Second Seminar

Greenhouse III – Second Seminar in Istanbul, Turkey – January/February 2009

The Greenhouse second seminar was dedicated to two essential aspects of the projects' development – the continuation of the written proposal and preliminary work on the trailers. The filmmakers worked closely with their mentors on the treatment, they fine tuned their statements and synopses and looked over footages for their trailers in preparations for the up coming pitching forum.  

The renowned French director, Nicolas Philibert (Être et Avoir), held a master class which mainly dealt with two of his films:  "Every Little Thing" and "La Ville Louvre".

Through a continuous dialogue with the participants, Philibert put an emphasis on the importance of the unbiased observation of reality, intuition and a personal voice in filmmaking. Philibert shared with the participants personal stories from behind the scenes of his films.

As a commissioning editor of ARTE/ZDF, Hans Robert Eisenhauer gave a lecture about the way he supervises the production of films he commissions, how projects are selected according to the various demands of the TV stations and also offered a list of various funds and television stations in Europe.  To reinforce his lecture, Eisenhauer screened excerpts from films he commissioned, such as "The Champagne Spy" (directed by Nadav Schirman/ Produced by July August Production & LICHTBLICK Film), "The Art of Football" (directed by Hermann Vaske / Produced by Bravo Productions & Vincent Joliet Production).

The seminar was also dedicated to the tools a producer has when financing his film. The lecturer, prominent French producer Serge Gordey, clarified terms such as "pre-sale" versus "acquisition". Furthermore, Gordey had one-on-one meetings with the participants in which he reviewed the projects' budget and advised about the development work and the production possibilities. 

The final day was dedicated to the project's presentation; each participant had 15 minutes to present his project and then received feedback from the mentors, staff and other participants.

After receiving comments from the mentors, each project will complete the written proposal and the trailer in order to be ready for the final seminar & pitching forum in Izmir, Turkey, on March 19th – 23rd.

Mentor Hans Robert Eisenhauer and Shirli Michalevicz		Nicolas Philibert's master class
Serge Gordey and Zeynel Dogan & Melisa Onel		Ismail El Mokadem & Shawky Mohammed presenting their project