VALAND ACADEMY
CONFERENCE ON
PRACTICE BASED
RESEARCH IN FILM
NOVEMBER 23-24 2015
Valand Academy, Storgatan 43
Wits School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Jyoti Mistry, Tanja Sakota-Kokot, Damon Heatlie, Eran Tahor
Netherlands Film Academy, Amsterdam School of the Arts
Mieke Bernink, Sander Blom
Huston School of Film & Digital Media, Ireland
Rod Stoneman
Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Klara Björk, Linda Sternö, Kalle Boman, Ruben Östlund, Axel
Danielson, Anna Linder, Tommy Spaanheden, Andrea Östlund,
Dan Sandkvist, Hanna Sköld, Gustav Annerblom, Cecilia
Torquato, Lena Lind Brynstedt
PROGRAMME
Monday, November 23
Bio Valand
08:30 – Possibility to check technique.
09:00 – Coffee.
09:30 – Welcome to Valand! Short presentation of Valand Academy and the staff
by Klara Björk.
10:00 – Mieke Bernink. Presentation of Netherlands Film Academy.
10:40 – Short break.
10:50 – Rod Stoneman. Presentation of Huston School of Film & Digital Media,
Ireland.
Presentation: The Epistemology of Art.
11:30 – Presentation of Wits School of Arts, South Africa.
Jyoti Mistry, Tanja Sakota-Kokot, Damon Heatlie, Eran Tahor.
12:10-13:20 LUNCH
13:30 – Akademin Valand presentation of projects.
Klara Björk & Linda Sternö: VG-model.
14:10 – Kalle Boman & Ruben Östlund: The Square.
14:50 – Break / coffee
15.20 – Axel Danielson: The killing Image.
16.10 – Anna Linder: Queer Moving Images.
17:00 – ENDING
17:30 – Bio Valand: LEGENDS OF THE CASBAH by Damon Heatlie (72
min.) Screening for students and teachers at Akademin Valand Film followed by
Q & A.
19:00 – Dinner at restaurant
Tuesday, November 24
Bio Valand
09:30 – Coffee
10:00 – Sander Blom, Netherlands Film Academy.
Presentation of project: The Iranian Film / The People’s Polti.
10:40 – Jyoti Mistry, Wits School of Arts
Presentation of project: Film as cinematic critique. The presentation will
include a screening of the short film: Bullet in Scarf.
11.20 – Eran Tahor, Wits School of Arts.
Presentation of project: Approaches to teaching cinematography in digital
filmmaking – my experience of practicing and teaching cinematography.
12:00 – 13:15 LUNCH
13:30 – Tanja Sakota-Kokot, Wits School of Arts.
Presentation of project: The Politics of Remembering – Creating History,
Memory and Culture in the Classroom.
14:10 – Summary and reflections
15:00 – Frank Forum: Damon Heatlie: Legends of the Casbah, part 2.
16:30 – Mingle in the GLASS HOUSE together with our students.
Mieke Bernink
Lector and Head of Department at the Netherlands Film Academy
Mieke Bernink studied philosophy and psychology (MA) before bidding farewell
to the academic world to pursue a career in film journalism, film policy
consultancy and most recently: film education. As head of research, she's the
founder and head of the international MA-programme of the Netherlands Film
Academy, which focuses on 'artistic research in and through film'. She is also
responsible for conceptualizing, developing and implementing research initiatives
by teachers, artists in residence and bachelor students within the context of the
so-called Innovation Lab. Apart from her work at the Film Academy she's
member of different advisory committees within the film world and a regular jury
member at festivals.
ARTISTIC RESEARCH IN AND THROUGH FILM
Mieke Bernink
Since March 2009 the Netherlands Film Academy offers not just a four year
bachelor programme but also a two year international Master’s programme for a
limited group of filmmakers and artists from other fields, all with a few years of
professional experience under their belt. From the start the programme was
conceived around the notion of research, and more specifically ‘artistic research
in and through film’. In the presentation the focus will be on this notion of artistic
research, its ‘translation’ into a two year program and the projects that have
resulted from it.
