Workshop for Documentary Production

Since the launching of the Festival, Aegeandocs has been organizing seminars, workshops and public lectures aimed at the audience for the European Audiovisual Works.

The forefront of these efforts is the creation of a Documentary School, with target group the t non-professional filmmakers of all ages, but also embraces the School System: from High Schools and Lifelong Learning Schools up to the University.

The School Make your Own Film, enthusiastically adopted by the Region of North Aegean which commissioned the organization at StoryDoc and funded it through the Regional Fund. The battalion took over in 2015-16 the Municipality of Lesvos and it kept it until 2017. This year, all the organizational and financial weight was taken up by StoryDoc.

In 6 years of its operation the School produced 24 films. 12 films were screened in Parliament -TV, the ones that had the subject on the refugee crisis, while 10 were released at the Festival on DVD.

The main target group is students and alumni of the Culture Department of Aegean University. 450 young filmmakers are the graduates so far.

The films wich produced in the workshops

City with disabilities: https://vimeo.com/295206971

Winds of Freedom: https://vimeo.com/293713397

Mesotopos of carnival: https://vimeo.com/295119774

It's Never too Late: https://vimeo.com/286074797

Relegion Lesson: https://vimeo.com/292997237

The Road to School: https://vimeo.com/238735479

Ajin: https://vimeo.com/292459033

Why Dad: https://vimeo.com/295172178

Human, my child, is like water: https://vimeo.com/228470808

People from other places: https://vimeo.com/295798379

Hope doesn't Fade: https://vimeo.com/292458701

FREI: https://vimeo.com/295327303

A fistful of Freedom: https://vimeo.com/234832311

Talking About Schools: https://vimeo.com/235702204

My Angel: https://vimeo.com/235703339

A worry in our life: https://vimeo.com/295334970

Let's Play: https://vimeo.com/315237562

Mother of memories: https://vimeo.com/295025289

Niki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FViUZnjJW6A

Υellow Μud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpqPgj6LOW8

The Lagoon of Aristoteli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyYqLlV5M-k

Everyday Same Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yoq-VIYuSk

Hip - Hop, Culture and Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjl0n63RhBo

The Talanto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbAsmlFMFo

 Every year, after a public call, up to 100 participants are selected. The School offer a series three-days intensive seminars in sitou. The educational objective is basic elements of the art of making documentary and cinematic techniques. Plus in cooperation with the University of the Aegean, Department of Cultural Technology, the School organizes   6 weekly four-hour lessons for the  history, theory and technique of the documentary.  The participants develop their ideas with 10 experienced tutors. Equipment for filming and post production support offered for free by StoryDoc, the producer of the workshop.

Home New Home

750 young refugees and locals participate in training workshops in 6 cities of Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine with the aim to produce up to 100 short films for the refugee crisis. Youth from 8 nations and 2 religious have being educated, worked and created artistic work together in a project titled Home New Home for a period of 5 years (2015 -2020).

The first stage of the project Home New Home took place in Lesvos in 2015 during the pick of the refugees flows in the Island. From October 2015 to May 80 participants (60 local -20 refugees and migrants) were trained by 4 tutors in 3 workshops in making films on the refugee crisis. The outcomes were 3 films- “Half Yard”, “Simply Solidarity” and “Niki”. The films made a premiere in the AegeanDocs Documentary Festival on September 2016 in 22 public screenings in 11 islands Aegean and in a special event at Goethe Institute Athens October 2016. The most important achievement was the creation of an intercultural network consisted by the local and the foreigners participants of the project. This first successful implementation guided the organizer of the workshops, the educational Institute for documentaries History Doc in to the next steps : The expansion of the project in other territories with regional and international partners.

In the second year History Doc with the support of the Anna Lindh Foundation , in cooperation with Non-Profit Organizations, Artistic Associations and Universities from Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine and the support of the Goethe Institut, planned and implemented a 12-month action of the Home New Home in five welcoming Syrian refugees cities with the aim of creating a multinational intercultural network of active citizens for the cultural reception of the refugees, with education work and artistic creation together with refugees, locals and migrants.

