Mas y Mas November 2009

mรกs ymรกs

monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

nov 09 B E R L I N

CINEMA S C E N E interview:

matthijs wouter knol

report:

matter of taste portrait:

Still from the film Esterhazy ( 2009) by Izabela Plucinska, made with a grant of the Nipkow programme, Berlin

oana rasuceanu

agenda

3 to 9. nov.

Script Contest Jury Meeting in Brussels

8-9. nov.

Board Meeting in Brussels

editorial

I

have almost finished my voluntary service in the lovely European Office and will soon say au revoir to my colleagues and my everyday contacts that I harassed by endless e-mails and phone calls. So this month I did not assign the task to write the editorial to anybody, to take advantage to say goodbye you!

In the beginning of November, NISI MASA organised the jury meeting of its 8th European Script Contest for Short Films in Brussels. The 12 script winners that were selected for the European Short Pitch 2010 workshop are announced on the News page!

This month the theme of the Dossier is Berlin; “the poor but the sexy” capital of Europe! We were asking ourselves “Why is this city such an attractive and trendy place for young film makers?”. So then we started questioning some young film makers who have moved there, looking for the hidden opportunities and things on offer.

Since the 9 November is the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin’s wall, I guess this is a good time to talk about the new Berlin and its myths!

ship Program. Another old volunteer (half German, half French) Maximilien Van Aertryck writes on The Babelsberg studios and his impression of the city as a magnet and utopia. We talked with two expat film makers in Berlin: Mathieu Charrière from FilmArche and Sabrina Fidalgo, independent filmmaker and participant of Nisimazine Rio, about their experiences with the city. And you can find a longer interview with the program manager of Berlinale Talent Campus: Matthijs Wouter Knol, who is originally from The Netherlands.

Besides this we give you some insights into the ‘Matter of Taste': Food and Culture in Europe’ project, through the eyes of one of the participants, Tony Donoghue from Ireland. And in the portrait you can meet Romanian member organisation Ctrl N’s president: Oana Rasuceanu. Do not forget to check the screening announcements on the screenings page!

Berlin is calling you, Istanbul is calling me…

See you!

Inside you will find an article by true “Berliner” Nina Henke (old volunteer at the European Office) on the Nipkow Fellow-

by Gülçin Şahin

credits.

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordinator Gülçin Şahin Design Maartje Alders

Contributors to this issue: Maximilien van Aertryck, Tony Donoghue, Nina Henke Jude Lister, Fernando Miceli Iulia Rugina, Gülçin Sahin

NISI MASA (European Office) 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010, Paris, France Tel/Fax: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38

berlin cinema scene

dossier

The Berlin "myth" contains several things; squat art houses, ultra cheap housing rents, underground artist collectives, one of the most vibrant night lifes of Europe... Besides all this, there are many opportunities for young film makers. We tried to figure some of them out for this issue.

by Gülçin Şahin

French-born

MATHIEU CHARRIÈRE studies in Berlin at FilmArche

Y

ou are originally French, why did you choose to live here?

I moved to Berlin from Paris one year ago. I had been in Berlin 3 or 4 times as a tourist and I really liked it. Berlin is maybe one of the last major European cities where you can feel history in every corner. I wanted to check this Berlin "myth" that makes Berlin one of the favourite cities for artists.

And even today I have the feeling that Berlin is still looking for its identity, and I want to be part of this process.

What are the opportunities of Berlin for a film maker?

The whole the ex-eastern part is full of buildings which never had new owners after the fall of the wall. You can easily get authorisation to shoot in an abandoned factory for example. I am from FilmArche, a self-organized filmschool where young filmmakers come together and exchange knowledge. The fees are really low; the housing rents are very low in Berlin as well. Berlin is the only place in Europe where you can find

Grants for film professionals

Nipkow Programme

S

ince 1992, three years after the recently celebrated fall of the wall, the Nipkow programme exists in Berlin. It is a fellowship programme which helps young film and TV professionals to get counselling, to expand their contacts for internships in the film and media business and to take courses. The grant is awarded for two to six months and the monthly average is about 1,500 Euro which is far enough to live in Berlin.

