Preface
Osian's Cinefan is proud to announce the 3rd edition of Talent Campus India, organised in collaboration with Max Mueller Bhavan, the Berlin International Film Festival and the Berlinale Talent Campus.
Talent Campus India is a 5-day workshop (17-21 July) where 56 young, aspiring filmmakers have been invited to New Delhi to interact with renowned filmmakers and film professionals from India and abroad. The aim of the workshop is to provide
Indian and South Asian youth a forum for learning and sharing the process of filmmaking. This year, we are also accepting applicants from Iran. Participants will benefit not only from the calibre and experience of the professionals involved, but also from the exchange of ideas among themselves. Topics of discussion will range from production design to scriptwriting and understanding key issues such as meaning of images and fundraising for films.
This unique endeavour began with Berlinale Talent Campus, 2002, which was initiated by the Berlin International Film Festival and which has since travelled abroad to select international festivals: the Molodist Film Festival in Kiev, the
Sithengi Festival in South Africa, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema and Osian's-Cinefan in New Delhi. Topics of discussion have included directing actors, cinematography, developing scripts, independent filmmaking and the aesthetics of editing. The feedback has been heartwarming and Talents have left with a sharper eye and a stronger will to persist. Since the last Campus, many participants have shown their films at international festivals. Some of them have begun dedicated work on developing screenplays, and a few have even collaborated on each other's projects. Talents from the Campus in India have also participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2005, Sainath Choudhury from Mumbai,
who attended our first Campus, won an award in Berlin for his short-film Cataract. Ishita Moitra, a participant last year,is assisting scriptwriter Abbas Tyrewala in writing a script for a film. She met him when he was a guest speaker at Talent Campus last year.
Held over five intensive days at the Osian's-Cinefan 8th Festival of Asian Cinema, Talent Campus will combine discussions, seminars, workshops and film screenings, all programmed to provide an opportunity for participants to benefit from the
shared experiences and ideas of not just the professionals involved, but of their fellow Talents as well. It is an integral part of our initiative towards 'Infrastructure Building for Minds and Markets' (IBM2).
This year, even while the focus of the workshops is on design and aesthetics, we have several sessions that cover a larger ground. These include Production Design, Sound Design, Casting for films, intensive writers workshops, fundraising for
films, Documentaries, changing aesthetics and narratives in digital technologies besides others. The participating guests include Jean Claude Carrière (screenplay writer from France), Santosh Sivan (cinematographer /director), Pan Nalin
(director), Indranil Ghosh (art director), John Williams (director from Japan), Tu Duu Chih (sound designer from Taiwan), Amir Muhammad (director from Malaysia), Avi Mograbi (director from Israel), Amar Kanwar (director), Naseeruddin Shah
(actor/director), Vipin Vijay (director), John Torres (director), Tareque and Catherine Masud (directors from Bangladesh), Sunil Doshi (producer) and Alan Jalladeau (festival Co-Director from France).
In the past two years our criteria for selection has been submission of one-minute films by applicants, but this year it was expanded to include scripts. Thus our selection committee that comprised film editor / director Sameera Jain, academician / writer / singer Madan Gopal Singh as well as Talent Campus alumnus and media professional, Udayan Baijal, toiled long and hard over 31 scripts much before they met to view about 140 films. They selected 56 applicants which included eight from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and the rest from all corners of India.
We believe Talent Campus India 2006 will be another invigorating experience not just for the young participants but for the guest speakers as well. The atmosphere of exchange – of sharing past experiences and future projects – will encourage mentorship as well as significantly contribute towards the development of these young Talents into artistes and story-tellers. In addition we hope that the films screened at the Osian's-Cinefan, 8th Festival of Asian Cinema will provide the milieu in which they see themselves and their work in the future.
