“Take a camera, shoot something, show it to somebody” – Jean Luc Godard

To make a documentary from scratch to screening in five weeks is a make or break experience for any artist. Aristoteles Workshop has been welcoming, since 2006, young bright things from all over the world ready to cut their teeth under some of the best tutoring and mentoring in the industry. Among them were fine voices in documentary today like Adina Pintilie, a 2006 graduate with “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, a multiple award winner in DoK Leipzig, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, or Watch Docs Human Rights International Film Festival in Warszaw. This year, Pintilie won the Golden Bear with her latest creation, “Touch Me Not.” For the new generation of documentary filmmakers, the deadline is June 1st, when gates close on the 2018 call for entries. It is the workshop’s 13th year, and the first in collaboration with reputed Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca, The Theatre and Television Faculty, The Department of Documentary.

4 weeks till admission gates close

The competition is open to young creators worldwide: directors, DPs, and editors. Applications are received online at aworkshop.org. This year, Aristoteles Workshop (AW) goes to Baru, in the county of Hunedoara, in Babes Bolyai University’s campus, from August 1 through 31.

Dan Nuțu, AW producer, on the workshops’s philosophy: ”About 2300 years ago, Aristoteles built up THE system on the arts of discovering and communicating truth from the author’s mind to the mind of an audience. He called it rhetoric. And so do we, still.”

The program’s tutors in 2018 are John Appel, Jeroen Berkvens, Lotte Mik Mayer and Laurent Bécue-Renard, award winning filmmakers and docs program leaders with an established worldwide following. They will be joined for a brief masterclass by Thierry Garrel, former Head of the Documentary Department at Arte France, also known as the “Pope” of documentaries.

Partnership with The Faculty of Theatre and Television at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca

In a memorable first, a private program becomes part of the curriculum with The Faculty of Theatre and Television at The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca.

Dan Curean, lecturer with The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca: “I went to the first edition of Aristoteles as a young filmmaker and it irremediably set me on the track for documentaries. Fast forward 12 years, together with my colleagues at The Faculty of Theatre and Television, for the first time in Romania, we founded a docs masters program. Out attempt to develop a specialised non fiction school in Romania makes us unique. The partnership with The Aristoteles Workshop – the first and most likely the most significant educational initiative in documentaries in Romania – unites two complementary professional structures, aiming for Godard’s declared purpose: «Get a camera, make a movie, show it to somebody!».”

Watch the Aristoteles Workshop movies on Cinepub.ro

All these years, the Aristoteles Workshop movies were selected, applauded and awarded by juries and audiences alike in some of the world’s greatest festivals: Cannes Film Festival – Quinzaine des Realisateurs and Short Film Corner, Dok Leipzig, Locarno International Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam, L’Alternativa Independent Film Festival Barcelona, Entrevues Paris, Warsaw Film Festival, Visions du Reel in Nyon, Cronograf Kishinev, and in Romania, at TIFF, ASTRA International Film Festival, NexT or One WORLD.

They can now be seen on Cinepub.ro, a free online platform for Romanian cinema for film lovers and creators, boasting the largest Romanian film online archive. All movies can be watched legally.

One Thursday each month is documentary night, when the stories produced by the Aristoteles Workshop graduates show us an original, less known side of Romania, with their intelligently observed and recounted stories. They blend frankness, delicacy, humour or tenderness in films that mark the beginning of promising artistic trajectories, united in a memorable learning experience somewhere in Romania.

(In the 12 completed editions, the preparation and production took place in Cisnădioara and Sibiel, Sibiu county, Vama, Suceava county, Șurdești, Baia Mare county and Bata, in the county of Arad).

About Aristoteles Workshop

ARISTOTELES WORKSHOP (AW) is a training and development center dedicated to fostering a new generation of creative documentary filmmakers around the world, established by producers Dan Nuțu și Cristina Hoffman in 2006, with substantial material and spiritual support from the French/German cultural TV channel Arte.

Well known documentary experts offer full tutoring and mentoring to talented, passionate and proactive filmmakers and artists committed to undergo an intense 5-week learning experience in a newly formed team.

AW has produced over 40 documentaries widely appreciated by audiences and festival juries alike, and winners of important awards in Cannes Film Festival – Quinzaine des Realisateurs, DoK Leipzig, IDFA Amsterdam, or Locarno International Film Festival.

Over the years, the program was financed by Arte, TVR, The National Cinema Centre CNC, The  MEDIA Programme, AFCN (The National Cultural Fund Administration), UCIN (Romanian Filmmakers Union), DACIN SARA, The Cultural Romanian Institute, as well as private sponsors such as Farmexim, Istyle, Cabinetul Țuca/Zbârcea&Asociații, NouMax, Mandragora, along the mayoralties of Sibiu, Arad and Baia Mare.

About The Documentary Filmmaking Masters Program at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca

The Faculty of Theatre and Television at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is a multidisciplinary, multicultural institution with a wide spectrum: Theatre, Cinema and Media, the latter with majors in film direction, cinematography, multimedia, sound-editing, audiovisual communications and filmology. All programs are taught in Romanian, Hungarian and English.

The Documentary Filmmaking Masters is the first academic initiative in non fiction film production in Romania. It is taught in English and primarily targets graduates in Cinematography, Photography, Media, Filmology, FIlm Direction or graduates of other disciplines seeking a specialization in documentaries. It immerses its students into all documentary production stages and all are expected to produce a long feature documentary for their dissertation thesis and to participate and interact with industry professionals in docs festivals in Romania: Astra Film Sibiu, Docuart Bucharest or Pelicam Tulcea. Visiting professors include Peter Gothshalk – commissioning editor at Arte France/Germany, dr. Arnau Gifreu – University of Girona, prof. dr. Robert Wierzbicki – University of Mittweida, Germany, dr. Rebeka Jorgensen – Fulbright Scholar, professor and filmmaker.

About Cinepub

Cinepub is the only FVOD online platform dedicated to Romanian cinema, legally streaming independent and national and international patrimony films since 2015. Open data meets culture in a live, free archive of Romanian cinema and one of the largest worldwide. Thursday night is premiere night on Cinepub.ro.

Applications for the 2018 Aristoteles Workshop are received online at

https://www.aworkshop.org/call-for-entries/

Follow us on Facebook here.

Share this post with your friends and colleagues interested to apply.