film campus innsbruck 2021
13 - 19 september 2021
experts
Jakob’s relentless interest to tinker with lights, rigs and fixtures was fused with his fascination for film early in his childhood. Years later he enrolled at the National Film School in Vienna to deepen his knowledge of the craft. He has been working as a gaffer, in the field of his choice, ever since. Specializing in large scale feature films and commercials, his international career has taken him all over the world. Lightbridge emerged as Jakob wanted to address and find answers for the needs and possibilities of new age lighting for digital cinematography. The companies first launch was in collaboration with DoP Christian Berger – they released the first stable version of the Cine Reflect Lighting System in 2017. Early this year CRLS 2.0 was launched. As an industry gaffer with experience on projects ranging from small productions to major film studio shoots, he understands the need for high-quality and economical lighting for various creative projects with differing budgets.
Nina Kusturica is a film and theater director, and also works as a writer, editor, producer, teacher and in the field of arts-based research.
She has directed several feature films including CIAO CHÉRIE (2018), LITTLE ALIEN (2009) and AUSWEGE (2003) as well as documentaries 24 REALITIES IN A SECOND – MICHAEL HANEKE ON FILM (2004) and DRAGA LJILJANA (2000), with acclaimed participation and awards at numerous international film festivals.
In theater, she directed BIBI SARA KALI (2021) by Ibrahim Amir at Werk X Petersplatz Vienna, RULE OF THUMB (2019) by Iva Brdar at Kosmos Theater and Shumona Sinha’s SLAUGHTER THE POOR! (2018) at Werk X Vienna.
Nina Kusturica teaches film, directing and acting at various universities and works as a research artist at the Vienna Film Academy. Born in Mostar, she grew up in Sarajevo. Nina Kusturica lives and works in Vienna.
Michela Occhipinti was born in Rome in 1968. After spending part of her life between Rome, Morocco, Hong Kong, Congo and Switzerland, in 1991 she moved to Milan and then to London, where she started working in documentary and advertising as a researcher and production assistant. Since 1995 she has been living in Rome working in cinema, documentaries and advertising in various positions in Italy and abroad. In 2003 she travelled one year throughout South America producing and filming the documentary ¡VIVA LA PEPA! (GIVE US BACK THE CONSTITUTION) on Argentina’s social crisis. From 2005 to 2007 she cooperated with RAI 2 directing various reportages on immigration issues. In 2008 she filmed SEI UNO NERO, a non-profit documentary shot in Malawi on the opening of a radio station for Aids and malaria prevention.
In 2010 she produced and directed LETTERS FROM THE DESERT (EULOGY TO SLOWNESS), her first feature documentary, which participated in over 80 Festivals worldwide receiving 21 awards, making it one of the most awarded documentaries of 2010. In 2018 she directed her first feature film FLESH OUT in Mauritania.
Ziad Kalthoum is a Syrian filmmaker currently living in Berlin. He was born in Homs in 1981 and holds a degree in film studies. In first documentary OH MY HEART (2009) he portrayed a group of Kurdish women, who have chosen to live in a society without men. The film was banned from screening in Syria due to political reasons. In 2012, during the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, he began working on his first feature film THE IMMORTAL SEARGANT while serving a compulsory military service. The film had its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2014. In 2015, he won the BBC Arabic Festival in the ‘Best Feature Documentary’ category. Refusing to fight his own people, he deserted from the Syrian Army in 2013 and fled to Beirut where he started to work on TASTE OF CEMENT. The film has been traveling to festivals around the world and has won various awards, among them the Golden Sesterce for Best Feature Documentary at Visions du Réel in 2017.
Recording engineer and sound designer Peter Rösner studied sound-engineering at the University of Music and performing Arts in Vienna. Since 2008 he has been a freelancer working on international feature and documentary productions for TV and theatrical release. In recent years he also started working as a drone-pilot for international feature-films and adverts.
talents
Leila Basma
Giulia Dussisch
Timm Schröder
Hedda Bednarszky
Rok Urbanček
Lydia Giegold
Vanessa Macedo
Tina Ščaviničar
Claudia Gerstl
Bernhard Poscher
Christoph Kühn
Florian Riedelsperger
Gabriele Biasi
films
Written & directed by Ziad Kalthoum, Director of Photography Talal Khoury, Sound Ansgar Frerich, Editing Alex Bakri and Frank Brummundt. GER/LB/SY/AE 2017, 85 min
In Beirut, Syrian construction workers are building a skyscraper while at the same time their own houses at home are being shelled. The Lebanese war is over but the Syrian one still rages on. The workers are locked in the building site. They are not allowed to leave it after 19.00. The Lebanese government has imposed night-time curfews on the refugees. The only contact with the outside world for these Syrian workers is the hole through which they climb out in the morning to begin a new day of work. Cut off from their homeland, they gather at night around a small TV set to get the news from Syria. Tormented by anguish and anxiety, while suffering the deprivation of the most basic human and workers right, they keep hoping for a different life. After The Immortal Sergeant, Ziad Khaltoum composes an excruciating essay on what it means to live in exile in a war-torn world with no possibilities to return home. Precise camera framing, unorthodox editing, and dreamlike narrative detours are the trademarks of a daring, imaginative and visually challenging cinematographic work.
Written & directed & filmed by Marianne Hougen-Moraga and Estephan Wagner, Sound Jan Schermer and Paul Bijpost, Editing Niels Pagh Andersen and Estephan Wagner. Denmark 2020, 89 min
In the middle of an idyllic valley at the foot of the Andes in central Chile lies the “Villa Baviera”. But the beauty of this modern tourist resort hides a dark past.
Built on the siteof the former Colonia Dignidad, a sect with the sadist Paul Schäfer at its centre committed atrocities there for decades. After Schäfer fled and was subsequently sentenced, many inhabitants left the colony to build a future far away from their traumatic experiences. Yet some 120 people across three generations still live in the place where they experienced and carried out physical and psychological violence. They oscillate between reality and extenuation, processing and repression, remembering and forgetting. The filmmaking duo Estephan Wagner and Marianne Hougen-Moraga gained unique access to the victims and perpetrators of Colonia Dignidad. SONGS OF REPRESSION creates an oppressively absurd atmosphere and shows the contrasting ways of dealing with trauma through the haunting statements of contemporary witnesses.
Written & directed by Michela Occhipinti, Director of Photography Daria D’Antonio, Sound Lavinia Burcheri, Editing Cristiano Travaglioli. Italy 2019, 94 min
Verida is a modern girl. She works in a beauty salon, is addicted to social media and hangs out with her friends. Still, she is engaged to a man chosen by her family. Like many girls her age, she is under pressure to gain a substantial amount of weight in a tradition called gavage, in order to reach the voluptuous body considered in Mauritania a sign of great beauty, charm, wealth and social status. The wedding is fast approaching and meal after meal Verida is starting to challenge everything she always thought was normal: her loved ones, her way of life, and not least, her own body.
Written & directed by Nina Kusturica, Director of Photography Michael Schindegger, Sound Andi Pils, Editing Nina Kusturica. Austria 2017, 87 min
To make phone calls, send money, surf the net – that’s what brings people to this small call shop in Vienna. Homesickness and love, worries and hopes, doubts and uncertainty – all these issues are discussed in the small phone booths, where homeland and belonging stand in total contradiction. To keep in touch or to say farewell? – In her latest film, Nina Kusturica (Little Alien) tells of living in a foreign land and the yearning to overcome distances.
