Mas y Mas March 2011

mรกs ymรกs

monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

MAR11

NEW MEMBERS

Encounters Kaunas Film Festival Breaking Ground Cinema Hall Munich Film Society

from The Graduate (1967) by Mike Nichols

Focus: Early Melons Script&Pitch Alumni

agenda 1st - 3rd September

10th - 16th April

NISI MASA 10th Anniversary in Revine Lago (Italy)

Linz Festival TV Workshop

Ex-pres (Simone Fenoil) and new-pres (Hannaleena Hauru).

editorial Enjoy the media revolution

10 years means a decade. A decade is a perfect slice of time to see how things change. Ten years ago the mobile was still a landline, Youtube didn’t exist, and even sharing a short video with someone was quite difficult.

Digital video devices were considered unprofessional tools – as video appliances in general. Staying in contact with new friends was less easy than today, the concept of social networking didn’t exist.

Ten years later, everything has changed. This means that this world needs new strategies, new ideas, new “plots” to sort out. And a new concept of “cinema” for sure. Think about it: What is 'Harry Potter' exactly? 8 single, separated movies? A unique film story divided in 8 parts? What about all the sagas coming from Marvel, where all the films are interconnected? And what about TV series, which are becoming so rich and complex, structured like films, in many cases telling a single strong story split between various episodes? And what about very low budget films, shot in digital, by unknown directors suddenly becoming blockbuster movies – like Paranormal Activities? Borders are collapsing.

I make all these points to say that we need new tools to re-imagine the audiovisual world and how we watch it – and how to live in it. But even if

everything changes, the mission for NISI MASA is always the same. To create new opportunities for young talents, to find their way into the professional world. To build a network of young talented people, who will be able to design projects in partnerships, without borders. In the future, co-productions between European organizations in all fields – producers , artists, professionals etc – will probably be more important and a structure like NISI MASA could be vital for these kind of strategies.

I have no idea what will come in the world of tomorrow. Stories and documentaries built across different media, tv, web-episodes, cinema theatre etc etc. A terrible, shining, new way to describe the world, to feel ourselves inside stories. But whatever the kind of new ideas, there will be always someone who will have the talent to do or to tell it. And there will be, I hope, a Cyber- NISI MASA which will give the possibility to get in contact with other talents, with producers and professionals. So, enjoy this new decade!

After a double presidency, I know happily resign after many great experiences, to leave this future up to the new board to imagine. Good luck and see you in Lago for the 10th anniversary!

by Simone Fenoil, ex-Pres

credits.

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordination Bruno Carmelo Maartje Alders Design Maartje Alders

Contributors to this issue: Bruno Carmelo, Simone Fenoil, Liz Harkman, Eva Michalkova, Hasse van Nunen, Atso Pärnänen, Illia Svidler, Tomas Tengmark.

NISI MASA (European Office) 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010, Paris, France Tel/Fax: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com

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New Member Organisations

dossier

And then there were 27... In the last General Assembly of NISI MASA with representatives of all the European cinema organisations in the network. 5 new associations presented themselves and are now officially members. Here you can read more about them, when we confronted their representative with the same 3 questions. On this page, for Encounters: Liz Harkman, for Kaunas: Tomas Tengmark. Interviews by Bruno Carmelo

ENCOUNTERS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (UK) Liz Harkman - Managing Director Why being a part of a European network?

Encounters is interested in encouraging more participation and attendance from European filmmakers to develop connections with UK based young filmmakers to develop a more cohesive opportunity for co-production between the UK and the rest of Europe, and we believe NISI MASA is well placed to support this encouragement and help the festival reach out to as wider audience as possible. We are also interested in learning and knowledge sharing with the other members of the network and being inspired by a creative group of active film and cinema enthusiasts.

What new projects does your group bring to the short films and feature films in your country?

Now in it’s 17th year Encounters International Film Festival is the longest running dedicated short film festival in

the UK and one of the leading festivals in Europe. It is the umbrella brand for four strands that make up the festival; Brief Encounters, focus on short film and talent development; Animated Encounters, focus on animation; DepicT!, the 90 second short film competition; Fresh Flix, a programme of activities celebrating young people’s creativity.

The competitive strands of the festival run along side a full programme of workshops, masterclasses, panel discussions, training events, gala performances, guest programmes and networking opportunities.

What is still lacking in the cultural scenario in your country and in Europe? What priority cultural and cinema projects should yet be developed, in your opinion?

