The 11th edition of the documentary film program Aristoteles Workshop will take place between August 23rd and September 24th, in Șurdești, a village in Maramureș county, just 20 km away from the city of Baia Mare. The application deadline is July 20th.
After four years spent in Transylvania and five years in Bucovina, Aristoteles Workshop moves to Maramureș, placing its logistic center in Șurdești village, a region famous for hosting one of eight buildings that make up the wooden churches of Maramureș – an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Aristoteles Workshop is dedicated to young filmmakers from Europe, with previous work experience in the field of film direction, editing and camera work. It is an yearly workshop for documentary filmmaking where professional experts from the European film industry guide the 12 participants through the entire process of creating their own documentary. The program offers a triple benefit: to gain expertise in the field, to produce a real documentary on site, and to be promoted as filmmakers.
The participants are grouped into four teams of three people each – a director, a DP and an editor. They have almost five weeks available to complete a documentary film (also open to elements of fiction), with a maximum length of 30 minutes. In the final stage of the workshop, the four films are evaluated by a jury comprised of industry specialists.
The main expert for the theoretical part of the 11th edition of AW will be Thierry Garrel, former head of the Documentary Film department at ARTE, France, for 20 years, as well as Head of Documentaries and Archives at the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA)
The workshop is produced by actor Dan Nutu, the one called by film critic Tudor Caranfil “The sensitive tough guy of the 60s Romanian cinema”. With a filmography of over 30 titles, amongst which Lucian Pintilie’s Sunday at Six, and Mornings of a Good Boy, by Andrei Blaier, Dan Nuțu fell in love with documentaries in the US, where he edited original BBC documentaries for the American market. Back to Romania, he set up Aristoteles Workshop in 2006, together with Cristina Hoffman.
Cristina Hoffman was a consultant for ARTE TV, France. She was delegated to and a member of the selection committees for Berlin and Cannes film festivals, and she organized for 14 years the German Film Festival in Paris. She collaborated with ARTE, ZDF, ARD, ORF, FRANCE 5 TV stations and, between 2010 and 2016, she was the director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Berlin
The participation fee for Aristoteles Workshop is 500 EUR. The amount covers accommodation and meals, the use of production and post-production equipment throughout the Workshop, as well as the masterclasses provided by international Experts and Tutors.
Since its first edition in 2006, over 130 participants produced 36 films, more than half of which were selected and received awards at important film festivals such as Cannes, Locarno, Leipzig, Nyon, IDFA Amsterdam, Namur, Montpellier, Sarajevo, Trieste., and others..
Initiated in partnership with ARTE/France, Aristoteles Workshop takes place this year with the support of Baia Mare 2021, European Capital of Culture and CNC (National Center of Cinematography).
Farmexim company offers a 2000 euro award for the winning team, being for the fourth year a partner to Aristoteles Workshop. Between 2008 and 2011, the prize for best documentary was offered by the Cultural Romanian Institute (ICR).
The tutors, experts and famous guest filmmakers involved in Aristoteles Workshop all agree the structure of the workshop is a real privilege, and that the participants will not find anything similar in any film school or master program in the world.
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