The Nipkow programme, which is supported by the Media programme, contributes also to the development of European Coproductions. Young Polish director Izabela Plucinska, who made the German-Polish co-production Esterhazy (2009) with the grant of the Nipkow programme, presented the film currently at the DOK Leipzig and at the Interfilm Berlin. In 2002, she studied at Film and Television Academy (HFF) "Konrad Wolf" in Potsdam-Babelsberg, and won the Silberner Bär at the Berlinale 2005 for the short film Jam Session (2005). Izabela appreciated her time with Nipkow because she'd got intensive mentoring and professional and personal support after Jam Session through the programme. Nipkow

such a school. German film industry is still in development. Berlin is a great platform where you can get the energy of the city and try to use it in your own work, as a filmmaker. You have the same opportunities here that London and Paris offer, but for a lower price. There is a lot of independent film theatres where you can screen short movies.

What has changed after the fall of Berlin Wall in the film sector and associative life in Berlin and in Germany generally?

Before the fall of the wall it was very difficult to shoot movies in the eastern part without the pressure of the state. The Babelsberg studios were specialized in propaganda movies from 1949 to 1989.

Now, the Babelsberg studios have a major place in the international film industry. Last year Tarantino came there to shoot his film: Inglorious Basterds. After the fall of the wall, two different worlds came together, and their film styles too.

The cultural life has developed very quickly. In the beginning of the 90's the rent prices fell, this has animated the associative life in the city.

by Gülçin Sahin

from Esterhazy

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helped her also to get into a workshop with the Television Business School in Lübeck, which brings producers, TV executives and production managers from all over Europe together for a pitching, and which was her first contact with the commercial animation scene and brought her a lot of contacts. Izabela will stay in Berlin because she is inspired by the atmosphere and the liberty of the city and by the high amount of international artists living in Berlin nowadays.

Twice a year, film professionals (not students!) can take their chance to get one of the Nipkow-grants. The next deadline for applications is the 30th of November and it is open for people from all countries which are members in Media Plus. The application, which is in English, should include a CV/filmography, two written recommendations and work samples. An international jury will decide about the grants due to not only the quality, nature and practicability of the project, but also to it's European dimension and the potential benefit to the home country of the applicant.

Please check the website for further informations (in English): http://www.nipkow.de/

by Nina Henke

dossier

W

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my two euro cents :the berlin landscape

Young filmmaker from Brazil

SABRINA FIDALGO divides her time between Rio de Janeiro and Berlin. In the latter she shot one of her latest shorts Black Berlin.

Sabrina on the set of Black Berlin, Photo by Fernando Miceli

hy did you choose Berlin to live?

I was looking for a place where I could feel entirely free to express myself. Unfortunately there are not many places in the world that allow you to see life from another perspective, without feeling yourself as an "intruder" or a "stranger". And I guess in the cities like Berlin, New York, London, Sao Paulo it is still possible, but Berlin shines

berlin cinema scene

through with low cots of living. As the official slogan of the city says, "Berlin is poor but is sexy".

Berlin has become a trendy place for young artists, how would you explain this?

Firstly, Berlin is a friendly and cheap city.

I think what attracts young artists to Berlin is mainly the cultural diversity plus its historical symbolism with two wars, two dichotomous political systems, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification ... to mention the explosion of rave culture in the 90ies. It was not just the DJ and the wider public only, there were exhibitions of young artists and photographers, installations, video art, performances ... All of this has massively attracting young artists from around the world in the last twenty years. Besides that until nowadays there's always an alternative art/cultural-industry going on like workshops in the back of houses, factories or renovated garages - everywhere there are new spaces for art. The exceptional atmosphere of this city be-

tween east and west, its pulsating life, its frankness play important role. Berlin is on the high of the list with the production of art, alongside New York and London: the city has about 5000 artists.