The UK is currently in a state of transition around the government support of film production. There are a number of organizations that are loosing governement this support, including Encounters. Filmmakers in the UK will need to become more independent and creative to finance their short film, and festivals will need to develop more of a social experience for filmmakers to network, to share peer to peer engagements and facilitate collaboration.

Encounters currently tried to provide this level of interaction. Our aspirations for 2011 and beyond are to collaborate more effectively with other festivals,

networks and events in Europe and internationally, including working with the NISI MASA network. www.encounters-festival.org.uk

Why being a part of an European network?

Being part of a European network is in line with Kaunas International Film Festival (IFF) main objective.

The central objective for Kaunas IFF is to enhance film culture and film industry in Lithuania. The festival presents mainly European art-house films, especially originated from low audiovisual countries, which are rarely presented in Lithuanian cinemas. Kaunas IFF is the only film festival in the Baltic presenting a special program of music films called Music Moves the World and aims to promote European music films to the Lithuanian film market.

An important part of the film culture revival in Lithuania is presenting retrospectives programmes as part of film education.

What new projects does your group bring to the short films and feature films in your country?

Kaunas IFF has the focus on enhancement of the audiovisual literacy. Showcases and seminars both for wide audiences and for film professionals are the main method. Kaunas IFF is in the development stage of a new educational project for youth, which will include not only watching selected programme, analyzing, but developing films as well. Working on audiovisual literacy and youth integration is a primarily goal of Kaunas IFF team.

What is still lacking in the cultural scenario in your country and in Europe? What priority cultural and cinema projects should yet be developed, in your opinion?

We do believe that Lithuanian youth should be more active in all sorts of cooperation: inside Lithuania, among other countries, among other continents. A new school, a new wave of interesting filmmakers would be a great long waited result. Better, more flexible, less purely commercially oriented art-house film distribution network is also pretty crucial in order to achieve a tolerant, openminded society.

More Master classes by prominent filmmakers should be presented for the cinephile youth all over Europe, as well as international gatherings, meetings, international exchanges, film criticism master classes and scriptwriting and editing classes. www.kinofestivalis.lt/en

KAUNUS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (LITHUANIA) Tomas Tengmark - Programme Producer

dossier

New Member Organisations

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And here the continuation. For Cinema Hall: Ilia Svidler, for Breaking Ground: Hasse van Nunen and for Munich Film Society: Martin Blankemeyer. Interviews also by Bruno Carmelo.

CINEMA HALL (UKRAINE) Ilia Svidler - President

Why being a part of an European network?

CinemaHall wants to be a part of European network because we believe that it is very important for filmmakers to share experience, knowledge, make project together.

There are a lot of talented filmmakers in Ukraine who are interested in working over projects with peo-

ple from other countries of Europe.

Considering NISI MASA a great network we would be very glad to tell people in Ukraine about projects and events held by NISI MASA and popularize its activity as well as to make a good contribution to European film art and culture.

What new projects does your group bring to the short films and feature films in your country?

We have more than 5 new projects that aim at film education and film enlightment. Among them: CinemaHall database (helps directors

to find people over Ukraine for film projects), CinemaHall film demonstration (film demonstration with presence of professionals who give valuable advice), CinemaHall training and CinemaHall create.

What is still lacking in the cultural scenario in your country and in Europe? What priority cultural and cinema projects should yet be developed, in your opinion?

The main thing is that system of film production doesn't work in Ukraine as it should (after the break of Soviet Union). We now want to join all the parts: education, production, distribution, etc. to give young filmmakers an opportunity to create and share their results with society. I am sure that experience exchange could make great things, so I think that we must cooperate and communicate with each other to reach the best results!

www.cinemahall.org.ua

Why being a part of an European network?

Breaking Ground is a platform for European student films. Our goals: give film students a place to show their work and to meet each other as well as film professionals. So we collect student films from all over Europe, select the best film and filmmakers and make sure they are seen and can connect to each other. We do this by starting collaborations with festivals and events. For these festivals we make various different programmes. We hope that being part of NISI MASA we can expand our number of partners and give film students more places to show their work.

What new projects does your group bring to the short films and feature films in your country?

Breaking Ground’s activities include short pitch contests, short film screenings in different European countries, we have the Go Short Student Campus, which offers to 15 talented European film students an intensive 6-day programme of filmmaking, workshops, lectures and screenings. Also, we work with film institutions, festivals and online platforms. That includes activities with the EYE Film Institute of Amsterdam, the Go Short International Film Festival, the International Student Film

Festival in Belgrade and the Early Melons festival in Bratislava.

