Magnificent7 2012/2
Your batteries get charged at these workshops. You get to know how the filmmakers perform their craft. It is as simple as that. Some filmmakers have pedagogical skills, others need help, and indeed they receive that through Zoran Popovic, who is together with his wife director of the festival and teachers at their own film school Kvadrat in Belgrade. Popovic is a master in interviewing the filmmakers about their work and – when needed – he is a perfect interpreter who brings the English language into Serbian word-by-word.
It is the choice of the directors to find the focus for their workshop session. Gary Tarn, ”The Prophet”, had brought his camera and talked about how he looks like a tourist, walking around with his plastic bag with a camera looking to catch moments that he could use in ”the Prophet” or in his previous work ”Black Sun”, shown at the festival in 2006. Tarn, who composes the music for his films himself, explained how he found the right rythm for the voice of Thandie Newton, who reads the Khalil Gibran text. ”Her voice is scored”.
Audrius Stonys, Lithuanian film poet, took the workshoppers on a filmographic journey of his own work. He showed clips from ”Antigravitation”, ”Flying over Blue Fields” and ”Alone” as a prologue to a talk about ”Ramin” (photo), a talk that had an interesting production story added by the producer of the film, Latvian Uldis Cekulis.
Gereon Wetzel, director of ”El Bulli” brought along film openings for discussion, among them he made a comparison between the opening of the film version (108 mins) and of the tv version (90 mins.). Wetzel mentioned that he and his crew used to be ”hanging around creativity”, waiting for the right moments and filming according to the American ”direct cinema” rules: never ask anyone to do anything.