Do you think the Berlin is an international city?

In Berlin nobody feels alien in the sense of being an "outsider". People in general have a tolerance and appreciation for what comes from far. And indeed there are many young foreign artists living in the city and this is more a factor to enrich the cultural and artist scene, as there is a constant exchange of thoughts, ideas, views, opinions and perspectives. This all adds significant value and makes life more colourful and graceful despite the problems. There is a certain love in the air of Berlin and it is very beautiful and inspiring.

by Gßlçin Şahin

I

do have a little bit of something against Berlin; not quite sure what it is, but my greatest and only joy about the German capital is the joy of anticipation. I have often taken the train to the highly praised mecca of liberal lifestyle and modern zeitgeist, rejoicing for hours watching the backyards of Germany. "Berlin, Berlin, wir fahren nach Berlin!", indeed, but once I find my way out of the oddly modern Hauptbahnof, reality strikes me. There's a ridiculously gigantic city with empty streets; a metropolis that looks like a modern magazine advertisement with Helvetica typeface, neutral, no intrinsic meaning, I dare say dull.

But I can't deny its power; and my critic grows out of my jealousy. What makes a city is not its buildings, but the stuff in between; and in Berlin that would be plenty of room to play with. Unlike in its neighbor country across the Rhine, centralization does not describe the once separated city; while Frankfurt rules over finances, Munich is known to be the city of the so-called Schickeria and the Ruhr region is home to a vast industrial landscape.

Then who has gathered in Berlin? Perhaps those fleeing the bad apples and high society cheek kisses of the cities mentioned above, young

people in search of something to mold and shape, like a sculptor in front of his clay block; or me forty minutes ago in front of a blank page.

Invading the cheap downtown studios of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Mitte and Kreuzberg, they created new household names of recent subculture.

One of these references exists since 1911 and is Europe's oldest film studio : Babelsberg. Besides having a quite philosophical name "the mountain of Babel" easily connected to the go-east hype and is today an attraction for filmmakers and productions around the world; home of the honorary citizen Konrad Wolf film school and dozens of film companies.

The name Honnywood (in contraction with Erich Honecker) though, didn't persist.

Berlin is home to a moving art scene and its young talents, Karl Scheffler's description of a city "condemned forever to becoming and never to being" could also serve as a casual metaphor for film, or how we try to make a difference between real and reel everyday.

by Maximilien van Aertryck

5

berlin cinema scene

dossier

interview.

matthijs wouter knol

We had an interview with Matthijs Wouter Knol, the Dutch program manager of Berlinale Talent Campus and talked about his reasons to live in Berlin.

Y

ou have studied in the Netherlands and Rome and then worked in Amsterdam. Now you are based in Berlin, heading the “Berlinale Talent Campus”. Was there a special reason which made you move to this city other than career related motivations?

Not particularly. I attended the Berlinale in the past years when I was still a producer. The festival time is February, and even though Berlin is cold and dark at that time, it was still vibrant during my stays, lots of things were going on and there was a creative atmosphere in the city. So, for me every time I came to Berlin for the festival, the city was always a special extra. I had the opportunity to meet other young creative people, to see their works and discuss my projects with them. I think this is one of the most important reasons what makes the festival and this city such an attractive place.

You feel in an international atmosphere in this city? If yes, this improves the creativity of work according to you?

Berlin is a huge mixture of range of different things, different cultures, different landscapes, and different kinds of architecture: the imperial Berlin, the socialist Berlin, the contemporary Berlin: it is all there and you can find it on almost every corner of every street. Berlin is still a city where the East meets the West: the connection to Eastern Europe is very strong here and still Berlin is a western city. Many people have moved to Berlin in the past years, so the dynamics of all this new input is very tangible.

Berlin is also a city open to and encouraging a new generation of filmmakers: there a film schools here and the Berlin International Film Festival initiated the Berlinale Talent Campus eight years ago, the largest platform for upcoming filmmakers in the world.