What is still lacking in the cultural scenario in your country and in Europe? What priority cultural and cinema projects should yet be developed, in your opinion?

We think that in general (student) filmmakers focus to much on their own country, but the borders are fading and Europe is becoming smaller and smaller. So co-productions are becoming more and more important in the film industry. Because students are still very flexible in their way of working and are very willing to connect to other people

and other ways of filmmaking, we think it's a good thing if they start working with people from different countries in an early stage of their career. We would like to help them with meeting filmmakers from other countries. www.breakingground.eu

BREAKING GROUND (NETHERLANDS) Hasse van Nunen - Artistic Director

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New Member Organisations

Why being a part of a European network?

NISI MASA brings some fresh air to us. We actually work regionally, with Bavaria and nothing else, and all the organizations we deal with are German. NISI MASA is our first international experience, towards Europe, and that will maybe give us new ideas to bring to our country. That can also provide young German people the chance to have their new film seen abroad.

They will have a new path to foreign countries and international projects.

dossier MUNICH FILM SOCIETY (GERMANY) Martin Blankemeyer - Managing Director What new projects does your group bring to the short films and feature films in your country?

Actually, festivals in Munich have been very successful, but they do not always help and encourage young people and small budget projects. That’s what we do, with a formation in cinema and some production structure for small budget films.

We try to give means to new young talents to express themselves, thought seminars, workshops, screenings.

What is still lacking in the cultural scenario in your country and in Europe? What priority cultural and cinema projects should yet be developed, in your opinion?

In my personal opinion, television won’t be the film market anymore; it’s a thing from the past. We’ll mostly work with digital media, and we’ll need some distribution structure on the Internet for short films. If I want to watch a feature film from Hollywood, I can download it on iTunes, but there is no such thing for short films yet. That will come. Some new structures and websites have slowly taken over the film market, such as eBay, and that’s great. Soon, everyone will be able to watch films no matter where they are, for a small price. We will no longer need all the traditional distribution structure; all short film directors and producers will be able to distribute their own films. www.muenchner-filmwerkstatt.de/english.htm

news Nisimazine Cannes 2011

Angers Workshops 2011 Call for APPLICANTS

The team for Nisimazine Cannes has now been selected! They are: Levente Czehelszki (Hungary) - critic, Eva Kincsei (Hungary) - critic, Patrícia Veszprémi (Hungary) - critic, Miklós Vargha (Hungary) - photographer, Lukas Traber (Austria) - critic, AnneSophie Meusburger (Austria) - critic, Martina Lang (Austria) - photographer/ videoblogger, Synes Elischka (Austria) - videoblogger, Lubos Bisto (Slovakia) - critic, Maria Ulfsak-Sheripova (Estonia) - critic, Andris Feldmanis (Estonia) - photographer Co-organising staff for this edition : Eva Michalkova (Slovakia), Eva Ujlakyova (Slovakia), Jass Seljamaa (Estonia), Merli Antsmaa (Estonia) Congratulations to all!

www.nisimazine.eu

Angers Workshops, together with Premier Plan Festival, has opened the call for submissions to their 7th edition, taking place on August 23rd – 30th.

This event proposes to young filmmakers, with one or two short films in their career and planning to develop a first fiction feature, to profit from a full week workshop on artistic, technical and financial aspects of producing a first film.

DEADLINE: 22 of April More on www.premiersplans.org

L’Europe autour de l’Europe 2011

Eye on Films Call for entries This new worldwide network, which exists since January 2011, calls for films

Cross Video Days 2011 Crossmedia and transmedia projects are the focus of this professional event, taking place in Paris, France, on June 15th - 16th. If you have a new project looking for financing, or an already existing one looking for distribution, you can participate in this debate, workshop and market-based gathering, built around all sorts of artistic projects concerning new technologies.

To submit your project, just fill out the form on the Market page of the Cross Video Days website before noon on April 26th 2011. www.crossvideodays.com/market.html

The Short Film Project The Short Film Project seeks films related to Territory. “This land is mine and I will govern it / This land is mine and I shall protect it / Beware, beware, cross it if you dare!”. If you have an artistic short of a political, social or philosophical nature which delves into the themes mentioned above, you can contact tsfmplus@gmail.com

NISI MASA’s new Board After NISI MASA’s general assembly in Bratislava, on March 18th - 20th 2011, the Board is now composed of: Hannaleena Hauru (President) Daria Blazevic (Vice-President) Aleksandra Marchenko (Treasurer) Filipe Pereira (Secretary) Vittorio Sclaverani (Special missions) They will be in office untill the General Assembly in 2013!

