Tag Archives: reflections

Youth MODE Documentary Workshop in Izmir

MODE Istanbul will be organizing a creative documentary workshop in Izmir between January 30th and February 5th. The national applications are closing this Friday, the 13th of January.

Participants will be given seminars on creative documentary making, screenwriting, digital camera techniques and editing. They will shoot 5 minute documentaries on the theme of “Local Heroes of Izmir”. All documentaries completed during the workshop will be added to the Doc Next Network’s Media Collection.

The workshop will be held in collaboration with Bornova Municipality’s 4 Seasons 4 Colors Workshops and with the support of the universities in Izmir, mainly the Izmir Ekonomi University. All films made during the workshop will be showcased as part of the 4 Seasons 4 Colors Screening Event on Febuary 23rd .

For more information on the application guidelines and the online form please click here.

Poland.doc Inspirations available in English

Inspirations is a series of articles, interviews and videos written with young creators and culture animateurs in mind.

The series opens with a documentary series How to make a film, created by Polish documentary maker Piotr Stasik for the public television channel Kultura. Texts range from general reflections on being creative (To be creative by cultural animateur at the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Maria Parczewska) to practical advice (Photography in work with children by Association “ę”’s own Agnieszka Pajączkowska).

With something to liven up the minds of every one interested in film, photography or more broadly creative work, Inspirations invite the reader to challenge themselves – to be inspired.

Full list of articles and videos is available at the Poland.doc website.

All episodes of How to make a film also available on the Association “ę” Vimeo channel.

IDFA, here we come!

Nazli (left) and Selin (right)

Two young DIY media-makers from Turkey, Akile Nazli Kaya (31) and Selin Gunduz (21), are ready to participate IDFA 2011 next week as part of the Doc Next filmmakers group that will take part in the IDFAcademy and all related events. Nazli’s film “Ebb and Tide” is among the ten short Doc Next documentaries that will be screened at IDFA 2011 prior to the feature length films. Two other films from Turkey, “Ece’esque” (dir. Ozge Yesilcimen, Bora Balbey, Bade Selcuk, Caner Kececi) and “Dear Brother Sakir” (dir. Bahar Demirkan, Okyar Igli, Hayati Kose and Morteza Moghaddam), which were made during Youth MODE Workshops, will be screened at IDFA’s Doc Next Mini Cinema section featuring continual screenings of a selection from the Doc Next Media Collection.

Nazli is an awarded animator/director/designer working and studying in Prague. Nazli’s productions focus on important themes such as immigration, food security and personal freedom. Her biggest ambition in life is to make creative, innovative and inspiring short animated films and documentaries that address social and environmental issues. Her dream is to open an animation studio in Prague and Istanbul that will create socially and environmentally concerned ‘green’ films.” Her film in IDFA 2011 program “Ebb and Tide” is about a young woman reading from her diaries about her life in the Czech Republic while showing the life of her parents, who also temporarily immigrated to another country. As an interpretation of home videos made on S8, the film’s emotionally charged story challenges the existing imagery of Turkish people living in Europe. Nazli’s awarded animation documenaries “Zlin Soup” and “Nazli in Zlin” are also in the Doc Next Media Collection. She is currently working on a new ‘green’ film “The Seed”.

Selin is an aspiring DIY filmmaker with tremendous self-motivation. She did not attend university nor did she receive formal media education, but she pushes herself to learn more about filmmaking, screenwriting, photography and acting by attending certificate programs, workshops and seminars. Selin participated the Youth MODE Documentary Workshop in Canakkale last year and made the film “Sounds and Shadows“, also included in the Doc Next Media Collection,
with fellow workshop participants Erkan Atay, Ahmet Turan and Alper Dutkin. “To me, filmmaking is not a temporary interest. It has captured me completely. I want to build my life on it, I am saving money by working other jobs in order to make films and also to attend screenings and other film related events,” says Selin, who now works on the script for her new short film and is preparing a documentary on internet censorship in Turkey.

We wish both ladies the best of time at IDFAcademy and we are also very excited to be joining them in Amsterdam next week!

Click here to read more about the IDFAcademy participants and program.

DNN@European Culture Congress

Next Doc Network presented its activities to the public in Poland for the first time. The opportunity to meet and people and talk about the DNN was one of a kind: the European Culture Congress saw over 200 thousand participants over 4 days. The program was filled with over 100 interdisciplinary projects prepared by 550 artists and curators.

Among them the Doc Next Network screenings of films made by young artists from across Europe and a purpose built container, where films were were watched at all times (including on special projections during night time), information was obtained and many interesting conversations were held. We issued special publications in Polish and English, and produced a video to promote our activities.

Visitors at the Doc Next Network container watched films and talked to hubs representatives, acquired DVDs with the special Congress pick of 11 films from the DNN collection, our t-shirts and bags (which proved hugely popular among the Congress audience). Our guests had their photos taken with a polaroid camera and kept a DNN branded portrait. If you didn’t get a chance to visit or follow the (almost) real time commentary on Association’s “ę” facebook page.

The Congress was also an opportunity to meet the network’s partners. We exchanged experiences gained while working on our projects. We looked for similarities and further opportunities for exchange and cooperation. We examined how we differ from each other and how this diversity can provide inspiration for further work. Hubs tirelessly debated the events of the IDFA 2011 – the next meeting of the network in November. See you in Amsterdam!

Further reading: the DNN materials at the European Culture Congress.

Association of Creative Initiatives “ę” is the Polish partner the Doc Next Network.

