14 shorts from 14 centres in 12 countries have been selected to participate in the 9th International Film Students Meeting. The participating countries are Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, the USA, Spain, Finland, Israel, Poland, the UK and Singapore. 59 schools from 24 countries the world over registered as contenders for participation in the 9th International Film School Meeting which, for the ninth year running, will take place within the framework of San Sebastian Festival.

The 9th International Film Students Meeting will take place on 22, 23 and 24 September. Desirous of contributing to the professionalisation of young filmmakers, this meeting will screen the selected shorts, mostly graduation projects, at lively sessions open to the public and professional guests at the Festival. Students will therefore have the opportunity to present their works and discuss them with the audience. Similarly, students, teachers and professionals from the film world will comment on and analyse questions related to creation, the pedagogical programmes of the schools represented, and the way the audiovisual industry functions and its new trends.

A specific jury, consisting of students from the participating film schools and chaired this year by the filmmaker Danis Tanovic, will choose the work to receive the Panavision Award, carrying a complete Sony EX III camera for four weeks of filming, or a voucher worth €10,000 towards the cost of renting any Panavision material. The award will go to the director of the chosen short film. The jury will also decide on the names of the three directors who will have the opportunity to participate with their works in the Short Film Corner, the space dedicated to films of this kind, at the next Cannes Festival.

MASTERCLASS

The Meeting programme will be rounded off with a Masterclass, to take place on Wednesday 22 September, on new audiovisual trends, this year dedicated to the Transmedia Narratives and 3D cinema:

1. Transmedia conference:

The main objective of the masterclass on Transmedia Narratives is to introduce a new way of telling stories which is causing a revolution in audiovisual production, leisure and digital entertainment; stories that spread and diversify across multiple forms of media: audiovisual, games, websites, comics, mobile platforms or real experiences. These projects generate different narrative universes making it possible to interact with users in the creation and distribution of stories, share knowledge and live new experiences.

The masterclass consists, in the first place, of an international talk given by Lance Weiler. Entitled “Transmedia: telling stories beyond a screen”, the talk will look at how to design and develop transmedia projects in order to make them attractive and interesting, construct audiences and exploit new forms of funding.

Secondly, Robert Figueras will present, as a practical case, the project Panzer Chocolate (Robert Figueras and Gemma Dunjó), one of the first transmedia projects in Spain.

The conference will close with a debate on training in Transmedia Narratives and the new opportunities they offer, with participation of the speakers and Ian Ginn, producer and expert in transmedia training, as its chair and moderator. Attending students, teachers and professionals are free to participate in this debate.

2. 3D cinema workshop:

Manolo Gómez, President of Dygra Films, will give a masterclass on Digital 3D cinema and the Dygra Native Digital 3D system, the company’s own seal guaranteeing a “native” production, created and produced from the very outset in stereoscopic Digital 3D cinema. One of the subjects addressed will be the film Holy Night!, the first Spanish animated production in Digital 3D and one of the first in Europe, the work in progress of which will be presented at San Sebastian Festival.

The workshop will be completed with the intervention of Panavision, which will exclusively present the teaser for the film The Krostons, Masters of the Universe (Frederik Du Chau), giving a talk on the material and 3D treatment used in the film.

A series of parallel activities will also be carried out during the International Film Students Meeting. On the one hand, part of the programme has been reserved for the presentation of projects destined to foster international collaboration and production processes. In this context we will screen two short films out-of-competition from the Atelier Masterclass project with the participation of La Fémis in Paris and the Filmakademie in Baden-Württemberg.

Furthermore, this year the Istanbul Express project will participate in the Meeting, welcoming 15 young filmmakers who will leave San Sebastian by train for Istanbul. The project consists of the journey by 45 young filmmakers between the ages of 18 and 30, who will cross the European continent in three trains, each taking different routes, but all arriving in Istanbul. On the way, the young filmmakers will make 15 documentary shorts, living the places, avoiding clichés and preconceived ideas, and experiencing different linguistic realities first-hand.

