Alumni Event of 2020
The Alumni Event, which already became a prominent feature amidst the thematic activities organized in Budapest at the moment of the gathering of the current enrolled classes in the transition between curricular semesters, also became a customary occasion for a reunion with the growing number of DocNomads alumni.
As one of the most participated Alumni Event since its inception in 2016, this year’s event counted with the attendance of students and alumni representing the whole 8 classes of DocNomads programme up to date.
9 FEBRUARY, SUNDAY
PREMIER KULTCAFE, CONFERENCE HALL
Moderator: PETER KEREKES (Member of the Academic Board)
16:30-18:40 - Presentations of work-in-progress feature-length documentaries by:
JOLA WIECZOREK (DN1, director, Austria,)
Project title: Stories from the Sea
Status: In post-production
Synopsis: The Mediterranean has always played a central role in our world. It is crossed, made use of, enjoyed, feared and loved every day, every night. Stories from the Sea portrays women aboard three vessels who experience the Mediterranean Sea as a place of longing, a place of work, or a scene of human encounters. The all-encompassing blue waters, unceasing waves and distant horizons are elements that link the protagonists, regardless of their motivation to go out to sea.
ANGIE OBEID (DN5, director, Lebanon)
Project title: Yalla, Baba!
Status: In pre-production
Synopsis: In their newly bought car from Belgium, Angie (31) takes her father Mansour (71) on the same journey he made 40 years ago from Brussels to Beirut. The path once taken is no longer the same, and neither would be their relationship. Yalla, Baba! is a dialogue between father and daughter. An encounter of two different times in a moving space. An outlook on 40 years of History of Europe and the world, through a road trip from Brussels to Beirut.
BRONTE STAHL (DN5, producer, USA)
Project title: Tailings
Status: In pre-production
Director: Pedro de Filippis (DN5, Brazil)
Synopsis: After seeing his village washed away by the collapse of a mining dam, an exile in Portugal attempts to digest the trauma. A second dam breaks and an environmentalist is forced to leave her life of isolation for the international media spotlight. Meanwhile, a school teacher keeps watch at night for the imminent break of a third dam that can bury his town in an estimated eight seconds. In the interval of three years, two mining tailings dams broke in Minas Gerais, Brazil, causing the country’s worst socio-environmental disasters.
OTILIA BABARA (DN2, director, Moldova)
Project title: Love is not an Orange
Status: In production
Synopsis: In a country where children grow up without their mothers, the gap of a forced separation is filled with gifts and video tapes exchanged back and forth. Using family archives, Love is not an Orange delves into the ways we communicate and express our affection during long periods of separation.
MARKO SIPKA (DN1, director, Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Project title: The Land
Status: In post-production
Synopsis: The Land tells the story of one small Bosnian village, Krajina that was destroyed and burned in the last Yugoslavian war in 90's. For a period of 2 years, I followed the last living people who come to the village to visit their ruins and to recollect the myths and memories of their past lives. This is the place where my parents were born and where I spent a lot of time in my childhood, so it’s a very personal project, but also with important political context.
19:00-21:30 - Screening of A Rifle and a Bag, followed by a Q&A with Cristina Hanes and Isabella Rinaldi.
Directed by Arya Rothe (DN3, India), Cristina Hanes (DN3, Romania) and Isabella Rinaldi (DN3, Italy), the film had its World premiere at IRFF - International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2020.
Synopsis: Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation. A Rifle and a Bag is an impressive documentary about people forced to give up their ideals to be able to work on their future.
Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help.
21:40-22:00 – Presentation of the upcoming 4th initiative of Cinecaravan, by Atsushi Kuwayama, Jamie Allan and Cecília Bandeira.
“Cinecaravan” is a travelling cinema project led by a collective of Alumni that organizes screenings of short DocNomads documentary films and film workshops in geographically and socially remote communities across Europe. Contributors to this initiative are: Atsushi Kuwayama (DN4, Japan), Jamie Allan (DN2, United Kingdom), Pedro de Filippis (DN5, Brazil), Nevena Desivojevic (DN3, Serbia), Anna Silva-Schlenker (DN4, Colombia), Cecília Bandeira (DN3, Brazil), Mariann Vas (DN3, Hungary), Thiago Carvalhaes (DN4, Brazil), Noemi Varga and Zsuzsi Pál.
