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12

02

2008

Screening African Emotions

By Karsten on Tuesday, 2008-02-12, 10:23 - Film

These days, it's film frenzy in Berlin again. Berlinale, the city's famous film festival is under way. This is the third part of a special series on cafebabel.com's Berlin blog, in which three Babel reporters will cover a not so well-known aspect of the festival. It's called "Berlinale Talent Campus", a forum for 350 young filmmakers from all over the world to present their works, meet each other and improve their skills during various workshops.

by Paula Martinez

Sunday, 2 o’clock, HAU 2: the sun shines outside but dozens of Talents try to find a place in a crowded room. It’s the first round of the Focus Africa events. With a panel of experts from African cinema (producers, journalists, directors from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Nigeria...), the session "Hot Spot Africa" draws the attention of Talents from sub-Saharan Africa but also of Talents from all parts of the world. Like Alberto from Italy who told us he wanted to explore “a world which is far away from European independent production.”

Alby James, scriptwriter, Selina Ukwuoma, screenwriter and Michael Auret, distributor and former director of the Cape Town World Cinema Festival
For more than two hours the experts and the public analysed the panorama of sub-Saharan cinema and defended what Zimbabwe producer Pdero Pimenta described as the “African way of doing things.” Talk ranged from training new generations to broadcasting African cinema, from the very important issue of fundraising to the necessary cooperation between African countries and the incredible “Nollywood” phenomenon. Peace Aniyam-Fiberesima stated to the applause of many, “there’s a lot of raw talent in Africa” and there’s a real need for African movies made for an African public and focused on African topics, independent from Western influence. She also emphasized that it’s crucial to make cinema accessible to the majority of the population: for example, by setting the cinema entrance fees to one dollar (or less).

The round was followed by questions concentrated on the colossal issue of distribution. As one young speaker said, “the main problem starts when you have finished your movie”. It’s difficult to find a platform where young directors can show their work and thereby garner funding for the next film. Breeze, from South Africa, criticized the gap between younger and older, more professional generations and the latter's reluctance to bet on risky projects that explore new filmic language. Afterwards I spoke with Nyaradzo Muchena, a Campus participant from Zimbabwe. He said that the round table was interesting, but he didn’t agree with the general opinion on the Nigerian model as the only model for African cinema. Nyaradzo criticized the quality of filmmaking in Nigeria: “Nollywood is a great example of good film distribution, but definitely not a role model in film production”.

After a short break, I headed to the main stage in HAU 2 for the second Focus Africa session focussed on North Africa and the current state of independent filmmaking in Egypt. The discussion, entitled Cairo Underground, addressed the different forms of doing cinema away from mainstream channels. A modern artist who uses multimedia as a way of communicating (Shady El-Noshokaty), a female documentary filmmaker (Hala Galal) and two Egyptians participants of this edition of the Campus (Kaiser and Emad Mabrouk) showed their works and talked about multimedia language, independent cinema in Egypt and self-censorship. As Hala Galal said, “the main problem is that nobody knows that in Egypt there is also independent filmmaking”. The photos of Cairo taken by El-Noshokaty and screened on the backdrop during the talk were beautiful and a perfect touch.

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11

02

2008

The Long Road to Stardom

By Karsten on Monday, 2008-02-11, 15:05 - Film

These days, it's film frenzy in Berlin again. Berlinale, the city's famous film festival is under way. This is the second part of a special series on cafebabel.com's Berlin blog, in which three Babel reporters will cover a not so well-known aspect of the festival. It's called "Berlinale Talent Campus", a forum for 350 young filmmakers from all over the world to present their works, meet each other and improve their skills during various workshops.

by Sandra Wickert

It was a big day yesterday for Campus participants that are actors or actresses. On top of the Love International panel featuring the stars of Indian, Nigerian and German cinema, Talent actors also received expert advice in the casting workshop Don't Call Us, We'll Call You.

"Develop a thick skin for rejection“ – this was the final advice that Ilene Kahn-Power, founder and head of Hollywood-based Kahn Power Pictures, gave to the talents participating in the casting workshop Don’t call us – we’ll call you. Together with Derek Power and casting director Nancy Bishop, she provided an interesting insight into the shark basin known as "auditions".

The workshop's goal was to shed light on the obscure procedure of castings, self-representation, finding an agent, finding autions and landing a role in the international market. Nancy Bishop got down to business and made it clear what casting directors do and do not want. This included advice on CVs: "In English if you want to work in the U.S.”; how the head shots should look: “Choose a photo that portrays what you really look like and not one that overly flatters you”; and, above all, how to act at a shooting: “Keep your shots simple. Don’t annoucne your age!”

The Power couple then came up with some examples to turn theory into practice, starting with the amazing story of how they casted the then 'unknown to the US market' Irish actor Jonathan-Rhys Myers as Elvis in a CBS-miniseries. “Johnny”, as Ilene affectionately calls him, ardently followed their instructions, because his tape had all the ingredients for success: a simple background with just the actor and real entertainment that leaves you wanting more. It was the first step in his path to a Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries.