All events at the Meeting will be made available online. Information and images from the films and participating schools will be available for consultation and downloading from the Zinemaldi website. The entire Meeting will be exhaustively monitored thanks to the different platforms and channels set up for this purpose: www.eiecine.ning.com, twitter.com/eiecine and www.facebook.com/EncuentroInternacionaldeEstudiantesdeCine. On these platforms, visitors can view some of the competing shorts, interviews with students and representatives of the participating schools, run-downs of each day’s events and material contributed by those attending the meeting through their mobile phones. These are some of the contents making it possible to experience the event from a closer, more human angle. The Web will therefore become a dynamic space permitting attendees to participate as a community while strengthening the objectives of this activity.
The International Film Students Meeting is jointly organised by the Festival and Tabakalera-International Centre for Contemporary Culture and has the backing of San Sebastian’s Candidature for European of Culture 2016, due to being an obvious exponent of the scenarios and ways of working that the endeavour wishes to promote.

Programme

Wednesday 22

11:00 - Príncipe Cinemas: 3D cinema workshop
15:00 - Kutxa Arrasate Hall: Transmedia Conference
20:00 - Kursaal /Press Club: Presentation of the 9th International Film Students Meeting

Thursday 23, Kutxa Andía Hall

10:00: Screenings and discussions:

• THE LIVES AND TIMES OF ABRAHAM KAHN, Yaron Dahan
  BEIT BERL COLLEGE SCHOOL OF ART - FILM DEPT., Israel

• AMBIENTE FAMILIAR, Carlos Leiva
  PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA, Chile

• DEUTERONOMIO, Angello Faccini
  ESCUELA DE CINE BLACK MARÍA, Colombia

12:15: Screenings and discussions:

• BABYLON 2084, Christian Schleisiek
  FACHHOSCHSCHULE MAINZ, Germany

• TÚNELES EN EL RÍO, Igor Galuk
  UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE LA PLATA, Argentina

16:30: Screenings and discussions:

• HINKERORT ZORASUNE, Vatche Boulghourjian
  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY - TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS - GRADUATE
  FILM DIVISION, USA

• LOS MINUTOS, LAS HORAS, Janaína Marqués
  ESCUELA INTERNACIONAL DE CINE Y TV, Cuba

• DOM SMIERCI, Matej Bobrik
  PWSFTITV - NATIONAL FILMSCHOOL LÓDZ, Poland

Friday 24, Kutxa Andía Hall

10:00: screenings and discussions:

• FIN DE SEMANA, Alfredo Colman
  LA METRO, ESCUELA DE DISEÑO Y COMUNICACIÓN AUDIOVISUAL, Argentina

• MITEN MARJOJA POIMITAAN, Elina Talvensaari
  AALTO UNIVERSITY, Finland

12:15: screenings and discussions:

• EZRA RISHONA, Yarden Karmin
  THE SAM SPIEGEL FILM AND TV SCHOOL, Israel

• THE CONFESSION, Tanel Toom
  NATIONAL FILM AND TV SCHOOL, UK

16: 00: screenings and discussions:

• ESTOCOLMO, Juan Francisco Viruega
  ECAM, Spain

• OUTING, Zhi Wei Jow
  THE PUTTNAM SCHOOL OF FILM, Singapore

17: 15: Out-of-competition

• BELLE SALOPE, Philippe Roger
  L’ ATELIER LUDWIGSBURG-PARIS, FRANCE-GERMANY

• JAKOB, Benjamin Moritz Gronau
  L’ ATELIER LUDWIGSBURG-PARIS, FRANCE-GERMANY

20:30: Award-giving ceremony

SPEAKERS:

TRANSMEDIA CONFERENCE

Lance Weiler (http://lanceweiler.com/about/)

Critically acclaimed writer and director. He is recognised as a pioneer: he constantly experiments with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences through different distribution networks. Lance is a partner in Seize the Media, a social entertainment company focussing on transmedia story architecture. Through this company, Lance is developing a number of film, TV and gaming projects. His next feature film is the transmedia project entitled HiM, which recently won the Arte France Cinéma award at the 2009 edition of CineMart. In January, HiM attended the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, marking the first time the lab has supported a transmedia project.

