EFA Master Class 2006

EFA Master Class 2006

How the Creative Documentary Can Take Advantage of the Digital Revolution in Camera Equipment with Stefan Jarl

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Index & Imprint Welcome by Marion Döring The Tutor: Stefan Jarl Anette Lykke Lundberg Stefan Ciupek The Participants The Concept Humour Group Old Group Text Group Young Group Impressions Crew & Partners

IMPRINT European Film Academy e.V. Editor: Pascal Edelmann Graphic Design/Production: Andrés Castoldi Cover Photo: Roland Schütz Photographs: Roland Schütz, Mario Striehn, Benedikt Bothe, Tone Andersen, Torsten Oser.

All other pictures by EFA.

DVD CONTENTS - EFA Master Class 2006 (documentation) - Interview with Stefan Jarl - Interview with Stefan Ciupek Short Films: - humour group - old group - text group - young group MUSIC humour group: "Everglade" written & performed by Tortoise © Thrill Jockey text group: "Una, dos, patatin, patatán" traditional from CANCIONES PARA DESPUÉS DE UNA GUERRA by Basilio Martín Patino © La Linterna Mágica, S.L. young group: "Raum der Zeit" written by Axel Kurth performed by WIZO © Hulk Räckorz

It has always been one essential part of the activities of the European Film Academy (EFA) to allow filmmakers to learn from one another and to exchange ideas. Over the years, the EFA has organised various different Master Classes focussing on many aspects from visual effects to the relationship between actors and directors and cinematography. These Master Classes are generally, but not exclusively, addressed to younger filmmakers and the tutors are always highly acknowledged in their field of work, experienced and willing to pass on some of their knowledge.

When we decided to organise our first Master Class on documentary filmmaking it was immediately obvious that Stefan Jarl would be the perfect tutor for this workshop. Not only has his vision of the documentary lead to some of the most exciting European documentaries, he is also always open to sharing his know-how and experience and discussing his views. We wanted this EFA Master Class to explore the possibilities of HD technology and Stefan Jarl is a filmmaker eager to explore this medium. We are especially glad that we could also win Stefan Ciupek, one of the most experienced HD specialists, to support this Master Class with his insight.

As you will see from the participants' statements, the combination of Stefan Jarl's vision and philosophy,

Stefan Ciupek's technical know-how and the challenge of making a short documentary in one week created an ideal workshop atmosphere to experiment, exchange ideas, and learn from one another.

On behalf of the European Film Academy I would like to use this opportunity to thank all the people who have invested time and energy to make this EFA Master Class possible!

Marion Dรถring European Film Academy Director 2

STEFAN JARL Stefan Jarl is the most prominent of the Scandinavian documentary filmmakers and recipient of several awards, among them the European Film Award. He had the renowned documentary director Arne Sucksdorff as a teacher and has been production manager for several Swedish directors, among them Bo Widerberg. His feature film debut came in 1968 with THEY CALL US MODS (together with Jan Lindqvist), which came to be the first part in a trilogy. The other parts came in 1979, with A DECENT LIFE and in 1992, with MISFITS TO YUPPIES. With this trilogy he opened up a new path in Swedish cinema. His films have regularly been chosen for the Forum of New Cinema at the Berlin International Film Festival. A retrospective of his work has toured the world, and at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado he was awarded the Silver Medallion as “one of Europe's leading documentary filmmakers”.

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Picture: Frans Hällqvist

THE TUTOR:

FILMOGRAPHY: (excerpt)

1968 1979 1983 1985 1986 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1997 1998 1999 2001 2001 2002 2003

THEY CALL US MISFITS A DECENT LIFE NATURE´S REVENGE THE SOUL IS GREATER THAN THE WORLD THREAT TIME HAS NO NAME GOOD PEOPLE JÅVNA, REINDEER HERDSMAN IN THE YEAR 2000 FROM MISFITS TO YUPPIES LAND OF THE LAPPS (short film) I AM YOUR WARRIOR LIFE AT ANY COST HOMELESS (short film) BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD THE COUNTRY INN THE BRICKLAYER TERRORISTS - THE KIDS THEY SENTENCED with co-director Lukas Moodysson 2004 PARADISE LOST (short film) 2005 THE GIRL FROM AUSCHWITZ

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Picture: Tone Andersen

Picture: Torsten Oser

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STEFAN CIUPEK

ANETTE LYKKE LUNDBERG

If someone knows about HD technology, it is Stefan Ciupek. Among his impressive work experience are RUSSIAN ARK by Alexander Sokurov, RHYTHM IS IT – the recording of the first big educational project of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, DEAR WENDY by Thomas Vinterberg, MANDERLAY by Lars von Trier, MANSLAUGHTER by Per Fly and AFTER THE WEDDING by Susanne Bier, to name just a few.

