Workshops
Reality is Directing, We Make Films | Workshop with Pirjo Honkasalo
During her 3-day long workshop (17-19 August), organized in cooperation with Creative Europe MEDIA Desk Macedonia, Pirjo Honkasalo takes us into the world of directing reality on the film screen. On this journey, the participants will have the opportunity to not only discuss but also witness the art of using documentary language in her films “The 3 Rooms of Melancholia”, “ITO” and “Concrete Night”. The discussions afterwards will try to answer how to choose the subject and the protagonists and when the ethical responsibility towards them ends.
Biography
Pirjo Honkasalo is a highly established and multi-awarded director and screenwriter of documentary films as well as Finland’s first female cinematographer to shoot a feature fiction. Hers are the prize-winning “The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic (Mysterion, Tanjuska and the 7 Devils and Atman)” and the stunningly beautiful “The 3 Rooms of Melancholia”. Member of the American Film Academy, she has had well over thirty retrospectives of her work worldwide.
Directing Reality | Workshop with Wojciech Staroń
During Wojciech Staroń’s Masterclass, which lasts for 3 days (20-22 August), the participants will learn how to converse with the audience using moving pictures and simplicity. The art of capturing relations and emotions will only be the beginning of it. Since he believes that the screen reflects not only the actors’ emotions but also those of the cinematographer, Wojciech will talk about photography in the documentary, which is only one of the ingredients needed for a true story. Excerpts of his films “Siberian Lesson”, “Argentinean Lesson”, “Brothers” and “Don Juan” will bring closer the Polish art of directing the reality as it is.
This workshop is made possible through the support of the Krakow Film Foundation.
Biography
Wojciech Staroń is a Polish cinematographer and documentary director who graduated from the prestigious Łódź Film School’s Faculty of Cinematography. His “Argentinean Lesson” is among Poland’s most awarded documentaries in recent decades. Member of the European Film Academy and the Polish Society of Cinematographers, he received the Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlinale for Best Artistic Achievements in the cinematography category and the Bronze Camera at the 2013 Manaki Brothers Film Festival for the film “Papusza”.
Both workshops will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje. Free of charge and open to a limited number of filmmakers, they will be held in English and moderated by Petra Selishkar.
WET-PLATE COLLODION WORKSHOP
This year we are reviving, out of sheer delight and fascination, the early photo-techniques. The “wet-plate” is a photographic process that dates back
from the 19th century. Many steps must be done within a very short period to obtain a wet-plate photograph. Firstly, the aluminum plate is coated with collodion emulsion and then sensitized in silver nitrate. The plate is then put back into the camera’s film, in a dark box with minimal red or amber light. The photograph must be taken within a minute or so, while the plate is still wet. The plate is then taken back to the dark box and developed. The image always appears inversely with beautiful imperfections, as if it were created long time ago and not today.
This 4-day long workshop will be held on August 18-21 at the charming Kurshumli An by Sasho N. Alushevski, photographer and Predrag Uzhelac, independent photography associate and assistant at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia.