Lance is the founder of the WorkBook Project, an open creative network that has grown to become a thriving international community of filmmakers, musicians, game designers and software developers. He also co-created and produced 24 episodes entitled Radar. He sits on the board of the IFP, a national filmmaking organisation, and advises a number of technology companies. Other outstanding features on his CV are the book entitled “Putting the Mass Back in Media” and his blog http://textoflight.com/

He is a regular speaker on changes in narrative architectures and the entertainment world in recognised forums like: MIT, USC, Columbia, Cannes, Sundance, etc.

Robert Figueras (www.robertfigueras.com)

Is currently working on his first feature, Panzer Chocolate, scheduled for release in 2011. This film, which has the backing of Fundación Digitalent, is co-directed by Gemma Dunjó and written by Pep Garrido. The film complements the story with an online/iPhone video-game, an interactive motion comic with augmented reality, an alternative reality game and mobile interactivity.

This director of several documentaries and short films including Los últimos días del General Álvarez de Castro, Simonet, el Terror del Francés and Citizen Welles, worked in London for part of his career.

In 2005, he co-founded Filmutea with Gemma Dunjó. This production company manages an online community of over 36,000 filmmakers and creators. Filmutea also creates, produces and exploits transmedia projects both of its own and for other production companies, businesses and brands, offering creative services and assistance in the field of production and advice, training and talks on new financing strategies, promotion and distribution over the Internet.

His commitment to digital and internet technologies as a formula for directing films and his interest in sharing knowledge means that Robert is an active blogger in www.crossmediaproject.org. He is also an adviser on the Post-Graduate Communication course at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and gives talks for entities including the SGAE and the Facultat de Comunicació Blanquerna at the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL).

Ian Ginn (http://nl.linkedin.com/in/ianginn)

Creator and producer, he develops transmedia formats for youngsters through his production company Hubbub Media, working in Amsterdam, London and Los Angeles.

Expert in Transmedia Narratives and in applied creativity and innovation, he gives talks, moderates and directs workshops in different international forums such as, for example, Cannes Festival, Power to the Pixel Forum (London), TEDxTransmedia (Geneva), Mobile 2.0 Europe (Barcelona), UK Screenwriters' Festival, Amsterdam Dag van de Soap, Cinekid (Amsterdam).

Through his consultant’s company TransmediaLabs, Ian addresses topics related to transmedia training, educational innovation and market research. He is currently working on several projects including the development and implementation of a transmedia training lab for the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam.

3D FILM WORKSHOP

Manolo Gómez
Director, screenwriter, painter and producer. Founder and President of DYGRA FILMS since 1987. Producer and co-director of the animated features El Bosque Animado (2001) and Sueño de una noche de San Juan (2005). President of the Academia Galega do Audiovisual from 2003 until September 2006 and member of the Spanish Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas, the European Film Academy, the Comité Organizador Mundos Digitales (from 2002 until 2006) and Cartoon Future (from 2002 until 2005). Tutor of the Master’s Degree in Digital Creation and Communication at the University of A Coruña (from 1998 until today). Founding patron of the AVERHO Foundation. He was the screenplay analyst on the features, El Bosque Animado, Sueño de una noche de San Juan and Espíritu del Bosque. He directed development of the features Holy Night!, Objetos Perdidos and Asinus Auras. He was the co-screenwriter of Holy Night!, Objetos Perdidos and Navegantes, and responsible for Art in development of the features Objetos perdidos and Asinus Auras. He received the following nominations and awards:

• 1 Goya nomination in 2009 - for Espíritu del Bosque (Producer)
• 1 Goya nomination in 2008- for El Bufón y la Infanta (Producer)
• 1 Goya Award in 2006 - for Sueño de una noche de San Juan (Producer)
• 1 Goya Award ub 2002 - for El Bosque Animado, sentirás su magia (Producer)
• Several international awards.

PANAVISION

Philippe Dieuzaide and Patrick Leplat will give the Panavision talk.

Philippe Dieuzaide
Having belonged to the Panavision Alga Techno Film Department in 2006, Philippe Dieuzaide has been Head of the Sales Department since January 2010. He was Director of Production in Paris during the 90s and directed a technical services company in Spain for 5 years.

Patrick Leplat
In 2006 Patrick Leplat worked for Panavision Alga Techno as Director of Technical Marketing and Operations. He had previously worked for Panasonic France during 19 years, firstly as a technician and gradually climbing the company ladder to become technical director and finally manager of the French Broadcasting branch.