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Take a Trip, Make a Film: A Look at Study-Abroad Programs

Need a change of scenery? Here are five programs that allow filmmakers to study abroad.

January 21st, 2008 | Lynn Tryba
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London Calling: The New York Film Academy runs month-long courses in London, Paris, and Florence. (Photo: Loretta Shing.)

If you're looking to get away from your day-to-day routine while also brushing up on filmmaking skills, then a study-abroad program may be right for you. London, Paris, Florence, and Ottawa all play host to summer workshops. You can also take animation courses in New Zealand or work towards a degree from New York University in Singapore. And in Prague, you can brush up on state-of-the-art technology in a film-school building that dates to the 11th Century. The Independent's Lynn Tryba has compiled a guide to programs that range in length from weekend seminars to six-week sabbaticals.

When it comes to taking filmmaking classes abroad, the question is not so much “Why?” as it is, “Why not?” As anyone with a passion knows, procrastination and perfectionism are barriers to creativity, and they can become all the more pernicious when you're stuck in an unchanging daily routine.

Writing a Companion Book to Your Film

Charles H. Ferguson, the director of "No End in Sight," talks about his award-winning documentary and the follow-up book due out this month

January 8th, 2008 | Mike Hofman
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The Odd Couple: In "No End in Sight," filmmaker Charles Ferguson reveals the coolness between Paul Bremer and Jay Garner.

Over the course of an hour and 42 minutes, Charles H. Ferguson's Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight offers a powerful indictment of U.S. policy in Iraq in the period immediately following the May 2003 invasion of the country. The filmmaker, who recently picked up the Best Documentary award from the New York Film Critics Circle, has authored a book that updates the film, and asks, What's next? Ferguson recently spoke with The Independent's Mike Hofman about the film, the book (due out January 28), and the war. To first view the film's trailer, go to our Watch page.

An examination of how the Iraq War went so wrong, Charles H. Ferguson’s documentary No End In Sight is by turns forensic and surreal, a synthesis of devastating facts, damning archival footage, and poignant interviews with well-placed Iraqis and Americans who tried in vein to keep catastrophe at bay.

Minute By Minute.co.uk

Where Limitations Liberate

September 1st, 2002 | Maya Churi
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For many filmmakers a medium where sound doesn’t synch well, cuts and dissolves are lost on a small screen, and viewers have to wait and wait for the film to download is a medum in which the limitations outweigh the benefits. But for media-makers who are experimenting and taking advantage of the ever-changing technology, web art is at the beginning of its evolution into a full-blown art form. These artists are finding that the web, like jazz, fosters an art form where the limitations are the liberating factor.

The Trailer for "El Otro"

One of the films screened at the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam

February 7th, 2008
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One of the films screened at the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam

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Blogging from the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam

Beyond Broadcast Interviews: New American Media

A conversation with Kevin Weston, New American Media's director of new media and youth communication

July 11th, 2008 | Randi Cecchine
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A protest in LA (photo by Ryan Furtado)

Hand-picked as a valuable investment by the Ford Foundation, New American Media serves the more than 3,000 ethnic media outlets in the US by hosting conferences and roundtables and by connecting maintream outlets to the outlets run by and for ethnic communities. Kevin Weston reflects on the value of ethnic media and the benefits of multilingual polling.

Calling themselves “the first and largest collaboration of ethnic news organizations,” New American Media (NAM) represents a consortium of 3,000 ethnic media organizations, typically organized by ethnicity -- African American, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and so on.

Beyond Broadcast Interviews: United States Institute of Peace

An interview with Ivan Sigal, a current fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, about how new media is changing war, peace, and the resolution of conflicts

July 11th, 2008 | Randi Cecchine
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Ivan Sigal (Photo by Joi)

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a nonprofit founded over 20 years ago, studies and supports peace. The organization focuses on conflict prevention, mediation, negotiation in conflict zones, and peace-building and stabilization.

Blogging from the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam

Blogger Macauley Peterson wraps up the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam

February 6th, 2008 | Macauley Peterson
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Your Typical French Sex Farce: A scene from "Un baiser s'il vous plait"

The Independent's Randi Cecchine and Macauley Peterson posted blog entries from the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam this February. They covered new films from Greece, Israel, Iraq, Spain, and Argentina, and topics of conversation at the festival, including the trials of collaboration, the evolution of copyright law, and the joy of breaking taboos. To view trailers for some of the films screened at the festival, including Lynch, Tale 52, and Un baiser s'il vous plait (shown at left), check out our Watch page.

During my brief stint at the Rotterdam Film Festival this week I selected my films without any particular governing principle other than, perhaps, variety: An Iraqi documentary, an Argentine midlife crisis drama, a French sex comedy, a Spanish zombie horror flick, a Greek psycho-mystery, a musical not-quite-biopic, and a contemplative Israeli film of cultural understanding. Did I mention zombies?

Blogging Rotterdam, Part Two: The Power of Breaking Taboos

Filmmaker X' Ho of Singapore packs his new film with images that could land him in jail

January 31st, 2008 | Randi Cecchine
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Censored in Singapore: The film "Allen Ginsberg Gives Great Head" contains many explicit images.

Filmmaker and educator Randi Cecchine is blogging from the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdarm. Today, she writes about an explicit short film from Singapore with the catchy title Allen Ginsberg Gives Great Head. Filmmaker X' Ho is not afraid to take risks, including many long sequences featuring explicit images. Cecchine is somewhat surprised that the film was included in the festival—despite their reputation, the Dutch are a little suppressed, she says—and wonders whether it's easier to watch this kind of film in a theater with an audience, or alone and on DVD.

My decision to watch Allen Ginsberg Gives Great Head, a film by X' Ho, a director from Singapore, speaks volumes about having a film’s title begin with the letter "A" so it will appear at the beginning of the alphabetical catalog listing!

Blogging Rotterdam, Part One: Dust Lighting Up the Darkness

Randi Cecchine arrives in Holland, and checks out Harmut Bitomsky's Staub (Dust)

January 29th, 2008 | Randi Cecchine
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The Big Show: The scene at the 37th Rotterdam film festival

Filmmaker and educator Randi Cecchine blogs from the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Her first film? Staub (Dust), a documentary from Germany the explores the relationship between people and that familiar gray patina. Director Hartmut Bitomsky interviews obsessive cleaners, scientists who study dust to gain insights into the physical world, inventors who have tried to build dust-filtration contraptions, and health experts who worry about the effects of inhaling too much dust. In the end, Cecchine says the film is unexpectedly contemplative. To view a trailer for the film (without subtitles, and in German), check out our Watch page.

The 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam is a 12-day event taking place in fourteen festival locations screening more than 600 films in 26 screening rooms. It is considered to be the Netherlands’ biggest cultural event in terms of paying visitors.

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