Berlin has become a trendy place for young artists, how would you explain this? What are the opportunities and advantages of this city for a young film maker according to you?

Berlin is not like the other cities in Europe. Things are not too settled, not too bourgeois, not totally arranged. Berlin is a city that still is changing a lot, and of course has done so in the modern sense only since 1989. Therefore, in Berlin you have the opportunity to create, to express and to experiment more than in other European capital cities nowadays. Especially for young and creative people this is a great opportunity.

What has changed the fall of wall in daily, artistic and associative life in Berlin according to you?

Well, I only live here for one year and was 12 years old when I watched the Berlin Wall falling, it was a television history moment for me. Living in this city nowadays I can see how much has changed, but also how much the wall influenced people’s lives and opinions and expectations. This is something you can’t turn back in 20 years. The time of the wall has left a mark on the city and people’s minds and memories.

Most of the people visiting Berlin for the first time are still asking: Where was the East, where was the West? It is hard to say sometimes, the former East looks newer and newer every month. Travelling free, being able to meet people and exchange ideas is possible here now. This is the big change that has brought the city its atmosphere of a creative melting pot.

And what is new in the Berlinale Talent Campus this year?

The Berlinale Talent Campus will continue offering a platform for emerging filmmakers to meet with established guests of the festival and meet with each other. “Cinema needs Talent: Looking for the Right People” is the theme for 2010. This means we will focus on how to make choices as a filmmaker and how to find the people with whom you can build a working relationship that will bring your work to higher level, that will help you develop a personal narrative and visual style.

This year, more filmmakers have applied than ever before: 4.773 people from 145 countries all over the world. 350 of them will be invited to Berlin in February 2010.

Are you planning to stay for long time in this city?

Well, I am working here on one of the most exciting projects for young filmmakers, and I really enjoy living here - so there is no reason to leave Berlin!

by Gülçin Sahin

news AWARDED SCRIPTS! The jury meeting of the 8th European Script Contest for Short Films has taken place in Brussels. The representatives from each member organisation of the network decided together and are happy to announce the following 12 winners: Rendez-vous - Koen de Jongh (Belgium) The Cherry Edip - Dena Popova (Bulgaria) Benedictus Fructus - Hrvoje Zuparic (Croatia) Photo - Katrin Maimik (Estonia) Diary of a city bunny - Vappu Tuomisto (Finland)

Gotta have it - Matti Koskinen (Finland) It's not fair - Sara Spinelli (Italy)

6 Award for Between Dreams Between Dreams, the film produced during Cinetrain workshop in 2008 by Iris Olsson, got the Triangle Muscle Award for Best Short Documentary at 6th annual film festival DokMa - Documentaries in Maribor (in the Interregional programme section).

NISIMAZINE Artvin NISI MASA Turkey is organising Nisimazine Artvin Film Journalism Workshop in cooperation with 15th Festival On Wheels between the dates 10th-16th December in Artvin. Nisimazine Artvin, third local film journalism workshop that NISI MASA Turkey has organised this year following IFZINE (8th International Independent Film Festival) and Documentarist Gazette (Documentarist Istanbul 2009) aims at composing a meeting point for young film critics and photographers from Turkey.

Nisimazine Artvin is scheduled upon the request of audience who acclaimed last year's international Nisimazine Kars workshop and already called for participants.

Junk - Andra Chiria (Romania)

Kangaroo - Nina Belenickaya (Russia) Queebrow - Artyom Galkin (Russia) Koala - Daniel Remon (Spain)

NexT;

Call for entries The fourth edition of NexT International Short and Medium Length Film Festival will take place in Bucharest, Romania from April 13 to April 18, 2010.

Therefore, NexT calls for entries of narrative films up to 60 minutes (animation included, no documentaries), completed after the 1st of January 2008.

Faux-pas - Jakob Backman (Sweden)

Congratulations to all!

