After five days of classes and scouting, Jeroen Berkvens welcomed filmmakers Rafi Pitts, Nino Kirtadze and Simon Brooks to this year's Aristoteles Worskhop, in what is the third stage of training for the 16 participants from Eastern Europe enrolled in this year's program.
Jeroen Berkvens spent five days guiding students through their first days of scouting and organizing several practical exercises in film language. In one of the exercises, students learned to differentiate between observation and perception - the former implying an opinion on the subject perceived. Students were asked to create a 1 minute film about a physical location, be it a tiny room or a town square, carefully pacing their shots so that they would convey an atmosphere.
A more practical exercise demanded students to build a characterization of a stranger, based on a few personal belongings. The most confrontational task was one where each team was assigned an emotion, which they had to convey in a one minute film, without resorting to acting, narration or music. The other teams were then asked to guess the emotion portrayed.
Jeroen also shared many practical tips and advices related to documentary filmmaking. Over and over, he placed a great deal of importance on building up the confidence of your character, in order to ensure a personal, intimate relationship between the subject and the camera and get great, touching scenes. The Dutch filmmaker emphasized that a filmmaker should offer a personal interpretation of the world he wants to reveal to his audience, not just reproduce it accurately. "Your documentary has to move the audience, it has to enrich the viewer's world - that's what makes a good documentary, more than technique or brilliant images."
Wednesday evening, Jeroen, Rafi, Nino and Simon were the special guests for a farewell/welcoming bonfire party held on the hills of Vama, complete with roasted corncobs, skewers and traditional drinks such as palinca and afinata.
Asked to share his impressions after his first visit to the workshop, Jeroen said "Aristoteles Workshop is really like a paradise for beginning filmmakers...making a documentary from scratch, in just 5 weeks, is very confrontational. But it's an ideal situation because it pushes your boundaries and you might end up surprising yourself."
Rafi Pitts, Nino Kirtadze and Simon Brooks will stay with the 16 participants until August 28. Their task will be to guide each team in choosing an adequate subject, shooting and editing their film over the remaining three weeks. At the end of the program, an international jury comprised of representatives from ARTE/France, UNATC, FAMU and ICR, alongside renowned film critics, will evaluate the 4 films and vote on this edition's best documentary. The winning team will receive a 2500 euro prize on behalf of the Romanian Cultural Institute.
