For the Love of the Cinema

During the Campus a Talent can get into a discussion about differences between Greek and Polish film criticism and the quality of THE PIANIST even in the middle of the night. And that’s what the Campus is about: no, not only having fun, partying in Berlin. First and foremost it’s an intensive networking and creative idea exchange. The Talents certainly got an opportunity to live an extremely busy week: panels, workshops, shooting your own film. The only problem is, what activities to choose.
Yesterday, between many other events, the panel “By Popular Demand” took place. With guests from Nigeria, China, India and Egypt we had a look for the biggest non-western world film markets. The essential question was: Do these countries actually need to export their films? The national public is so massive in their case that filmmakers don’t have to go global. “Lots of people think Africa is just camels and desert and that we all live in the villages”, said Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima from Nigeria. “The Westerners are telling only sad stories about us. But there is also lot of happiness in Africa, that’s why we have to tell our stories as Africans”. Omir from Egypt shared with the public his problems with censorship. “Homosexuality is still a forbidden subject in my national cinema. My first film about this subject didn’t get a permission to be released.”

Tomorrow’s highlight of the programme is without doubt Slawomir Idziak’s workshop. The great Polish cinematographer, who worked with Kieslowski amongst many other directors, holds a panel about his project called “Film Spring”. The idea of it corresponds with the idea of the Campus: to shoot a movie in an international group. “With the latest techniques you can make a movie without a big budget. The concept is a group working together, forgetting about director’s system”, says Idziak. The participants of Film Spring meet each other at first on the internet and there they develop the script. Then, during workshop at a Polish seaside resort they are doing almost everything on their own: they have just a few technicians, but the team cooperates in a democratic way. “I’m sure the director’s system won’t disappear in the early future. But maybe our way of working can be an alternative and a possibility for many to shoot the movie without a big budget”.

That’s exactly what talented directors are doing at the Campus, like those, who shoot movies in the Garage studio in HAU 3. Their pieces can be seen in the next few days. Donal from Ireland, who is part of Talent Press, comments: “It’s great that we can just sit here talking about Wenders and Kieslowski. In my film school lots of people don’t love cinema at all.” So maybe it can also be a reason to take part in Berlinale Talent Campus.

Malwina Grochowska

© Berlinale Talent Campus 2007