In its particular take on artistic research, the Film Academy takes full advantage
of the fact that Dutch art schools are not part of academia and therefore not
obliged to fit in with the demands, and restraints, that universities put on
research. Similarly, when broadening out the practice of and focus on research to
both the bachelor programme and the Film Academy in general, the Academy
seeks to develop its own strategy, from within the everyday practice of the
school. Thus the recently initiated ‘innovation Lab’ functions as a playground or
experimental space for short term practical research projects by teachers, leading
to new ideas for the school’s curriculum, for investigations done by artists in
residence, working together with students or for more extensive technologically
driven research, executed together with partners from the film and media industry
and other research institutes. A few examples will be discussed.
Rod Stoneman
Professor and Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media at the
National University of Ireland, Galway.
Rod Stoneman was Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film
Board until September 2003 and previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in
the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television in the
United Kingdom. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland:
The Silent Voices, Italy: the Image Business, 12,000 Years of Blindness and The
Spindle, and has written extensively on film and television. He is the author of
Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: A Case Study of Politics and the
Media and Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual. Educating FilmMakers, written with Duncan Petrie, was published in 2014.
The Epistemology of Art
Rod Stoneman
An examination of the range and diversity of practice-based research in film. At
this time there is a dynamic movement between the critical / analytical and the
creative / productive; practice-based work is expanding in the various levels and
the different disciplines of institutional study. Artistic work in film and digital
media has an active capacity which can intersect with that form of enquiry we
call academic research. It involves mobilising a signifying practice for a defined
usage, arrangements which have the potential to engage with and transform a
field of understanding. It may sometimes disrupt or dislocate prematurely fixed
patterns of traditional writing. Art offers a form of knowledge which is, in Julia
Kristeva’s words: “[That which] disturbs identity, system, order. [That which]
does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the
composite.”
Klara Björk
Head of Film Unit and Subject Teacher at Valand Academy
Active as a producer and partner in the production company Filmkreatörerna,
established 1996 with producer Daniella Elmqvist Prah.
The filmography as producer consists of titles such as ”3xTonino – a film with,
about and in collaboration with Tonino Guerra” director Andreas Kassel (2015),
”The Quiet Game” director Görel Crona (2011), ”It usually ends well” director
Beate Grimsrud (2010), ”Untold” director Staffan Lamm (2006),”Made in
Yugoslavia” director Miko Lazic (2005).
Klara Björk has also experience in directing documentaries and shorts. She was a
member of the board at the director’s association 2003-2004 and in the first board
of Swedish WIFT (Women i Film and Television) when it started up in Sweden
2004. She is educated at EAVE (European Audio Visuell Entrepreneur) and at
Filmhögskolan at Göteborg University. Since 2012 Klara is working as a teacher
and head of the film department at Akademin Valand.
Klara’s interest lies within the field of cultivation and politics and how the
camera as a tool can be the used as a way of ”consciousness raising” in the
literacy facing our time – image literacy.
Linda Sternö
Senior Lecturer at Valand Academy
Linda Sternö is a senior lecturer at Valand Academy. Today she focuses mainly
on questions connected to education with the camera as a tool in compulsory
school. Linda started as a filmmaker and has dissected and produced several
films.
THE VG-MODEL
Klara Björk, Linda Sternö
The VG model explores the practical application of the educational project ”the
camera as a tool”, with a smaller, rural community as a model. Based on the idea
of the cinema as a room for social interaction and development, various
institutions such as schools, libraries, health care, businesses and organizations
act and interact around the visibility of our existence. These activities, and the
reflections around the activities, broadens the notion of film, the role of film
today, as well as the role of the cinema as a meeting point around important
social questions in a small rural community today. The project explores what
happens to a society's development if citizens take over the tools of visual
communication; the camera and the cinema, and thus actively exercise their
democratic rights in today's digital society.