Together you are stronger

The overall reaction to the workshop among Talent participants was positive. Senad Alihodzic from Bosnia-Herzegovina was interested in the actor-agent-relationship: “We do not know about that in my country. I was interested in the concrete information, like how to make show reels. And I learned a lot from that”.

Young actress Erifili Stefanidou from Greece chose this workshop because it was one of the few events that was actor-oriented. She absolutely wants to work abroad and maybe has a job prospective in Sarajevo soon: “In Greece we do not have this system, it is still a long way. I wanted to know how I could promote myself as an actress and how to apply for international jobs."

Consodyne Buzabe from Uganda was enthusiastic: “Film is just beginning in Uganda and we need as much information as possible about film and actors. We don’t even know the basic process of this. We need to gain insight in what to do to get ourselves out there or what we can do to become actors that eventually will be hired for international movies.” For countries like Uganda, where neither agents, film schools nor casting agencies exist, Nancy Bishop’s advice is to create actors unions: “Together you can represent yourselves as a group. Together you are stronger”.

For a Croatian actress, the workshop was successful in a very concrete way. After complaining about not having received answers from casting agencies several times after having sent in her demo reel, Nancy Bishops nose for talents must have smelled something: “I would like to see your demo reel, if you want to give it to me”. From theory to practice, the best lesson of this workshop.

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10

02

2008

Saturday Recap

By Karsten on Sunday, 2008-02-10, 15:26 - Film

These days, it's film frenzy in Berlin again. Berlinale, the city's famous film festival is under way. This is the first part of a special series on cafebabel.com's Berlin blog, in which three Babel reporters will cover a not so well-known aspect of the festival. It's called "Berlinale Talent Campus", a forum for 350 young filmmakers from all over the world to present their works, meet each other and improve their skills during various workshops.

by Lena Meier and Paula Martinez

It’s all pink, it’s amazing and it’s all about meeting: the 6th edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus. 350 young people have come from all over the world and are eager to meet each other: script writers want to meet screenwriting experts and filmmakers. Filmmakers want to meet producers. Actresses want to meet filmmakers with new ideas and a fresh way of realizing them.

My Life in Campus-Pink: Talent Campus participant enjoying a sunny moment in the magenta-hued lounge of HAU2.
And we want to meet the talents: For example Breeze from South Africa who attracts attention with his rasta hair-do. He is a documentary filmmaker who, in the past, has examined themes like black consciousness in Johannesburg. By using hip-hop as a film language he wants to break the rules of documentary filmmaking and make it more interesting for his generation: “People love to see movies but they don’t want to see anything didactic.” At lunch we get to talk to Alberto who came to do his first film because he was commissioned by a NGO to tell a story of post-war Bosnia. The topic of his latest project is also a socio-political: women’s rights in Morocco. The culmination of all meetings is the first round of the Speed Matching: about two hundred talents sit in two lines facing each other on cardboard stools on the main stage of HAU2.

The setting is pink. The air is vibrating with one hundred conversations. After three minutes one line moves one seat to the left – new partners, new topics. Janine Marmot from Skillset. introduced the game with the assumption that many participants are shy – it seems that she is wrong. Everyone is talking and gesturing, greeting, taking pictures and exchanging email addresses. In the lobby outside, three guys hang out on the pink bathroom-carpet-like platforms. The sun sends rays through the big windows. Although Gabriel, Carlos and Rezwan missed the speed matching for today, they were still able to meet each other and meet us as well. They come from Mexico, Ecuador and Bangladesh and all of them are directors.

Registration Day: Fresh off the plane, train and bus. Campus participants register in HAU2.
“It’s easy to make films in Bangladesh because there’s always a lot of stories to tell in a third world country”, Rezwan says. His latest short shows the huge gap between rich and poor, high tech and rural living. Berlin impressed him with its mix of modern and old. Carlos is interested in socio-political issues. His documentary Taromenani tells the story of a disconnected tribe in the Amazon and was already shown in Berlin at the human rights festival One World Berlin. In the end the first day of the Talent Campus was proof that it's the best place in town to meet the coolest people. And as Alberto said: “The Talent Campus is important because the most risky thing in filmmaking is to become lonely”.

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27

11

2007

Babel-Academy for Journalists

By Jeko on Tuesday, 2007-11-27, 16:09 - Announcements

This post is also available in: German French

Cafebabel.com Berlin invites all European journalists to its Second Babel-Academy for journalists.

After the last successful Babel Academy in Barcelona 2006, cafebabel.com Berlin holds its second academy for journalists from 17 - 20 January 2008.

Cafebabel.com Berlin is looking for journalists between the age of 18 and 30 who are currently writing for cafebabel.com or who are interested to do so in the future and who want to improve their journalistic capabilities.

To be invited to the academy, please take part in our journalism competition on 'Something new in the East – Impulses for Europe?'.

For further details please have a look at the attachment.

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