Over the years, editor Anette Lykke Lundberg has worked with Stefan Jarl on various of his films: A DECENT LIFE (1979); THE SOUL IS GREATER THAN THE WORLD (1985); TIME HAS NO NAME (1989); GOOD PEOPLE (1990); JÅVNA, REINDEER HERDSMAN IN THE YEAR 2000 (1991); FROM MISFITS TO YUPPIES (1992); I AM YOUR WARRIOR (1997); BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD (2001).

PARTICIPANTS Tone Andersen, Norway Günter Berghaus, Germany Diego Borella, Italy Vladimir Bouchler, Belgium Alessandro Cassigoli, Italy Dalia Castel, Italy Marianne Eyde, Norway Jean Pierre Gatt, Malta Dulce Gonçalves, Portugal Kathrine B. Granlund, Norway Marta Javierre, Spain Audrius Keme ys, Lithuania Mari Lunden Nilsen, Norway Susann Østigaard, Norway János Richter, Germany Piotr Roso owski, Poland Peter Snowdon, UK Peter Volkmann, Germany 6

Picture: Torsten Oser

THE CONCEPT

Picture: Benedikt Bothe

The EFA Master Class 2006 HOW THE CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION IN CAMERA EQUIPMENT began in Lauchhammer/Kostebrau, a village in Brandenburg. The first two days saw a couple of lectures on different aspects of creative documentary filmmaking by Stefan Jarl as well as a lecture on the importance of editing by Anette Lykke Lundberg and a lecture on HD technology by Stefan Ciupek. These were accompanied by screenings of different films by Stefan Jarl and group discussions.

But from the beginning on, the practical side was an important part of the Master Class: Participants split up into working groups on the first preparation day and went on a location tour to identify possible topics for the films they were going to make.

Each group then had two shooting days and two days to prepare and edit their film. For the final post-production (colour grading, retouching, reframing, etc.) the entire Master Class moved to Berlin where the results were finally shown in a large screen cinema before the Master Class was wrapped up with a group discussion and evaluation meeting.

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ALSO IN A BIGGER WORLD A KID DOES NOT BECOME SMALLER

Pictures: Roland Schütz

Humour Group: Diego Borella, Dulce Gonçalves, Piotr Roso owski, Peter Volkmann

by Diego Borella Stefan Jarl explained what a documentary is and what a documentary-maker is and what they can be, always linking the technical and the aesthetic to the individual, human element.

It was remarkable. And it worked.

And we had a second master, another Stefan, Stefan Ciupek, who revealed to us the mysteries and miracles of HD technology, making the whole thing sound as easy as drinking beer.

And it worked. There we were and suddenly we had to form groups and actually make documentaries. But what around us was worth filming?

Piotr from our group suggested to structure the short documentary with a certain irony. And humour can be a good key to approach reality.

Loneliness was the subject. Humour was supposed to be the way. All we needed was the substance.

On the two-hour research tour we saw a little boy. Was he lonely? Are most of the kids here lonely? Is it because their fathers all had to look for jobs elsewhere? Maybe.

We missed a few essential scenes, and had to constantly change structure. We had to take the best of the good shots out in order to keep the mood we had in mind. “Our” story had become a different story, it had become the story of that boy’s journey from his house to a bigger world, our premise about fatherhood and loneliness had become a statement: “Also in a bigger world a kid does not become smaller”.

This Master Class offered us the chance to do something we would never have done elsewhere, and to do it with new friends. It feels as if we have been trained to create problems and educated to solve them. And somehow we did.

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THE WORLD IN YOUR BACKYARD

Old Group: Günter Berghaus, Vladimir Bouchler, Alessandro Cassigoli, Dalia Castel, Audrius Keme ys

by Günter Berghaus When we arrived, we found our hero, a pensioned miner, repairing his old doorbell with his even older screwdriver. He talked about the character of old things, saying that nowadays things were made to be thrown away while in his entire life he had never thrown anything away! It was strange hearing this because a lot of our work is characterised by constantly reexamining, giving up, throwing out, always on the search - or, as he put it, “You have to move soil to reach the coal!” Our coal, a documentary's gold, is authenticity and poetry. This scene at the fence was full of it but we didn't shoot it. The camera was

Pictures: Benedikt Bothe

waiting around the corner with the rest of our group which was part of our strategy to win his confidence. This strategy was the next thing to get rid off, we forgot about it at once. And for our new friends it was fun to have this international group in their backyard. We did some improvisational work with them and filled our HD-tapes with wonderful material.