Kalle Boman
Senior Advisor at Valand Academy
Kalle Boman, born 1943 Stockholm, Sweden. Film Producer and Senior
Professor. Worked in the film industry since 1964, among others with directors
such as Bo Widerberg, Roy Andersson AND Ruben Östlund. Has been linked to
teaching at the Valand Academy / Film (former Filmhögskolan) since 1999.
Ruben Östlund
Professor at Valand Academy
Graduated from Filmhögskolan at the University of Gothenburg in 2001. His
feature debut THE GUITAR MONGOLOID won the FIPRESCI Award at
Moscow in 2005. Since then he has made three feature films, INVOLUNTARY
(2008), PLAY (2011) and FORCE MAJEURE (2014) who all premiered in
Cannes and received several prizes worldwide. His short film INCIDENT BY A
BANK won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2010. He is now professor at
Valand Acadmy and working with his fifth feature THE SQUARE.
“I am driven by the desire to provoke current values in society that I don’t agree
with.”
THE SQUARE
Kalle Boman, Ruben Östlund
The Square, a white marked square placed in the public domain, is a place where
common rights and obligations prevails. To the Square, we can go if we need
help. When someone is in it, it is our responsibility to seek contact and try to
help. In the Square, we can relinquish our possessions, in it we do not steal.
Ruben Östlund: "During the work on the feature film Play, where children mug
other children, I came repeatedly into contact with the man's inability to help and
ask for help in public space. The robberies took place in malls, on trams and on
the square. Despite the fact that many adults saw what happened, it was very rare
that someone intervened. When my dad was six years old his parents placed an
address tag around his neck and let him run out of Östermalm in central
Stockholm to play. In the 1950s, we saw other adults as an asset, as someone who
could help our children if they got into trouble. Today, we are experiencing other
adults as a threat. The box include an attempt to influence the change of attitudes.
"
Kalle Boman: "The idea is to investigate and take the opportunity to create a free
zone square, where only good values prevail. The basic values of the square is
based on the document that the UN General Assembly adopted and proclaimed
December 10, 1948 as a general declaration of human rights. The Square is a
reminder and a celebration of our common origin, the genus Homo that is at least
2.8 million years old."
Axel Danielson
Subject teacher at Valand Academy
I started out as a firefighter in Kristianstad but changed my direction towards
moving images after a few years. I earned his degree as a Film Director in 2005,
at former Filmhögskolan (today Akademin Valand). I have since 2005 been
involved in the Gothenburg based production company Plattform Produktion,
both as director and producer. In 2011 my first feature documentary was released,
”Pangpangbröder”with 53 scenes filmed over a 10 year period in witch follow
two twin brothers growing up from 9 to 19 years old.
I started and developed the master programme of Cinematic Processes at Valand
Academy in 2012 and work there since then part time as a teacher.
I have great interest in how society and the camera technology are working
together. I believe we need a critical education and cultivation on these issues,
facing the coming future.
THE KILLING IMAGE
- image based decisions regarding Drone Strikes.
Axel Danielson
A newly started research project focusing on the decision making processes
around military dronestrikes in Waziristan and Afghanistan region.
The project’s framing will be how the procedure and the interpretation of the
image looks like, the moment before the strikes.
Another part of the project focus on what image culture that dominates the
military decision makers.
Anna Linder
Associate Researcher, Valand Academy
Anna Linder was born and raised in Storuman, southern Lapland. She is an active
feminist, artist, curator and works primarily in the field of moving images. In
2012 she completed a Master of Fine Arts, in Film, University of Gothen- burg.
Between 2004 and 2012 she worked as a curator and producer at Filmform, The
Art Film and Video Archive in Stockholm. Currently, Anna Linder is researching
the subject of Queer Moving Images at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gothenburg
together with Ingrid Ryberg.