Besides the competition and the off competition programmes, NexT also presents a series of seminars on directing, sound-design, production & distribution, script-writing etc. offered free of charge to the participants.

For more information, check our website: www.nisimasa.com

Deadline for submissions: December 1, 2009

www.nextproject.ro

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screenings GERMANY

Some of the Cinetrain film are being screened at the "Kassel Documentary Film & Video Festival" in Kassel that runs from 10 to 15 November.

Thursday 12.11.09

Between Dreams

Saturday 14.11.09 Lenin's Code

FRANCE

Thursday 12.11.09 The 9th edition of NISI MASA France’s traditional screening soirée: CinéPudding, will be held on the 12th of November in Voûtes (19 rue des Frigos 75013 Paris) at 20H30. All Cinetrain films will be screened.

Entrance: 4 euros

SWEDEN

Saturday 14.11.09 The Matter of Taste Shorts will be screened within the program of Västsvenska filmdagar on the 14th of November (14:15-15:30). A presentation of NISI MASA and NISI MASA Sweden will be made as well. http://www.vastsvenskafilmdagar.se/program.html

CROATIA

Monday 16.11.09 Kinoklub Zagreb will screen the Matter of Taste selected shorts in cooperation with Kinoklub Split in Split.

For more information: valentina@indieframe.com

AUSTRIA

Kino 5 has its 5th anniversary "kino5 is 5" on the 19th of november! A shortfilm screening with Thursday 19.11.09 a retrospective of everything that has been made in Kino 5 over the years will start at 8PM, followed by a party. The venue is at Karlsplatz 5 in the 1st district of Vi-

Tony Donoghue from Ireland participated in the Matter of Taste programme with his short A Film from My Parish: 6 Farms. A frequent festival guest (or "tart", as he comically puts it), Tony nevertheless found the atmosphere in the small village of Lago rather special.

by Tony Donoghue

Tony is the man holding the camera Photo by Jude Lister

matter of taste

spotlight

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ago, Lago, Lago …..where do I start. It’s a bit of a Shangri -La, this charming, beautiful little town perched up in the rolling Dolomites of Northern Italy. How a town so small that it doesn’t even have a ‘gelateria’ can pack such a punch of a film festival with 6 screening venues defies belief.

What is it? Lago Film Festival is a festival that truly celebrates film and life. It has traditionally been curated by and for locals –and bully for that. Some of us northern Europeans were at first a bit miffed at the lack of English subtitles –but to hell with us – it was a festival designed and run for the local community.

This year however Lago Film Festival teamed up with NISI MASA who curated a programme of food related films. When the idea of “Matter of Taste” originated I’ll leave to the staff in Paris to tell you but it was all a very good idea on many levels. For this project NISI MASA brought 18 filmmakers from 11 countries to Lago. 5 of the 6 screening venues were outdoors so even if you wanted to you couldn’t watch films for 80% of your time there. This seems like a crazy idea for a film festival …but it really worked. Unlike most film festivals where you are running from screening to screening here you actually had to talk to and meet the local people and filmmakers from other countries, discuss filmmaking in your country, even discuss food production in your country. This really worked.

So what was it all about? Here we have this small town 50 miles north of Venice stretching ribbon like between steep forested hills and a beautiful tranquil lake. Here they run a film festival bringing in hundreds of short films from all over the world.

The festival largely runs after dusk when the public wander candle lit streets and alleys discovering open air cinemas in beautiful courtyards. Yes –it really is that beautiful. And the main screen: it’s in the lake with the audience sitting on a gently sloping hill looking out to the lake.

The result: A. Older hands like myself; found ourselves actually listening to what younger filmmakers go through at the moment –the problems and positives.

B. Some of the selected films were exceptionally beautiful and were being incredibly undervalued by the very filmmakers themselves. It was great to be able to point to other film festivals and how these films could be promoted there too and on returning home to recommend these films to people in the business.