But how were we going to find something to build up suspense, some action to give us a structure? We arranged it so that our hero, in his original minor-outfit, showed us his former work place which is part of a mining museum today. Within our group this scene led to a serious discussion about authenticity versus arrangement, a very sensitive point, where filmmakers' philosophies collide and it is difficult to find a compromise. Eventually this lovely scene was thrown out completely - because of its artificiality. That was a painful part of these “hours of truth”, the editing process. Suddenly there no longer is a concept or a strategy to reconsider, throw out and replace. The only thing that you can still throw away is your material and what is left in the end is your film.

It was a struggle to find the magic again in our material and we tried five different versions of the film but in the end we decided to go for a simple structure: only the house and garden scenes, combined with voice-overs. And then it became clear, the film is about the wisdom of a man who solves everything with his own hands and keeps the rest outside of his garden, behind his fence.

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TEACHING VALUES

Text Group: Marianne Eyde, Kathrine B. Granlund, Marta Javierre, Mari Lunden Nilsen, Peter Snowdon

by Peter Snowdon The ambitious idea was to construct a film out of extracts from the school manuals used in former East Germany to teach civic values. We wanted to counterpoint these fragments with the ruinous-pastoral landscapes around the town of Lauchammer.

An hour later we had not only the school books, but also an appointment to interview the retired teacher who had lent them to us. Frau Mittag became our guiding light. In her small schoolhouse in Kostebrau - now converted into a museum to life under the old regime - we found not only the moral centre

of our film, but dozens of untold stories we could only scratch the surface of.

We took turns to frame and light, to boom and mix, to intervene and to withdraw into silence. We broke our collectivist principles and delegated two of our team to film Frau Mittag in the room where she had taught for 40 years, so as not to spoil the intimacy, while the rest of us sat and ate homemade cake with retired miners. We tried to imagine what she might be telling them.

When they re-emerged having used up 75% of our tape stock, we got mad. Then we saw the interview, and forgave them.

The dilapidated Kulturhaus opposite our hotel turned out to be a pirate's chest of images that re-expressed everything Frau Mittag had told us in words. Stefan Ciupek - “the most knowledgeable man in Europe when it comes to high definition� dixit Stefan Jarl - stood with us for hours amid the dust of collapsing ceilings helping us reform our pre-HD ideas about exposure.

We filmed abandoned theatres, empty power stations, ridiculously green fields. In the video viewfinder, what you see is what you get. But this was HD. We crossed our fingers, and prayed to the gods of post-production to help us realise our vision.

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FROM RIGHT TO LEFT

Pictures: Tone Andersen

Young Group: Tone Andersen, Jean-Pierre Gatt, Susann ร stigaard, Jรกnos Richter

by Jรกnos Richter We visited the youth club of the neighbouring village, Kostebrau, where we found a community of predominantly nationalist young people who all felt very attached to their home village. None of them seemed to have experienced loneliness. However, we heard about two other youths who were not part of this community - Manuel, the only black teen-aged boy in Kostebrau, and Lietze, his best friend, a former nationalist who had become a punk.

On the next morning we met them and learned that Lietze was about to leave his home village for the next three years in order to undergo vocational training. That gave us the story idea for our film. Although the two were very hesitant, they eventually agreed to help us.

Our initial fear was that our protagonists might be too shy to open up. But in fact they acted quite natural in front of the camera.

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17 Pictures: Roland Sch端tz

Picture: Roland Sch端tz

Picture: Mario Striehn

Pictures: Roland SchĂźtz, Mario Striehn

Project Manager Bettina Schwarz Executive Producer Ralph Brosche Cinebros Ltd. Accounting Rainer Pyls Production Manager Mario Striehn Production Assistants Benedikt Bothe Susann Amir–Moazami Location Manager Torsten Oser

With the support of: Apple/Final Cut Pro KOPPFILM GmbH mmpro film- und medienproduktion

Documentation Anne Petry

Partners: MEDIA Plus Programme of the EU Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg

A very special thank you goes to all citizens of Lauchhammer and Kostebrau who made this EFA Master Class possible

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Founded in 1988, the European Film Academy currently unites 1,700 European film professionals with the common aim of promoting Europe's film culture.

The European Film Academy is mainly financed by the German National Lottery, the Federal Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs, as well as by the MEDIA Plus Programme of the EU, the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and partners and sponsors related to EFA's activities throughout Europe.

Picture: Torsten Oser

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