StoryDoc

By Tue Steen Muller
Storydoc is an EU supported training programme ”for filmmakers with Mediterranean projects”. The first 2010 session took place July 5-7 in Corfu, where these words are being written the day after a workshop that was full of heat outside and inside AND of passionate filmmakers with film projects at different stages of development. From the following countries: Greece, Germany, Romania, Scotland, Italy, France, Croatia, England, Latvia, Bulgaria, Palestine and Israel. 24 projects were worked upon with tutors (generalists, commissioning editors, directors, editors, distributors and producers) from Denmark, Greece, Israel, Palestine, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Finland and USA.
A workshop de luxe as said Cecilia Lidin from EDN referring to the amount of and quality of the tutors present, as well as the variety of projects.
Three long and intense days full of discussion and watching, everybody at the same hotel (swimming pool and beach to be reached by lift), eating together and the semifinals of the World Cup of football. Storydoc is run by Chara Lampidou and Kostas Spiropoulos helped by producer Rea Apostolides and me as responsible for content. The second session will take place in Athens, December 5-7.
French director Stan Neumann (photo) was one of the invited tutors.
UK based Saeed Taji Farouky came to the workshop with his story about ”The Runner” (photo), the activist athletic who wants, through the running, to raise awareness about the non-recognition of his country Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco. Salah Ameidan is his name and he wins all sympathy as he is presented in the intimate trailer. The director was given an award that includes transport and stay at the Documentary Campus workshop in Leipzig in October where he will be able to pitch his project to around 45 commissioning editors. (See website below)
Also awarded with scholarships and 1000€ were 1) Croatian Dana Budisavljevic, who is developing a film project called ”Diana’s List” about Diana Budisavljevic, who saved thousands of Jewish children during ww2. 2) Greek Marianna Economou who has a wonderful proposal to make a film that deals with Greek mothers who make and get sent food for their sons abroad! ”Flying Food” is the name. Gorgeous idea. In a less humourous style 3) Palestinian filmmaker Mahammed Abu Sido presented his ”Waiting for You”, an unlucky family story told by the director who wants to unite his family in a film, as it is not possible in real life!
www.touristwithatypewriter.com
There were three inspirational lectures at the workshop in Corfu.
Louise Rosen, American (from her cv) ”media executive in the international television and film business, project development, production and distribution”, talked precisely and inviting about meeting the audience and urged the filmmakers to use promotion tools like YouTube, vimeo, facebook, twitter etc.
Commissioning editor Iikka Vehkalahti, YLE Finland, was asked to give the audience ”five reasons to be optimistic about the future of the documentary”. He started his speech by doing the opposite naming five obstructions: the decline of the relationship between tv and documentaries, the lack of financing (”the golden age of copro is over”), the cinematic quality is worse than ever, the monocultural perspective reigns, as does the predictability of most films. This total deconstruction was then followed by the positive mention of the many current platforms where you can launch your film, from festivals (which he compared to art exhibitions) to webdoc and vod. Vehkalahti, who always has a very special, unconventional take on his listeners, and has many times been credited on this site for his pioneer work with ”Steps for the Future”, ended by showing two exceptional clips, one from a rough cut of a film from Chechnya, and one from the new Finnish documentary hit, ”Steam of Life” (review will follow).
”Who can bear to feel himself forgotten” is a legendary line from ”Night Mail” the documentary classic from 1936, a film that is famous for using poetry – written by W.H. Auden. Peter Symes, filmmaker and editor and teacher, had his lecture focus on this subject, ”Poetry in Documentaries”, himself being the one, who used it in several films, where he worked with the poet Tony Harrison. Symes stated that you can ”say the unsayable” through poetry, which was exactly what he had been doing with Harrison in the films ”Mimmo Perella” (funeral rituals in southern Italy) and ”Hiroshima”. When he was at BBC, Symes set up ”Poets’ News”, which was great to watch clips from, as was (great) the session with Symes on films where ”the poet will come to work as a commentator”.