L

Photos by Tony Donoghue

C. I make work about rural culture and when you eat, swim and hang out with other filmmakers for 7 days you start finding out all sorts of things about other countries. So, “Hello Hungary, hello Romania, hello Turkey, hello Spain” –hopefully I’ll now have some help finding sustainable farms to film in each of these countries after my Lago time.

D. There’s now a DVD and a book. The clever people of NISI MASA have put together a clever record of the whole event. It’s not just a record either –it’s a travelling programme and has already played in Paris, Bucharest, Helsinki, Budapest, Zagreb, and Amsterdam.

Summary: At first I was wondering what the hell I was doing going to such a small film festival. It turned out to be a totally new film festival experience for me. I’ve just returned from CinemAmbiente in Turin and before that was at Cinema e Cibo in Bologna. Nobody, nobody integrates the film and food combination as well and as intelligently as the Italians. In fact it’s not just film and food, its film and quality of life. This isn’t just about good food or creature comforts –no it’s about film, NOT being this alienated art but being an integral part of daily life.

portrait

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OANA RASUCEANU

In 2009, in Romania, decided together with Iulia Rugina and Ana Agopian to found a cultural association – Control N. They needed a president, a vice president and an executive director. Oana was selected as president. During the months that followed this, we have never regretted that. Now, after almost one year from its foundation, Control N is led by the same best person for the job – the most reliable of all. Control N is the Romanian member organization of NISI MASA network since March 2009.

Whether her delay is 1 minute or half an hour, she never seems to be there on time, when it comes to meeting her friends. It’s either the traffic, or the long shower, or the cat, or the neighbor or just a broken clock.

Could never explain it, but I guess it is the part of her charm how she arrives running, or stressed, or cursing the Bucharest traffic or the lady at the shop who took “a million years”. It’s funny to watch all the excuses.

Oana loves cats, clothes, earrings and scarves. She loves her coffee in the morning and being a woman most of the day. She never smokes and never drinks. Ever since I met her, I have tried to make her have 1(!) glass of a drink with alcohol. It didn’t work.

W

hen I met Oana Rasuceanu I firstly thought– what a reliable girl! We were both around 20, in a small class of the film school building in Bucharest. 40 people listening to their first film lecture on screenwriting. I was studying directing, she was studying screenwriting. When you meet all your new colleagues for the first time, all at once, there’s no way you can remember anyone’s name, their interests, what they look like or what they say. But in Oana’s case I can say: “Well, she was brown haired, wearing glasses and one orange neck woolen sweater. She spoke a clear and correct Romanian and seemed bright and determined to say something. So reliable!”

That was proved to be right. We ended up working together as a reliable team. We wrote 5 scripts together and worked on endless projects since then – in work-

shops, in film festivals, in courses, in all kinds of shootings.

She always seems like in a hurry. She is on the phone, or on the way to a meeting, or in a hurry not to miss a deadline. She has a bad habit of taking too many projects at the same time and then knocking herself out to finish them all. She is PR manager for Transylvania Film Festival and for Next Film Festival, she handles events, film premieres, galas and any cultural event. She writes scripts and loves to dance. Two years ago she took up a master in choreography and we ended up doing a dance show. It seems like she is one of those people who can finish whatever she starts and you can trust her completely.

In spite of her amazing reliability, Oana has a problem though that seems like contradict to this: Punctuality...

She is always sober without being a freak. Always late without being unreliable, always working so much without being a workaholic, always knowing what to say and when to say it. A kind of character that makes you to ask yourself in a bad situation: “what would Oana do now?”

She is now on the 14th floor of a building, in a city on the desert of Qatar, working for the Doha Tribeca Film Festival for 3 months. She is now blond, still wearing glasses, probably without neck woolen sweater…

She’ll be back in two weeks although it seems she never really left. There’s always a project to be fixed or a heart to be mended. And it’s good to know that I can go to the same place for both. A reliable place…

by Iulia Rugina