From left: Stefano Knuchel, Khesrau Behrouz, Laurie Anderson, and Maya Shenfeld.On our way to Locarno from the airport, a fellow Critics Academy participant told me that he had made a list of 37 films he wanted to see, while I glanced at my own list feeling underprepared. In the end, he didn’t reach that number—none of us did. We had our writings to do, the glittering Lake Maggiore to bask in, and daily necessities, like scurrying between venues and finding time for meals.When the goal of festival-going is to take in as many films as possible, attending a 24-hour long talk on the “Future of Attention” may not seem like the best way to resolve these anxieties. Film festivals run on an attention economy. It was a statistically risky decision for me to pitch this article instead of several smaller film reviews, since I didn’t know...
- 10/19/2022
- MUBI
The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the selection of emerging film industry executives, filmmakers and critics selected for its long-running Locarno Academy program aimed at nurturing the next generation of cinema professionals.
The academy program, which will take place within the framework of the festival’s 75th edition running August 3-13, selects candidates who have already made in-roads in their chosen field.
Industry Academy participants will include Maya Barenstein, a sales executive at Paris-based sales company Coproduction Office, where she recently worked on Cannes 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle Of Sadness; Franziska Bioh, an acquisition coordinator at Mubi in London; and Malo Jacquemin, who is currently attached to the co-production department of Arte France Cinéma after stints at French sales company Charades and production house CG Cinema.
The group also includes Stephan Henz, who is head of programming at the Swiss Arthouse Commercio theatre in Zurich; Egle Maceinaite, programme coordinator...
The academy program, which will take place within the framework of the festival’s 75th edition running August 3-13, selects candidates who have already made in-roads in their chosen field.
Industry Academy participants will include Maya Barenstein, a sales executive at Paris-based sales company Coproduction Office, where she recently worked on Cannes 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle Of Sadness; Franziska Bioh, an acquisition coordinator at Mubi in London; and Malo Jacquemin, who is currently attached to the co-production department of Arte France Cinéma after stints at French sales company Charades and production house CG Cinema.
The group also includes Stephan Henz, who is head of programming at the Swiss Arthouse Commercio theatre in Zurich; Egle Maceinaite, programme coordinator...
- 7/13/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Following two pandemic-caused online editions, Sunny Side of the Doc, the international marketplace for documentary and narrative experiences, has unveiled the pitch selection for its 33rd edition, which will be in-person.
48 projects from 22 countries will be presented across eight pitch sessions across three genre categories – global issues, wildlife and conservation, and science, history, arts and culture. The submissions this year were in response to the event’s callout for new voices.
The event has achieved a perfect 50/50 gender balance among the directors of the selected projects. These sessions will take place during the marketplace in front of more than 400 international decision-makers, including broadcasters, streamers, foundations, sales agents and other investors Eight winners will each receive a cash prize of €3,000 from the respective pitch session sponsors.
For the first time, a “Coup de Coeur” award will be presented by international student delegations to a director who has submitted a first or second documentary project.
48 projects from 22 countries will be presented across eight pitch sessions across three genre categories – global issues, wildlife and conservation, and science, history, arts and culture. The submissions this year were in response to the event’s callout for new voices.
The event has achieved a perfect 50/50 gender balance among the directors of the selected projects. These sessions will take place during the marketplace in front of more than 400 international decision-makers, including broadcasters, streamers, foundations, sales agents and other investors Eight winners will each receive a cash prize of €3,000 from the respective pitch session sponsors.
For the first time, a “Coup de Coeur” award will be presented by international student delegations to a director who has submitted a first or second documentary project.
- 5/10/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Highlights from the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class with Award-winning Director Agnès Varda
Stefano Knuchel, Head of the Locarno Film Summer Academy, invited me to sit in on his master class with the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival’s Pardo d’onore Swisscom winner French film director Agnès Varda.
Known as the Grandmother of the French New Wave (a term with which she takes issue, as I cite in my Conversation with Varda).Varda’s film credits include "La Pointe Courte" (1955), "Cleo from 5 to 7" (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962), "The Creatures" (Les Créatures 1966), "Lions Love (…and Lies)" (1969), "Documenteur" (1981),"Vagabond"(Sans toit ni loi, 1985), "The Gleaners and I" (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000) and " The Beaches of Agnès" (Les Plages d’Agnès, 2008).