QUEER MOVING IMAGES
Anna Linder
The aim of this study is to investigate queer and feminist moving images, a film
culture that is often rendered invisible in, and written out of, contexts such as film
history, archives and exhibitions. The project aims to contribute to increasing the
availability of the films by means of curatorial and artistic practice
including screenings and the production of two films.
Damon Heatlie
Senior Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in
the Wits School of Arts
Damon Heatlie has taught at UCT, UWC, the University of Transkei, and guest
lectured at Arcada University in Helsinki. He has an MA in Literary Studies
(cum laude) from UCT, an MBA from Wits Business School, and is currently
working on a PhD through the Wits School of Arts.
Prior to lecturing at Wits, Damon worked in the local film industry as a producer,
director, editor and screenwriter. Having produced over 60 music videos (from
Brenda Fassie to Mandoza), he also directed videos for such musical
heavyweights as Hugh Masekela and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens). He has been
nominated for South African Music Awards for these. Damon has produced
several long-form documentaries for broadcast - these include Waiting for
Justice (etv, 52 min, 1999), which won the Sithengi 1999 Best New Documentary
Award, Phuzekhemisi (SABC, 52min, 2004) and Legends of the Casbah (72 min,
2012), which premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in 2012. He has
worked and continues to be involved as a scriptwriter/script editor in feature film
development and television dramas. He has also directed short films,
including Ziyawa (26 min, 2003) and Jackpot (20 min, 2009).
Damon currently lectures in the fields of scriptwriting and directing, but also
teaches in music video and film studies courses. His research interests include the
profitability and sustainability of the South African feature film industry,
scriptwriting and narrative theory, cinematic representations of history, auteur
filmmaking, postmodernism and postcolonial theory. He is currently working on
a creative PhD, involving fieldwork around postwar South African Indian
identities, and writing an Indian ‘gangster’ film set in Durban in the 1950s.
LEGENDS OF THE CASBAH
Damon Heatlie
Screening at 17:30 in Bio Valand on Monday November 23 (72 min)
Legends of the Casbah is a feature length documentary exploring the
experiences of some extraordinary South Africans of ‘Indian’ origin, who lived in
Durban during the 1950s. The film, directed by Riason Naidoo (arts curator) and
Damon Heatlie (filmmaker/lecturer) was screened at the Durban International
Film Festival in 2012, at various universities, and exhibited at the Bioscope
(Johannesburg) and Labia (Cape Town) cinemas. It tells the intertwined stories of
a number of unusual characters, ‘rebels’ who escape the constraints imposed by
apartheid and ethnicity to forge their own cosmopolitan identities. In uncovering
an ensemble cast of gangsters, sports stars, musicians, stunt riders and activists,
among others, the film weaves an alternative history of Durban’s ‘Indian’
community in the upbeat era of the Defiance Campaign.
Engagements/Presentations:
1. Given the time I would like to show the whole film and address the
challenges of making a ‘heritage’ film in a Q and A session with staff and
students. Colleagues Eran and Jyoti were also involved in the film’s
production, and might able to contribute to this discussion.
2. I would also like to present a more focused session with staff and students
that uses clips from the film to illustrate my subsequent and current
research interest in postwar Indian South African ‘gangster’ identities. This
session would look at the questions arising from the intersections and
conflicts arising in a ‘critical-creative’ research endeavor such as my own,
where I am writing quite a traditional social history alongside a fictional
screenplay.
Sander Blom
Subject teacher, Netherlands Film Academy
Sander Blom graduated at the Netherlands Film Academy (documentary) in
1993. Initially collaborating with visual artist Mels van Zutphen, a number of
experimental documentary and fictional shorts was produced. A shared
fascination for science continues to be an important ingredient in their - often
humorous - individual works since this partnership became dormant. These films
are shown at film festivals as well as museums and art galleries internationally.
