Berlin

Christoph Fleischmann wins the Score Competition On Thursday evening, February 16, the tenth edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus came to a successful close with the Score Competition award ceremony at the Hebbel am Ufer theatre. Over the course of six days full of events, 350 young filmmakers from 99 countries connected with each other and with 150 internationally renowned experts under this year’s motto “Changing Perspectives”. International icons of cinema such as Victor Kossakovsky, Volker Schlöndorff, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Juliette Binoche, Christine Vachon, Nuri Bilge Ceylan as well as this year’s president of the International Jury Mike Leigh continually encouraged the participants to adjust their points of view. In panels such as “Audience Wanted: Producers Reaching Out” or “Killer/Hope Crossing the Lines”, the talents were also advised to not lose sight of the international market and the audience they are trying to attract with their films. “The Campus is all about connecting”, Campus managers Matthijs Wouter Knol and Christine Tröstrum said. “Not only connecting filmmakers of different generations and backgrounds with one another, but also connecting filmmakers and their audience. Films are made to be seen, and we try to support emerging filmmakers who care about their audience.  The Campus also focused on situational storytelling, which increasingly expands beyond cinema. Addressing this were events, panels and workshops concerning innovative documentary forms, cross-media projects, video art and the interactive theatre performances of Rimini Protokoll. Besides directors, producers, screenwriters, DOPs, actors, editors, composers and film critics, this year saw the first batch of ten young distributors invited to the Campus, discussing alternative ways of distribution and marketing as well as new forms of engaging with audiences. The participants of the Talent Project Market had the opportunity to present their film projects in a professional setting, to potential co-producers and distributors in order to thrive in the international marketplace. Sarah Wanjiku Muhoho won the VFF Highlight Pitch Award endowed with 10.000 Euros for The Boda Boda Thieves; the International Relations Arte Prize, endowed with 6.000 Euros, was awarded to Bianca Balbuena for Above the Clouds. The tenth Berlinale Talent Campus came to its festive close with the Score Competition award ceremony, in which the three finalists, together with their mentor Ryūichi Sakamoto wrote and recorded a new score for the short film Luminaris by Juan Pablo Zaramella. Jury members Martin Steyer, Ziska Riemann and Martin Todsharow awarded the prize to German composer Christoph Fleischmann, who wins a one-week trip to Los Angeles and a guided tour of Hollywood's sound studios. For more information about the Berlinale Talent Campus #10 please visit www.berlinale-talentcampus.de