The Visual Anthropology Center – VAC in Belgrade, Serbia is organizing its 6th Summer school of visual anthropology (SVA). ŠVA is a workshop for filmmakers and social scientists – the only one of its kind on the Balkans. Due to the great experiences of previous years the School will for the first time open for international participants.
We are looking for applicants who would like to participate not just in a workshop, but who are interested in creating an international network of socially engaged filmmakers. http://visualanthropologycenter.com/
The SVA 2018 will take place from 1 to 10th of July 2018 in Belgrade Serbia. The School will have up to 30 participants. The students will be selected based on their motivation, ideas and enthusiasm. Academic excellence or previous experience in film-making are not crucial.
English is the working language of the school.
Application deadline: 5th of June, 2018.
Selection results: 10th of June, 2018.
SVA Offer:
A ten day workshop with excellent lecturers and facilitators that will consist of: interactive lectures, mentored field work and post-production work in groups to up to 5 participants.
Participants will use this unique opportunity for a different approach both to film-making and anthropology!
The accommodation and food are included in the price.
Aim
The goal of the project is to introduce visual anthropology to established professionals in film making and/or social sciences who would like to broaden their perspectives as well as to scholars who are new to this field(s). SVA will provide theoretical and practical workshops, involving filming and post-production of short anthropological films. The call is open for applicants with or without experience – what matters is enthusiasm towards promotion of social awareness through visual anthropology.
The aim is to encourage critical thinking, fostering tolerance for the Other, while broadening the knowledge of participants as film-makers and social scientists.
Methodology
Participants will work in multinational teams and will learn in a creative manner about approaching social issues with sensitivity. SVA finds it crucial for any filmmaker to be able to develop an ethical relationship towards the material they are working with and most importantly to the protagonists of their films.
The lecturers and mentors will come from different fields ranging from feature film through documentary to academic disciplines of social sciences and will share their knowledge through theoretical lectures, analysis of ethnographic films and sensory-ethnographic exercises. They will also assist participants in fieldwork and post production. Participants will learn from each other as well as from our professors – SVA finds the exchange of ideas through teamwork as important as the knowledge that we have to offer.
Lecturers from various countries will share their individual methods, introducing scholars to audiovisual longitudinal fieldwork. The methods SVA promotes include participatory observation, cinema verité, direct cinema, sensory ethnography and more. Academic professors, professional filmmakers and young researchers with background of experimental film genres from Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia, USA and Serbia will hold intensive classes during 4 days in cozy atmosphere on many locations in the city: Faculty of media and communication, Ethnographic Museum, SUN Hostel etc.
Through interactive lectures students will be able to, in accordance with their research topics, recognize and apply methods in their movies. Participants will be introduced with advanced techniques of recording, working with camera in field terms, editing procedures and different methods in archiving materials.
Having adopted the theoretically based and practical knowledge in this field, students will be able to independently make social responsible media content, thus spreading impact among peers and general public.
All participants will attend the interactive lectures together. The language of the lectures will be English. Every filming group will be supported by professional mentors experienced in ethnographical fieldworks and filmmaking.
Each group will have had finished a short movie of their own, based on their own ideas and research. The movies will have an open screening on the 10th of July, and will also be screened at VAC’s partner festivals Etnofff in Skoplje and SEF in Zadar. Most successful films may also be screened on other festivals.
List of lecturers:
Slobodan Naumović, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology at Belgrade University, Serbia;
Etami Borjan, Lecturer at the Department of Italian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb;
Ilina Jakimovska, Associate Professor at Institute for ethology and anthropology at Natural sciences Faculty in Skopje, Macedonia;
Pavel Borecky, PhD candidate at University of Bern, Department of Social Anthropology, social anthropologist and non-fiction filmmaker;
Camilo Pasquareli, photographer and anthropologist;
Spyrous Gerousis, ethnographic filmmaker and visual artist;
Ivana Todorović, filmmaker;
Ibolya Fekete, film director;
Miomir Rajčević, film- and animation filmmaker
Marina Simić, Associate Professor of Cultural Theory and Cultural Studies at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Sciences.
Miha Poredos, visual anthropologist (MA in cultural anthropology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and MA in social anthropology at the Freie Universität in Berlin)
List of mentors:
Relja Pekić, visual anthropologist (MA of Ethnology and Anthropology at Belgrade University, Serbia)
Miklós Barna-Lipkovszki, filmmaker (MA of TV journalism and documentary film-making at University of film and theater in Budapest, Hungary)
Asia Dér, filmmaker (MA degree of philosophy; finished documentary directing in the DOCnomads Program, which is a joint master studies program of the Budapest, Lisbon and Brussels film-school)
Zoltán Kerekes, cinematographer (MA degree of cinematography at University of film and theater in Budapest, Hungary)
Valentino Bianchi, photographer
Miha Poredos, visual anthropologist (MA in cultural anthropology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and MA in social anthropology at the Freie Universität in Berlin)
Equipment
All groups will have at their disposal professional 4K cameras:
Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K, Panasonic GH5, Canon C300, Sony Alpha 7MIIs.