Holiday workshop in Pszów

First holiday workshops of Poland.doc finished in Pszów. Group of young people worked on a joint film project, telling the story of residents of this Silesian town. We watched classic and modern documentaries and practised basic language of film expression. Together, we worked on questions, which were later posed to our protagonists. After a week of intensive work we managed to complete materials for a short film etude. Participants from Pszów will be invited to the official premiere in September.

More photos at the Poland.doc blog

Advisory Council Meeting in Budapest

Sabíamos poco de la ECF cuando por primera vez -en el otoño de 2010- se pusieron en contacto con nosotros para formar parte del programa Youth & Media, que finalmente ha derivado en esta red llamada Doc Next Network (DNN).

Desde entonces, nos hemos empapado de sus objetivos, hemos conocido a muchos de sus miembros y nos hemos reunido en varias ocasiones con nuestros socios de la DNN en Amsterdam (durante el festival IDFA), en Londres (mientras tenía lugar el Future Film Fest en el BFI) y en Sevilla(con la excusa del Festival ZEMOS98). En septiembre viajaremos a Wrocław, sede del Congreso Cultural Europeo, en Polonia.

Tras estos primeros meses de trabajo, la ECF consideró que teníamos algo que aportar en el Advisory Council Meeting, que se celebra anualmente, en esta ocasión en Budapest el día 6 de junio y con el título de Cultural Change Makers in Turbulent Times: Views on the Eastern European and Southern Mediterranean EU Neighbourhoods.

Desde sus primeros años, la ECF ha centrado su trabajo en la reflexión sobre el concepto de vecindad europea, entendiendo el continente más allá de sus fronteras políticas. Las revueltas árabes y europeas suponen cambios significativos y turbulentos para los países con los que colabora la ECF y, por tanto, en este consejo anual, se trataba de conectar experiencias e ideas para que las voces de los agentes de cambio cultural de los vecinos europeos se integren en el discurso de la UE en un doble proceso de aprendizaje, que fluya en ambos sentidos.

Lo que pretendía la ECF de nosotros y otros muchos colaboradores era una serie de consejos sobre cómo debe actuar la Fundación ahora y a largo plazo; también revisar sus acciones y su forma de organización del trabajo, con la idea de estar preparados para cambiar y adaptarse cuando sea necesario.

Desde nuestra perspectiva, apostamos por dos cuestiones clave para afrontar la nueva situación económica y política: atender, aprender y fomentar las formas de organización en red de las que han brotado las revoluciones árabes y europeas; y apostar e incentivar proyectos que actúen como medios/mediadores de información y comunicación (que actúen localmente y piensen globalmente) que no estén condicionados ni controladados por los poderes fácticos, como ocurre con los medios de comunicación mainstream.

Para ZEMOS98 fue un placer y un honor formar parte de este refrescante encuentro con vecinos de toda Europa, una Europa que no entiende de fronteras.

New Narratives for Europe

Amanda Vähämäki: White nights

We are not necessarily united by a song contest, a single market or a parliament. We do all share a war-torn history and a − resistible − rise in populism. The European Cultural Foundation launched an online space is for the stories − imaginative and confrontational − that make Europe move forward. The site includes insights, reflections and commentaries, keeping you up-dated on all narrative-related activities. The discoveries will also be showcased during an event in the autumn of 2012, in Amsterdam.

Doc Next @ Documentarist 2011

With the initiative of MODE Istanbul, a 50-minute long short documentary film selection from the Doc Next Network media collection, including films completed at Youth MODE Media Workshops, will be screened at Documentarist 2011 Istanbul Documentary Days on Thursday June 2nd, 2011, at 18:00 in Sismanoglio Megaro venue in Beyoglu, Istanbul. Following the screening, a talk will be held with the participating young media-makers, instructors and MODE Istanbul representative about their past and current projects.

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Doc Next Media Collection

This film was made by Pavlos Stamatis (born 1989) from Greece. “This particular film has been influenced by the current situation in my country..”

Doc Next Network is collecting videos, stories, photos and other media art productions of all sorts of young people. With our focus on young, emerging European documentary-makers and opinion-formers, we are building up a broad collection of (alternative) documentaries.

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Lab Sweet Lab

Whether you were born into the networks or simply are interested in digital creation, nowadays there are places and communities where you can learn, create and share knowledge. These laboratories (labs) are mediation spaces dedicated to practice, expression and creation as much as critical commitment on the role of technology in art and society. Individual users, artists, engineers, researchers and designers go there to research and produce in the free culture spirit. In a “lab”, the future is not merely imagined, it is lived!

What if our planet had become laboratory? From Do it Yourself (DIY) to Do It Together, whether linked to a lab or “lab-less”, these keen new media creators and explorers might well enable us to change our home into a “lab sweet lab”…

To give some reference points regarding the digital society, MCD and PiNG (new media culture resources space in Nantes), have drawn up a cartography of media labs in Europe, which reveals their specificities, questions their present and future roles and reports on these new learning, creation and co-operation dynamics.

Avec la participation de nos voisins les labs / With contributions from : aaaanet, Access Space, Ars Electronica Futurelab, Audiência Zero/AZ labs, Baltan Laboratories, Citilab, Constant, CRAS, Crealab, Culture Lab, DigiLab, Dorkbot Paris, Drugo more, EngageLab, ESC, Freaknet, Geek Physical, Hangar, Illutron, Kawenga, Kibla, Kitchen Budapest, Kuda, labIII, Labomedia, Le Cube, MAD, MaMa, Martu, MediaArtLab, Medialab Chrzelice, Medialab-Prado, Napon, NK, Pixelache, PNEK, PVA MediaLab, V2, Zemos 98, ZKM.