This piece is featured in the current autumn issue of DOX Magazine (you can subscribe here):
In May of this year, artistic director, Artur Liebhart, launched the seventh iteration of the Planete Doc Review Film Festival, an event that is fast becoming an essential destination for documentary makers and producers. As a juror for the Millenium Award competition, I got to stay in Warsaw for well over a week which enabled me to pay visits to several of the city's film and arts institutions. I was cordially invited to visit the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, by the dynamic Joanna Skalska, the school's distribution and festivals manager. The Wajda School is a key institute to highlight for many reasons. At this year's 50th Krakow Film Festival, the school was awarded the Best Polish Producer for Shorts and Documentaries for the second time. (A bit later in this post, I will also feature a French filmmaker named Thierry Paladino. Paladino attended the Wajda School after meeting famed Polish film director and screenwriter, Marcel Lozinski, who has been instrumental in creating the documentary program. Our jury awarded Paladino's accomplished and beautiful début feature, La machina, with an honorable mention.)
Sitting on a quiet, tidy campus in the middle of Warsaw, the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing is a postgraduate institute for film professionals working in both narrative and nonfiction. The foundation of the curriculum is project development. According to Adam Slesicki, head of PR and coordinator of the documentary program, the school's basic credo is "from idea to film." Participants prepare and produce films with intense feedback from colleagues and steady mentorship by master tutors every step of the way. In a very direct and intimate structure, exchanges happen in an intensive workshop environment where all students evaluate each other's work. From these dynamic conversations (said to be brutally honest) and work-in-progress screenings, films are born. This set-up is obviously not for those without the conviction and authenticity of vision they already can bring to a program like this. Students are partnered with a tutorial staff, some of the most renowned and professionally active Polish and European filmmakers of today, enabling the school to maintain a close working relationship with the film industry. Trained filmmakers come for the one-year courses to hone their craft, but more importantly, to make their first professional films. Students come from disciplines as diverse as journalism, screenwriting, or the visual arts, as well as from film schools. As with any professional school with merit, the Wajda School looks for candidates who have a certain amount of life experience. (Pictured above, master filmmaker Andrzej Wajda at work.)
Depending on the project, the school helps with production and distribution. According to Slesicki, for documentary projects, the trajectory could be as follows: "A project is developed during the course. If it is a bigger, more expensive project, we do the research and some preliminary shooting which enables the filmmaker to make a trailer with which to apply for funding. We apply to the Polish Film Institute (PISF), or other regional film funds for support, find co-producers, and/or make presales to broadcasters. In the case of first time directors, we can count on up to 90% of funding from PISF, the rest coming as in-kind contributions from the school. After completion, we collaborate on a festival strategy and prepare promotional materials. When a festival takes a film, we make sure the director makes it there. If it is an important market, a school representative will also go to make sure all possible opportunities for international distribution are realized." In other words, they offer substantial support, beyond theory, beyond the classroom.
In terms of the philosophical approach the school embraces, it is one that looks for "truth and authenticity." What specific tools these young directors use is up to them, as long as the film works emotionally, with an accompanying personal vision. Lozinski: "In our opinion, the point of documentary is not to describe reality, but to interpret it. Documentary is born out of the confrontation of reality with the individual self of the author: with his [her] thoughts, intensity of perception, his [her] sensitivity and intuition. The director's inner life is to the same degree the element of reality as the one he [she] encounters while making the film." (Lozinski, pictured.)
Looking ahead, the school will continue to emphasize its film production activities, remaining a working studio that supports young talent from Poland, and elsewhere. Since its foundation in 2001, the school has produced over 40 professional short documentaries and fiction films, and more than 200 student films. Soon, the Wajda School will implement a new course for creative producers, filling an important niche in the marketplace. "We believe that a creative producer should be a partner for a film director, not only in taking care of the financing of the movie and assisting with production design, but also in helping the director make crucial [creative] decisions," says Slesicki.
Thierry Paladino's journey to the Wajda School was a unique one. He told me that at the Aix-en-Provence Fine Arts School where he was studying in his native France, "I didn't fit with the atmosphere, with this 'artistic way' of thinking which makes the things you say about your work more important than the work itself." Several years ago, when Marcel Lozinski and his wife went on holiday to France, Paladino had a chance to meet the filmmaker through his Polish girlfriend's family. They bonded over the songs of Georges Brassen, spending one whole night singing together, accompanied by Paladino's accordian. (Paladino, pictured.)
Two years later in 2001, Lozinski got in touch with Paladino and told him that they had just created a new film school in Warsaw with Andrzej Wajda and Wojciech Marczewski. The French minister of culture had been there for the opening ceremonies with director, Roman Polanski, and had promised a full scholarship to two French students. "Of course he thought that nobody would come and learn such a difficult language in such a cold country," but when Lozinski asked Paladino if he would be interested, he said yes, and enrolled in 2004. "I can say that I didn't really choose to study filmmaking, but to live a new experience in a new environment. And it was a really good choice, because the way of teaching in this school was, for me, the best I ever had. You make, you fail; you remake, you succeed. You learn to confront your work, to be humble and accept criticism and develop a real understanding of the collaborative nature of filmmaking."
Paladino had a very close relationship with fellow filmmaker, Marcin Sauter. "One day, we were talking about our childhoods, and I told him about my happy one, part of it spent with a puppet master when I was seven years old when I learned the art of making puppets; the master and I performed 'spectacles' in summer from town to town. Marcin convinced me that this was a good idea for a documentary film and this is where this idea was born." (To be clear, La machina was not supported, technically or financially, by the school. They did co-produce Paladino's award-winning film, At the Dacha, while he was a student there. I just showed this fantastically hilarious "silent" film here in Berlin to a delighted audience. Still from film, pictured.)
Paladino ended up making the film with Sauter and Michal Marczak as his camera operators, and Jacek Naglowski and Agnieszka Janowska as his producers. All met as students at the school. "Marcel [Lozinski] became my artistic supervisor. He had total trust in me and only weighed in with certain suggestions about how to portray the relationship between the puppet master and the young boy in the film. When the first rough cut of the film was edited, I came to Wajda to show it, to take the necessary distance and work further."
Paladino created a short synopsis for La machina in 2008 so that he could take part in the Ex Oriente program with Tue Steen Müller and Paladino's creative group developed the film over the course of the next year. After bringing on a French producer in May of 2009, the crew went to Nice, where with the help of the puppet master, Sergio, they discovered 10-year-old Adrien. The boy's extraordinary "performance" makes the film an absolutely transcendent experience. La machina could easily be mistaken for a narrative film, so cinematically is it told and executed. Paladino notes that many producers expressed a lot of concern, fearing the film would not be credible, that there might not be enough "documentary truth." But, he says, "I didn't want to show all the negative aspects of modern society; I wanted to show how life, especially one of a little boy, could be better. I was, therefore, very personally involved with my subjects in trying to realize that." The film is currently applying for exhibition at various international festivals. (Pictured, Sergio, Adrien and The Beast in a scene from La machina.)
Paladino continues to express admiration for the Polish documentary filmmaking tradition. "At Wajda, the documentary feature is a film, the same way a fiction feature is a film. Documentary uses the same vocabulary--strong dramaturgy, good pictures, good sound, developed scenes. However, the film must be the point of view of the author. He or she must have something to say, to share."
For more information on the Wajda School's programs, visit www.wajdaschool.pl.
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