FIRST SEMINAR

First Seminar - April 2010, Istanbul Turkey

On the first day of the seminar, the 16 filmmakers coming from the MEDA region and from Europe met with the Sigal Yehuda, managing director, and Yair Lev, Greenhouse Head of Studies, to get a sneak preview of the upcoming days. In the evening, during a session, the filmmakers, mentors, partners and staff introduced themselves to each other.

The filmmakers and their mentors: John Appel, Bruni Burres, Nenad Puhovski & Steven Seidenberg began a 5 day intensive work.  Together they have reconstructed the synopses, director statements, visual approach and main axes of their films.  

Intertwined with group sessions and one-on-one meetings with the mentors, the filmmakers assisted to a lecture by Yair Lev, Greenhouse Head of Studies.  In his lecture, Lev related to each project in particular by presenting relevant clips of important documentary films and discussing the attitudes and solutions found in those films to similar to the projects' demands and tasks.

Hans Robert Eisenhauer, head if theme at ARTE/ZDF and a special expert to the Greenhouse program, gave a lecture in which he focused on treatment and the written proposal, the way to approach and present a project to commissioning editors, film funds and other potential investors.  Later the filmmakers had the opportunity to meet with him in a one-on-one session.

Greenhouse was once again honored by the presence of Pirjo Honkasalo, the prominent and renowned Finish filmmaker. During her Master Class, in the form of a discussion, Honkasalo shared her experiences as a filmmaker and discussed the issue of responsibility and ethics in the process of filmmaking in general and with the case of her master piece "The Three Rooms of Melancholia" in particular. In the latter, her personal involvement in the characters' own life proceeding the period of the principal shooting reached a new height of involvement.      

On the final day of the seminar, the filmmakers presented their projects in a pitching simulation. During this session, the filmmakers had the chance to receive feedback not only from the GH team, mentors and experts, but also from the Greenhouse partner, Antonio Saura.



At the end of the seminar each filmmaker received an individual assignment in which he/she will have to complete in the next month before the second seminar, the filmmakers will work on their assignments, while getting constant feedback from their mentors and Greenhouse team.

Greenhouse at Meeting on the Bridge, Istanbul International Film Festival

For the second time, Greenhouse and the International Istanbul Film Festival cooperated to host a conference under the platform of Meeting on the Bridge.  The conference, organized by Greenhouse, was on the theme of Racism and Human Rights. Moderated by Bruni Burres, Executive Producer at the International Center for Transitional Justice, Taco Ruighaver, director of Movies that Matter (The Netherlands); Maciej Nowicki, director of WatchDocs (Poland) and Huseyn Karabey, Turkish film director discussed the issue of human rights and racism in documentary filmmaking.

FIRST SEMINAR PHOTO GALLERY...