Speaking to the group of international students, Varda shared her passion for cinema, photography, and installation work, with humor and honesty. Here are some highlights from Varda’s talk.
I asked Varda about finding inspiration and her writing process
I don’t search for ideas; I find them. They come to me or I have none. I would not sit at a table and think now I have to find ideas. I wait until something disturbs me enough, like a relationship I heard about, and then it becomes so important I have to write the screenplay.
I never wrote with someone else or directed together. I wouldn’t like that. I never worked with (her late husband, director Jacques) Demy. We would show screenplays to each other when we were finished.
When you are a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker all the time. Your mind is recording impressions, moods. You are fed with that. Inspiration is getting connections with the surprises that you see in life. Suddenly it enters in your world and it remains; you have to let it go and work on it. It’s contradictory.
Question from Student: How did you manage to navigate a male-dominated film world?
First, stop saying it’s a male world. It’s true, but it helps not to repeat it. When I started in film, I did a new language of cinema, not as a woman, but as a filmmaker. It is still a male world, as long women are not making the same salary as men.
Put yourself in a situation where you want to make films; whether you are woman or not a woman, give yourself the tools: maybe you intern, maybe you go to school, or read books. Get the tools.
On Filmmaking
We have to capture in film what we don’t know about.
If you don’t have a point-of-view it’s not worth starting to make a film.
Whatever we do in film is searching. If you meet somebody, you establish yourself, who you want to meet, what kind of relationship it is. Our whole life is made up of back and forth, decisions, options -- and then they don’t fit.
When one is filming we should be fragile; listen to that something in ourselves. The act of filming for me is so vivid, it includes what you had in mind, and includes what is happening around you at that moment -- how you felt, if you have headache, and so on. A film builds itself with what you don’t know.
Life interferes. You have friends. Kids. No kids. Then there is a leak on the wall. Everything interferes. It’s how you build the life with others.
Sometimes I go by myself to do location scouting. When I go by myself, something speaks to me in a place I’ve chosen and I know maybe we should take advantage of that. We have to be working with chance. ‘Chance’ is my assistant director.
About Cleo de 5-7
I had to be able calculate the time of speaking, taking a taxi, and so on -- it was very interesting to write what was happening and try the mechanical thing of time, to let emotion and surprise come in.
About Vagabond
I knew people who were on the road. I knew the kind of people she (Mona, the protagonist) would meet. I would write the dialogue the night before. The people I met gave me their attitude and state of mind.
About "The Beaches of Agnès"
It was supposed to be autobiographical. Like a gesture of a painter, when they do a self-portrait and look at themselves and paint. In "The Beaches of Agnès" I am turning the mirror to the people who surround me; it’s not so much about what I did in my past. It is about how you build the life with others. I am turning the mirror to the people who surround me.
Varda on Varda
In the last ten years, I’ve done installations in museums and galleries. I enjoy that other expression of things. I got out of the flat film screen -- to invade the space, using three- dimensional objects. It helps to express other things. You put yourself at risk. I’ve been experimenting in motion, and surprises.I’m naturally curious.
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting at Purchase College and presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
Known as the Grandmother of the French New Wave (a term with which she takes issue, as I cite in my Conversation with Varda).Varda’s film credits include "La Pointe Courte" (1955), "Cleo from 5 to 7" (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962), "The Creatures" (Les Créatures 1966), "Lions Love (…and Lies)" (1969), "Documenteur" (1981),"Vagabond"(Sans toit ni loi, 1985), "The Gleaners and I" (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000) and " The Beaches of Agnès" (Les Plages d’Agnès, 2008).
Speaking to the group of international students, Varda shared her passion for cinema, photography, and installation work, with humor and honesty. Here are some highlights from Varda’s talk.
I asked Varda about finding inspiration and her writing process
I don’t search for ideas; I find them. They come to me or I have none. I would not sit at a table and think now I have to find ideas. I wait until something disturbs me enough, like a relationship I heard about, and then it becomes so important I have to write the screenplay.