The cities of the project were: Mytilene, Izmir, Amman, Tire and Ramallah.

By October 2016 the project had implemented in Athens for two years. So far 70 short films is the outcome of the project(www.homenewhome.gr)

The partnership with the support of Anna Lindh Foundation consisted by 5 educational partners:

1. Arab Women Media Center, Amman Jordan (AWMC) - ALF Jordanian Steering Committee Member
   2. Young Palestinian Filmmakers Society, Palestine
   3. Yasar University, Izmir-Turkey (Faculty of Communication, Radio, TV and Cinema Department)
   4. Istanbouli Theater -Tyro Association for Artists, LEBANON
   5. StoryDoc, Athens

AWARDS

1. Home New Home was Shortlisted Candidate for the Intercultural Achievement 2018, an international competition of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe Integration and Foreign Affairs.2.051 projects were candidates.
2. Best Short Documentary in the 20^th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival.

SUPPORTERS

Hellenic Parliament, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Ministry of Digital Policy, UNCHR,

Open schools-Athens Municipality program with exclusive donor Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Goethe Institut Athen, Region of Attica, Hellenic Petroleum

AEGEANDOCS WORKSHOPS 2015: MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIE

The Municipality of Lesvos, in co-operation with the AegeanDocs Festival, the North Aegean Region and the Aegean University, organized and implemented short documentary production workshops.  Those seminars where addressed to young people and adults from the island. The produced documentaries were screened in the International Documentary Festival AegeanDocs and participated in the nomination of the Best Documentary by young filmmaker.

The participation was free, as every year, and cinematography equipment was given to the participants. 

The entitled program “Make your own movie” was completed in 3 three-day seminars, from February to July of 2015. The documentary production program was made in Mytilene and 11 documentaries have been created from the new directors, as follows: 

The movies: 

• Houses are low
• On the edge of Kavos
• Attention Children
• What i have passed moreli m
• Second Chance
• My price, Life!
• City with disabilities
• Let me tell you a fairytale
• Eirini Nafpliotou, Docteur médecin
• Makaras, Myths and Realities
• Earths water
• Senfoni

Documentary School: “Make your own movie”

Can a film festival contribute to audience development for films that are not block buster; The positive answer verging on the self-evident especially if it is a festival of creative and historical documentaries.

Can the same festival contribute to the spread of film culture? Yes, if there is not just for a number of views, but for an organization, which creates a meeting point for the creators and the audience, organizes discussion panels for the creators documentary and makes sure to spread these events and discussions through a close circuit video transmission and to the other Aegean islands where the University has faculties.

And yes, there is developed the public film education when the Aegean University, as a co-organizer of the AegeanDocs, organizes parallel with the Festival initiation seminars to the secrets of film criticism.

Are all these enough? What it would be the next big step? The answer and the self commitment of the AegeanDocs Film Festival was the creation of a Documentary School, which which will be addressed to non-professional filmmakers and embracing the School System: from High Schools and Lifelong Learning Schools to the University.

The School AegeanDocs Workshop with the motivating/challenging motto “MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIE” adopted with enthusiasm the Northern Aegean Region which assigned the organization to the producer of the Festival, StoryDoc and the funding to the Regional Fund. In 2015 the Municipality of Lesvos took the tally.

Every year, after a public invitation the trainees were selected and offered a three three-day intensive seminars of  basic elements of film literacy, it is given to them film equipment and editing support.  27 films from amateurs is the Schools account, from which passed, with constant presence in the seminars, 230 trainees.

Instructors: Mark Gastine, Aggelos Kovotsos, Yiannis Xirouchakis, Alexandros Spathis, Andronikos Karakatsanis

Director of Studies: Kostas Spiropoulos

In the 4th AegeanDocs participating the films:

• NIKI,
• Just Solidarity,
• Half Yard,
• Frei,
• The Talanto,
• Every Day/Same Day,
• Aristotle’s Laggon,
• Hip-Hop Culture or Love?,
• Yellow Mud.

Good screenings and good luck.