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Short Film Programming Workshop and Screening

Short Film Programming Workshop

2 Apr 2015 - 11 Apr 2015

Meno Avilys

Vilnius, Mediateque of Meno Avilys and Skalvija Cinema Center

In cooperation with the international short film festival Vilnius Film Shorts a group of students from different schools made the programme of short films and organised its screening at Skalvija Cinema Centre. During the workshop they discussed and selected films, created communication strategy of the screening and organised its communication campaign. The young film programmers were mentored by a film critic, a film programme curator and an artistic director of Vilnius Film Shorts.

During the workshop students were introduced to the key concepts of film programming. On the first day the artistic director of Vilnius Film Shorts Marija Razgutė presented the main principles of programming for a short film festival. She explained about the selection process (e.g., out of 1500 films), different programming criteria, goals of the film festival programme and its communication campaign. Her seminar was followed by a film viewing session. The workshop participants watched about 8 short films from the competition programme of Vilnius Film Shorts 2014, discussed about them and selected three-four titles. The discussion was facilitated by a film critic Narius Kairys. The next day young film programmers were welcomed by a film programmer of Skalvija Cinema Center and a curator of Vilnius Documentary Film Festival Sonata Žalneravičiūtė. She introduced students to the film programming for an art-house cinema theatre. The film programmer showed examples of a monthly and a weekly repertoire of Skalvija and shared her insights about the right selection, combination and communication of films during different seasons. S. Žalneravičiūtė also revealed her predictions for the behaviour of the audience of Skalvija.

After her seminar Narius Kairys invited students for the second film viewing and film selection process. Having watched 7 more short films from the competition programme of Vilnius Film Shorts 2014 young film programmers selected three-four titles. Afterwards, they engaged in a discussion for hours about their final film programme, its goals, selection criteria, title etc. Finally, the students decided to make a film programme encompassing four short films:

I Love Hooligans ( Jan-Dirk Bouw, The Netherlands, 2013, 13 min.)
After Rave (Kamilė Milašiūtė, Lithuania, 2014, 20 min.)
Butter Lamp (HU Wei, France, China, 2013, 16 min.)
Washingtonia (Konstantina Kotzamani, Greece, 2014, 24 min.)

During the workshop they were also introduced to the structure of a film synopsis and a process of communication of a film screening (in both new media and traditional media). The young film programmers were assigned homework: to write an introduction about the film programme and synopses for the four selected films; to create strategy for communication campaign and to implement it. Their homework was commented by the film critic Narius Kairys. He also mentored students during preparation for their public talk before the film screening at the Skalvija Cinema Centre.

In the late afternoon of Saturday, April 11 the students welcomed the audience to the screening of their short film programme “Moving Cinema”. They briefly introduced the goals of the workshop, presented film selection criteria and shared personal observations and feelings about the four films. The screening attracted around 60 viewers.

The workshop was one of the phenomena which inspired Skalvija Film Academy (Vilnius, Lithuania) to organize a long-term film curating course.

Films

I Love Hooligans by Jan-Dirk Bouw (The Netherlands, 2013)
After Rave by Kamilė Milašiūtė (Lithuania, 2014)
Butter Lamp by HU Wei (France, China, 2013)
Washingtonia by Konstantina Kotzamani (Greece, 2014)