A digital workshop presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto & LIFT
with Toronto Arab Film & Toronto Palestine Film Festival
Daniel Carsenty is a Berlin filmmaker currently working at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
The documentary The Devil’s Drivers, co-directed by Berlin directors Daniel Carsenty & Mohammed Abugeth, is celebrating its world premiere at TIFF 2021. The Goethe-Institut Toronto showed the Canadian premiere of Carsenty’s debut, the refugee drama After Spring Comes Fall, in 2016 at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox.
The central element of this workshop is the idea that a film –documentary or fiction– is at its core a character-driven story. The camera captures the relationships between people and visualizes the unspoken elements at play. Most films pivot around 'dramatic' scenes. Scenes in which characters express their wants and needs either vocally or through the subtext of body language. They run up against an obstacle and we as an audience 'discover' their true character in the way they deal with the obstacle on screen.
This two-part workshop aimed at emerging and intermediate filmmakers, will create awareness for the basic elements of story-telling at play and show examples in which these elements have been successfully captured on screen. After a 90-minute introduction open to registered participants and general audiences, where Carsenty will be joined from Berlin by his collaborator filmmaker Mohammed Abugeth, the workshop participants will go out and independently film with their own cameras a dramatic scene, which has the power to stand alone as a short film or could be the centre of a longer documentary. On the second day, the workshop participants will screen their work and have a collaborative discussion, critique the work of their peers and grow an understanding of storytelling.
An empty bus station can tell a story as intricately as the packed bakery next door. It only requires a different way of observation.
In a scene with many people or with a clear protagonist, it is often enough if the camera follows the story. But in a place where little happens, it is very important to understand where to place the camera and how to connect the different visual elements.
Subjective vs. objective camera. Does the protagonist lead the camera or the director? How do I make this decision as a film-maker and which implications will it have on the story-telling?
Students can film on a smartphone or any other medium of recording video, but be aware of sound-recording implications.
Register here for free as of 24 August 2021 -- limited spots! Carsenty & Abugeth’s keynote at the beginning of the workshop will be streamed for the public.
Daniel Carsenty graduated in 2015 from the Konrad Wolf Film Academy in Potsdam, Germany with After Spring Comes Fall, a film about a Syrian woman who is forced to work as an informer in Berlin. He won the award for Best Feature at the Zsigmond Vilmos Festival in Sziget, Hungary, and was nominated for several First Steps Awards in Germany. In 2016 he started to work as a TV journalist for Arte and BBC Arabic in the Middle East. His documentary The Devil's Drivers about the life of a human trafficker was supported by the Doha Film Institute and celebrates its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2021. He is currently living in Los Angeles, where he holds a directing fellowship at the American Film Institute. He splits his time between developing the TV drama Treuhand and teaching film development classes at the Raindance Institute London, UK, and the International Academy of Film and Media in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Part of the Goethe-Institut’s focus on German Film
Back
