University degrees: Courses
Course length: 2 years
Course city: Sicilia
The new Documentary Direction course of the Experimental Center of Cinematography is a permanent laboratory during which the pupils are called to continuous work according to didactic modules that develop “horizontal” and “vertical” learning paths. “Horizontal” are the paths aimed at acquiring awareness and mastery of each stage of development, realization and production of a documentary film – from the emergence of history to finalization – in connection with the market and the world of work. The “vertical” path is the digging in depth, in search of meaning and expressive needs: truth / fiction; objective / subjective; characters / witnesses; choice / need; point of view and off-field; listening and relationship; these are just some of the paradigms of documentary cinema.
Through a continuous experimentation of approaches and languages and the critical analysis of the different imaginaries – in addition to the study of the history of cinema – students get involved to define their own creative autonomy, in the awareness that self-discipline and sense of responsibility are constitutive qualities of every filmmaker.
The educational program is divided into 6 sections, each of which focuses on different learning paths:
1. DOCUMENTARY CINEMA PRACTICES
Where does a documentary film come from? What are the creative and realization paths? How do we look at what surrounds us? Within this section, the path ‘From chaos to the cosmos’ hosts the teachers of the different specializations who are entrusted with the task of assisting students in the phases related to the design and implementation of annual exercises and diploma tests.
In the development phase, the projects are always followed by the director / production teacher combination.
2. IMAGINARIES
Teaching modules with variable duration (minimum two days, maximum three weeks) by the filmmakers who conduct real workshops. Frontal lessons and workshops that aim to lead students to experiment with different languages and approaches. At the end of the course students could be asked to deliver individual and / or collective exercises.
3. CONSTRUCTION SITES
Practical lessons led by film professionals such as directors of photography, sound engineers, editors, musicians, producers. This section aims to produce short exercises aimed at acquiring mastery of the technical aspects related to the design and production of a film.
4. MEMORIES AND NARRATIONS
Through frontal lessons and exercises, the students venture into different genres and experiment with different narrative approaches. We work on the knowledge of the different narrative structures, we analyze films, literary texts (prose, poetry, non-fiction), in the light of the paradigms of documentary cinema and the dramaturgy of reality. Within MEMORIES AND NARRATIONS, a part of the program is dedicated to the in-depth study of the different ways of creative reuse of archival material and to transmedia narrations.
5. MEETINGS
The meetings are divided, in turn, into two types: MASTER CLASS, with an indicative duration of 8 hours or 16 hours (one day or two days) and MAKING OF (about 4 hours). The guests are the directors, the professionals of the cinema but also personalities who in the world of literature, journalism, photography, the arts, the social and philosophical sciences strive every day to find interpretations of the contemporary.
Transversal throughout the school year, each year there is a cycle of meetings with distinguished personalities on a specific theme. In 2019 the theme is the construction of memory and imagination. It is in this context that the artistic direction has decided to confer the honorary diploma to the American director Joshua Oppenheimer who will hold a masterclass in April.
6. VISIONS
– HISTORY OF CINEMA: by the professor of cinema history.
– STORIES OF CINEMA: each student takes turns proposing a film to all students of the school, motivating their choice and presenting the film to a wider audience.
This program starts from the consideration that starting from the first years of the new millennium documentary cinema has been the freest and most innovative terrain of our cinematography and that the creation documentary is the genre that more than any other has allowed filmmakers of the new generations of experiment with different practices and methods without being afraid to confront the mix of genres and the hybridization of languages and formats.
In dialogue with international cinemas and with the most vital cinematographic realities in the Mediterranean, the Sicily headquarters of the Experimental Center of Cinematography, in addition to realizing its vocation to be a breeding ground for talents, also promotes various cultural activities and training projects.
There are more than twenty teachers who revolve around the school; being all professionals active in the world of work, their presence is designed in rotation to allow students to always have a vital and high-level comparison.
In 2019, in addition to Costanza Quatriglio, teachers Michelangelo Frammartino (director), Valentina Pedicini, (director), Carlo Lo Giudice (director), Gianfranco Pannone (director), Francesca Manieri (screenwriter), Jacopo Quadri (editor), Sara Fgaier (editor), Luca Gasparini (editor), Edoardo Morabito (editor), Letizia Caudullo (editor), Benni Atria (sound editor), Luca Ricciardi (producer), Valeria Adilardi (producer), Tarek Ben Abdallah (director of photography) , Vincenzo Marinese (director of photography and colorist), Sabrina Varani (director of photography), Paolo Pisanelli and Cecilia Mangini (directors), Agostino Ferrente (director), Gianluca Donati (sound engineer), Emiliano Morreale (historian and critic of the cinema), Alessia Cervini, (film historian), Simone Arcagni and Serafino Murri (new media), Joshua Oppenheimer (director), Margarethe von Trotta (director), Helena Janeczek (writer), Domenico Scarpa (literary writer and critic o), Melania Mazzucco (writer), Niccolò Ammaniti (writer and director), Cedrick Kahn (director), Emanuele Crialese (director) and several others.
The supervision of the diploma essays is entrusted to the producer and screenwriter Marco Alessi.
The didactic tutors are Piero Li Donni and Francesco Di Gesù.