I never wrote with someone else or directed together. I wouldn’t like that. I never worked with (her late husband, director Jacques) Demy. We would show screenplays to each other when we were finished.
When you are a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker all the time. Your mind is recording impressions, moods. You are fed with that. Inspiration is getting connections with the surprises that you see in life. Suddenly it enters in your world and it remains; you have to let it go and work on it. It’s contradictory.
Question from Student: How did you manage to navigate a male-dominated film world?
First, stop saying it’s a male world. It’s true, but it helps not to repeat it. When I started in film, I did a new language of cinema, not as a woman, but as a filmmaker. It is still a male world, as long women are not making the same salary as men.
Put yourself in a situation where you want to make films; whether you are woman or not a woman, give yourself the tools: maybe you intern, maybe you go to school, or read books. Get the tools.
On Filmmaking
We have to capture in film what we don’t know about.
If you don’t have a point-of-view it’s not worth starting to make a film.
Whatever we do in film is searching. If you meet somebody, you establish yourself, who you want to meet, what kind of relationship it is. Our whole life is made up of back and forth, decisions, options -- and then they don’t fit.
When one is filming we should be fragile; listen to that something in ourselves. The act of filming for me is so vivid, it includes what you had in mind, and includes what is happening around you at that moment -- how you felt, if you have headache, and so on. A film builds itself with what you don’t know.
Life interferes. You have friends. Kids. No kids. Then there is a leak on the wall. Everything interferes. It’s how you build the life with others.
Sometimes I go by myself to do location scouting. When I go by myself, something speaks to me in a place I’ve chosen and I know maybe we should take advantage of that. We have to be working with chance. ‘Chance’ is my assistant director.
About Cleo de 5-7
I had to be able calculate the time of speaking, taking a taxi, and so on -- it was very interesting to write what was happening and try the mechanical thing of time, to let emotion and surprise come in.
About Vagabond
I knew people who were on the road. I knew the kind of people she (Mona, the protagonist) would meet. I would write the dialogue the night before. The people I met gave me their attitude and state of mind.
About "The Beaches of Agnès"
It was supposed to be autobiographical. Like a gesture of a painter, when they do a self-portrait and look at themselves and paint. In "The Beaches of Agnès" I am turning the mirror to the people who surround me; it’s not so much about what I did in my past. It is about how you build the life with others. I am turning the mirror to the people who surround me.
Varda on Varda
In the last ten years, I’ve done installations in museums and galleries. I enjoy that other expression of things. I got out of the flat film screen -- to invade the space, using three- dimensional objects. It helps to express other things. You put yourself at risk. I’ve been experimenting in motion, and surprises.I’m naturally curious.
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting at Purchase College and presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
- 9/30/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
I met with Stefano Knuchel, Head of the Summer Academy, the afternoon before the Academy and Film Festival began. Now in his second year in this position, Mr. Knuchel is enthusiastic about the students’ talents and the exciting opportunities that await them at the Academy.
Knuchel: “Every continent except for Australia has been represented so far at the Academy. The shape and tradition of the Academy is mixing life with cinema.” Knuchel continues, “The program gives students a sense to be a well-rounded director. It’s difficult to be yourself and in moviemaking …what does it mean to be yourself?” Knuchel smiles, “You film who you are.”
An important goal of the Academy is the exchange of ideas and experiences not only with the filmmakers offering master classes, including Agnes Varda, Roman Polanski and Victor Erice, but also between the students themselves.
Knuchel: “The students’ gain not only knowledge but an exchange with other filmmakers at their level; some of the students from last year are now making movies together.”
Knuchel on Agnès Varda
“What I like about Varda’s work -- it’s like you can’t tell the difference between her movies and her life-- it seems like cinema is the way to go through life and leave some signs of this life.”
The qualities Knuchel looks for in an applicant
Knuchel: “You must have a certain heart and soul to keep making movies. Sometimes it’s difficult; there are lots of obstacles. There are many things against you -- filmmaking is not an easy life. It’s more and more difficult to make money from it. When I look at the young directors’ work I need to feel this kind of urgency from the applicants. I like having different kinds of identities and different approaches to filmmaking.”