The sixth edition of the French festival L’Europe autour de l’Europe takes place in several different Parisian film theaters and cultural centers until April 15th. The aim of this edition is to present the best films of different countries on the theme “heroes and anti-heroes”.

Norway, Denmark, Finland, Slovakia and Hungary are this year’s special guests. Besides screenings, the event organizes debates, workshops, and meetings on European cinema. www.evropafilmakt.com

wishing to integrate their project. If you have a recent first feature film, preferably not yet shown outside of its home country, you can benefit from Eye on Films contacts with partners from 15 different countries, which can help your work to be seen and screened abroad.

More information on www.eyeonfilms.org

OFFICE NEWS As spring arrives, some staff changes occur at NISI MASA Paris, and we welcome amongst us two faces who were not unfamiliar with the network: Maddalena Longhi, from Italy, member of Franti association (NISI MASA’s member since 2004), and Bruno Carmelo, from Brazil, former participant at Cannes 2009 and IDFA 2010 workshops. They will work at EO untill the end of May.

EARLY MELONS ///// SCRIPT&PITCH ALUMNI

spotlight Recently there have been two projects within the NISI MASA Network that are interesting to point out to you. The first one is the Early Melons festival in Bratislava, member of NISI MASA since 2010 and enjoying its 4th edition in March. The second is the alumni meeting annualy held for Script&Pitch participants. Enjoy some more juicy details here below: Early Melons International Student Film Festival

T

he 4th volume of the annual International Student Film Festival Early Melons was held from 16th – 20th of March 2011 and brought a diverse program consisting of competitive and non-competitive film

screenings. Also there was special events to spotlight young photography, videoart and music.

At Early Melons Festival each year he main section is an International competition of student films. 33 films were selected from 20 countries for the 2011 edition: Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Serbia, Great Britain, Israel, Portugal, Mexico, Ukraine,

USA and Russia.

The International jury was composed of five film professionals from various industries and countries: Dominik Tschütscher, director of the Austrian student film festival Film:riss, Czech filmmaker Lucie Králová, director of the festival Animateka in Ljubljana

Igor Prassel and Hungarian script writer Orsolya Benkö. The Slovak competition was the second major section of the festival, bringing together the latest films from Slovak schools with audio-visual focus.

The jury awarded a Grand Prix for the Best Slovak Film to secondlife,

by Peter Kováčik and a price for Artistic vision was given to Alica Gurinová for Bells. The Melon competition was also enriched by an International competition, the Grand Prix won by The Multitude is Feverish by Vika Kirchenbauer and Midnight by Klára Tasovská .

The concept of the fourth year of Early Melons emphasised the linking of the festival with the city of Bratislava. A festival map was cerated, which brought the viewers to each Early Melons venue across the center of Bratislava. The Melon road followers got to choose between different projections in cinemas, or visit the official festival bars and restaurants. The festival also offered daily evening concerts and parties. more at www.earlymelons.com

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he word “alumni” can bring to mind a banderol over a ballroom saying “class of 69” and under it a group of people checking who has divorced, who is fat, who has become a success and whether the captain of the cheerleader 's is still good looking.

Needless to say I do not recall any of the above taking place at this year's (or any other year for that matter) alumni event for the Torino Film Lab's Script&Pitch workshops.

The alumni was once again held in Angers, France at the Premiers Plans film festival which is dedicated to first European films.

Usually networking or film festival cocktail events seem to form a never ending CV upgrading cycle where people give an update on their projects and professional development. Often are the words “we are waiting to hear from...” heard while the main interest for many seems to be trying to get a refill or some cheese from the nearby table.

The Script& Pitch way to approach this is as refreshing as the workshop itself. Over a long January weekend the participants from all corners of Europe have a chance to catch up with their tutors, group members, fellow scriptwriters and story editors. Here is their opportunity to engage in talks regarding storytelling, screenplays, films screened and then analyzed. The alumni offers a stress free environment for this all as there is no pitching or the usual film festival hassles to occupy your mind. Just make sure you make it on time for the many lunches and dinners!

This year's highlight was story editor Antoine Bataille's talk based

7 on his study and research on the meaning and effect of moving images. These and many other thoughts are shared on an arena of welcoming colleagues, whether they would be the same or different than those of the majority.

An alumni event like this is thus a refreshing getaway, while still keeping one in tune with the many challenges that a filmmaker faces and offering new views and ways to tackle them. Or just a moment to relax before continuing with the charge forward!

by Atso Pärnänen