Bucharest International Dance Film Festival invites dance film creators from SE Europe ( Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Slovakia, Belarus, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Turkey) to apply for a brand new dance film lab, focused on the development of a dramaturgical structure and a clear artistic approach for future dance films. The lab will help dance filmmakers to further improve their initial idea in workshop sessions with choreographer and filmmaker Helena Jonsdottir (IS) and dance dramaturge and writer Guy Cools (BE) and focus groups coordinated by film producer Anamaria Antoci (RO) and film consultant Alex Traila (RO).
In order to strengthen the connections between the regional creative industries in dance and film, the lab will also be comprised of a series of speed networking and feedback sessions with international specialists in both domains and will conclude in a final pitching session presentation of the future films. Best pitch will be rewarded with a 700 EUR award, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute.
► You can participate to the workshop only if you are a choreographer or a filmmaker, based in Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Slovakia, Belarus, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Turkey.
► If selected the participants will have to cover the fee of 200 EUR and support their own transportation.
►The festival will provide accommodation in Bucharest and free entrance to all the events of the festival. If needed, the festival can offer letters of support for the selected participants, that might help them apply for extra funding in their own countries.
► You can apply only through our online application form and with one idea only. Make sure you fill in all the fields and upload your biography.
► Participants should have reached the age of 18 at the time of submitting the application.
► In case the future film has more authors, we can offer accommodation for only one of them, but we can provide free access to the lab and all the events of the festival for other team members.
► Participation for the entire period of the lab is mandatory. Arrival date is 3 Sept 2018 and departure date is 10 Sept 2018.
► All participants are eligible to receive the 700 EUR award, as a result of the pitching session scheduled on the 9th of September.
► Other awards can be offered by partners and sponsors of the festival. These awards will be offered only if the pitched ideas are alligned with the interest of our invited programmers and producers.
► While in Bucharest, the organisers can facilitate meetings with other proffessionals in order to better connect with the local artistic community.
► 6 & 7 sept | Creative workshop on how to develop an idea in terms of location and character, working with layers and other aspects of structure.
Helena Jonsdottir studied at the National Theatre Ballet School of Iceland, with additional studies at Alvin Ailey, New York. She has performed in and choreographed countless productions for television, film, music videos and the stages. Besides being recognised internationally in the last years for her work in Scandinavia, UK and USA – in 2003 she was nominated as Best Choreographer at the Music Video Production Association Awards in Los Angeles – Helena Jonsdottir has been highly respected in Iceland for many years as one of the leading contemporary choreographers, both for television and stage.
Helena has also written, choreographed and directed many dance films, including Breaking Voices and Zimmer which won the IV. Videotanzpreis 2003/2004 of SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne. Open Source won the first prize in the Icelandic Dance/Theatre awards in June 2003. Since then, Helena has further developed the piece and made an Irish version of it, which was premièred at the Galway Arts Festival 2004. Helena has also created a new full-length version of Open Source for the Iceland Dance Company at the Reykjavík City Theatre in 2005.
Besides the creative projects Helena teaches at the Art Academy of Iceland and at the Icelandic Film School among giving lectures and workshops abroad.
► 8 & 9 sept | Creative workshop that focuses on the perception and articulation of a concept in a movement work and interdisciplinary practices.
Dr. Guy Cools is a dance dramaturge. Recent positions include Associate Professor for Dance Studies at the research institute Arts in Society of the Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts in Tilburg, and Guest Professor at Ghent University, where he finished a practice-based PhD on the relationship between dance and writing. He has worked as a dance critic, artistic programmer, and policymaker for dance in Flanders.
He now dedicates himself to production dramaturgy, contributing to work by choreographers all over Europe and Canada such as: Koen Augustijnen (BE), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (BE), Danièle Desnoyers (CA), Lia Haraki (CY), Christopher House (CA), Akram Khan (UK), Arno Schuitemaker (NL), and Stephanie Thiersch (DE). He regularly lectures and publishes, and has developed a series of workshops that aim to support artists and choreographers in their creative process.
His most recent publications include The Ethics of Art: ecological turns in the performing arts, co-edited with Pascal Gielen (Valiz, 2014); Body:Language (Sadler’s Wells, 2012), a series of published, live interviews with major contemporary artists which Cools curated from 2008 till 2013 and In-between Dance Cultures: on the migratory artistic identity of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khan (Valiz, 2015). With the Canadian choreographer, Lin Snelling, he developed an improvised performance practice ‘Rewriting Distance’ (see also: www.rewritingdistance.com) that focuses on the integration of movement, voice, and writing.
► 8 & 9 sept | Speed networking and pitch session coaching.
Alex Traila is a Romanian film consultant. He holds a diploma in cinematography and has followed multiple trainings and workshops on creative producing, mentoring and marketing and is an EAVE Film Marketing workshop alumni. Between 2006 and 2016, has owned the Bucharest based production company, Steppenwolf Film. He is strongly involved in the industry platforms dedicated to South East & Eastern Europe such as CineLink – Sarajevo Film Festival, When East Meets West – Trieste. Along with Connecting Cottbus East West Co-Production Market and WEMW, he has initiated #FEEDback (Film Eastern Europe Dialogue), the think tank platform tackling the future film policy in Eastern European territories. In 2016 – 2017 was member in the board of management at the Romanian Film Centre (CNC), May 2016 he was appointed counsellor to the Ministry of Culture on film policy. Currently he is handling the EU affairs and foreign relations at the Romanian Film Centre and is the Romanian representative in the Board of Management of the EURIMAGES – Council of Europe’s Cultural Fund. He is Aspen Institute Romania fellow.
► 5 sept | Focus group on pre-production and funding in the first stages of script development.
Anamaria Antoci began her work in the film industry by joining 4 Proof Film production company in 2012. Since then, she has produced a wide range of awarded shorts, Adrian Sitaru‘s last two features, ILLEGITIMATE (2016, Berlinale Forum - C.I.C.A.E. Award), THE FIXER (Toronto IFF 2016, Romania`s candidate for the Foreign Oscars 2018 nomination) and the creative documentary PLANETA PETRILA, directed by Andrei Dăscălescu (IDFA 2016). In 2017 Anamaria established her own company, Bucharest based Tangaj Production, and currently is handling a slate of projects in various phases of their evolution. Anamaria is an EAVE, Cannes Producers on the Move and ACE Producers alumni, as well as an EFA member.