Excerpted from the Pardo Web site:
Founded in 2010 the Locarno Summer Academy is dedicated to developing emerging talents with its training program for young filmmakers, professionals, students and film critics. The program includes lectures, round tables, labs, workshops and case studies with well-established names from the film world, offering participants the opportunity to meet professionals and make new contacts.
The Locarno Summer Academy hosts three different initiatives:
Filmmakers Academy: A program for 25 young filmmakers from all over the world. A chance to interact with auteurs, producers, and other professional figures of international renown that will give participants the opportunity to extend their professional network and to broaden their knowledge of the various aspects of being a filmmaker, in the innovative spirit and auteur tradition that Locarno has always embodied. Critics Academy: A training program for 10 young film journalists/critics. Organized by Indiewire’s Chief Film Critic and Senior Editor Eric Kohn and Eugene Hernandez (Deputy Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center). The program includes conversations with critics, roundtables with guests and discussions with professionals, to connect the young critics to the workings of the industry. Documentary Summer School: In its 14th year, the Dss offers places for up to 20 university students in the fields of cinema, media and communication. This year’s program focuses on myriad aspects of documentary cinema; namely, narrative structures and production issues. Knuchel: “The only thing you have is your own life, your identity, your films, and I encourage students to work on that. There’s a lot of potential with young filmmakers, but the filmmaker has to be convinced that they have the potential.”
To learn more about the Summer Academy:
http://www.pardolive.ch/en/Education/Presentation#.U-DqKKN0xMs
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog .
Knuchel: “Every continent except for Australia has been represented so far at the Academy. The shape and tradition of the Academy is mixing life with cinema.” Knuchel continues, “The program gives students a sense to be a well-rounded director. It’s difficult to be yourself and in moviemaking …what does it mean to be yourself?” Knuchel smiles, “You film who you are.”
An important goal of the Academy is the exchange of ideas and experiences not only with the filmmakers offering master classes, including Agnes Varda, Roman Polanski and Victor Erice, but also between the students themselves.
Knuchel: “The students’ gain not only knowledge but an exchange with other filmmakers at their level; some of the students from last year are now making movies together.”
Knuchel on Agnès Varda
“What I like about Varda’s work -- it’s like you can’t tell the difference between her movies and her life-- it seems like cinema is the way to go through life and leave some signs of this life.”
The qualities Knuchel looks for in an applicant
Knuchel: “You must have a certain heart and soul to keep making movies. Sometimes it’s difficult; there are lots of obstacles. There are many things against you -- filmmaking is not an easy life. It’s more and more difficult to make money from it. When I look at the young directors’ work I need to feel this kind of urgency from the applicants. I like having different kinds of identities and different approaches to filmmaking.”
Excerpted from the Pardo Web site:
Founded in 2010 the Locarno Summer Academy is dedicated to developing emerging talents with its training program for young filmmakers, professionals, students and film critics. The program includes lectures, round tables, labs, workshops and case studies with well-established names from the film world, offering participants the opportunity to meet professionals and make new contacts.
The Locarno Summer Academy hosts three different initiatives:
Filmmakers Academy: A program for 25 young filmmakers from all over the world. A chance to interact with auteurs, producers, and other professional figures of international renown that will give participants the opportunity to extend their professional network and to broaden their knowledge of the various aspects of being a filmmaker, in the innovative spirit and auteur tradition that Locarno has always embodied. Critics Academy: A training program for 10 young film journalists/critics. Organized by Indiewire’s Chief Film Critic and Senior Editor Eric Kohn and Eugene Hernandez (Deputy Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center). The program includes conversations with critics, roundtables with guests and discussions with professionals, to connect the young critics to the workings of the industry. Documentary Summer School: In its 14th year, the Dss offers places for up to 20 university students in the fields of cinema, media and communication. This year’s program focuses on myriad aspects of documentary cinema; namely, narrative structures and production issues. Knuchel: “The only thing you have is your own life, your identity, your films, and I encourage students to work on that. There’s a lot of potential with young filmmakers, but the filmmaker has to be convinced that they have the potential.”
To learn more about the Summer Academy:
http://www.pardolive.ch/en/Education/Presentation#.U-DqKKN0xMs
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog .
- 8/7/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
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