. The basis of this approach is the formation of full-fledged creative and production groups of students for diploma (diploma) film (project).
Two more names have not been announced yet, coming from Moscow film schools.
The conference is held within the framework of the international student film festival Piterkit, that is part of a huge Cultural Forum in wonderful St.Petersburg-
The photo is from the 2016 conference… The two presenters from the Danish Film Institute Liselotte Michelsen and Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen and a technician working on getting the computer working, with the moderator telling the audience that everything will be ok in a minute, which it was, just check the youtube link above.
