Documentary in Europe Workshop
The 15th edition of Documentary in Europe in Bardonecchia, Italy starts tomorrow. It includes training, project development, pitching to a panel of commissioning editors, matchmaking between directors, producers and distributors – and screenings. (By the way, the organisers are making an exemplarily good promotion with their site and newsletter, see below)
And what a pleasure to see that a film that has been mentioned numerous times on this blog, Cinema Komunisto by Mila Turajlic, is the opening film in the nice local Cinema Sabrina. The afterlife of this film, that premiered nationally in a full Sava Centre at the Magnificent 7 festival in Belgrade in late January this year, has been one long success story for the director and her team.
Let me quote from the newsletter i received today from the organisers of Documentary in Europe: In February 2011, Cinema Komunisto became the first Serbian documentary film to gain distribution in multiplex cinemas in Serbia. This marked the beginning of an incredible festival run, from IDFA to Tribeca, during which the film collected 7 awards and counting. Amongst these the FOCAL International Award for Best Use of Archival Footage in an Arts Production! Four years in the making, with clips from over 330 feature films, and exclusive archive gathered from all over Europe, Cinema
Komunisto is a complex collage of Yugoslav history told through its cinema.
The director is in Bardonecchia for the screening and to do a masterclass on how to dive into the complicated world of archive material clearance.
Let me also quote the fine text delivered by the director about herself in the same newsletter: … BA in Film and TV Production, Faculty of Dramatics Arts in Belgrade. MSc in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Took the long road to being a documentary filmmaker. On the run from political activism and mind-numbing academia. Converted to filmmaking in the belief that art will always be more subversive than politics. Seduced by ‘cinema as art’ preaching of French cineastes during studies of documentary cinema in Paris. Sobered by pitching forums, slots, re-versioning and the documentary industry in general. Spoiled by a one-year stint working on Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto in Mexico. Inspired on an annual basis by the films and auteurs who come to the “Magnificent 7 Festival” in Belgrade that I helped give birth to and organize. Challenged and fulfilled daily by the obsession to make documentary films.
The name for that is commitment!