In the past decade Sander, apart from being a director, became involved in
various educational projects. Among his employers were the School der Poëzie
(School of Poetry), the NTR (Dutch Public Service Broadcaster for Information,
Education and Culture) and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Currently
he also teaches film at the VEC (secondary vocational training), Arnhem. In
March 2012, Sander completed his first feature ATARAX!A.
THE IRANIAN FILM / THE PEOPLE’S POLTI
Sander Blom
In my presentation I will speak about the project by Moroccan alumnus of the
Master of Film Yassine El Idrissi ,’The Iranian Film’. During his studies he
researched how it is a given that cinema from Iran, an islamic totalitarian state, is
succesful worldwide, while cinema from the islamic totalitarian state of Morocco
is almost non-existent nationally and internationally. His inquiry took the form of
a film in which he tries to produce an ‘Iranian’ film in Morocco.
In part two of my talk I will present the project I myself did in the newly
established ‘Lab’ at the NFA, ‘The People’s Polti’. Is it possible to reverseengineer a database consisting of the bare minimum of elements that make up a
non-genre specific film? In visualizing the verbal re-telling of a cinematic story,
the contours of such a database emerge.
Jyoti Mistry
Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
in the Wits School of Arts
Her artistic practice moves seamlessly between filmmaking and installation art
practices. Mistry's installation work draws from cinematic traditions but is often
re-contextualized for galleries and museums that are outside of the linear
cinematic experience.
Her feature film IMPUNITY (2014) had its international premiere at the Toronto
International Film Festival and showed at Stockholm Film Festival, and Durban
International Film Festival. Her solo exhibition (2013) “Narrative, Memory, Site”
included works: XENOS, Building the Invisible City; Commuting; Le Boeuf Sur
Le Toit at the Barengasse Museum in Zurich. Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit featured at
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris, France (2014).09:21:25 was
part of the Group show, International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, Incheon,
South Korea (November 2011) and included in Weltraum (Space: about a Dream)
Exhibition, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (April- August 2011).
Her co-edited books include: “we remember differently: Race, memory,
imagination” (2012) published by UNISA Press. “Gaze Regimes: Films and
Feminisms in Africa” (2015) published by Wits University Press.
FILM AS CINEMATIC CRITIQUE
Including a screening of the short film Bullet in Scarf
Jyoti Mistry
This presentation will address the form and aesthetics of documentary
filmmaking with special focus on the use of staging, re-enactment and the
reinterpretation of archival materials. John Grierson, who is considered the
“father of documentary”, defined it as the “creative treatment of truth.”
Historically debates have focused on the notion of “truth” from an ideological
position to determine the parameters of what constitutes the “truth claims”
presented in this genre.
In my presentation I will use student work examples to address the relation and
shift from documentary strategies to its appropriation to fiction filmmaking.
Central to this approach is to address the “role of the filmmaker’s subjectivity and
their interpretation in the presentation of “facts and its role in fictional
narratives.”
Students in the course were encouraged to consider shifting circumstances and
contexts which reveal varied perspectives on situations and are to provide a
detailed way in which they can reflect on characters.
The course invited students to look at the postcolonial experience of female
characters from a series of different perspectives. In this context the location of
the characters offers a revealing and in-depth study of how issues of history and
race have been experienced from each side of the “colonizer-colonized
relationship.”
Further to this students were encouraged to consider archival material or traces of
historical artifacts serve as the inspiration for creating films. Either this material
is woven into the tapestry of the film in a representative form or comes to be
interpreted with a definite point of view of a character or from the director’s point
of view.
Eran Tahor
Cinematography lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, in the Wits School of Arts
For over fifteen years, since graduating from Wits University, Eran has been
filming features, documentaries, commercials, corporate, music videos and drama
series. Eran's portfolio includes acclaimed South African TV drama series The
Lab, A Place Called Home and the comedy series Sorted. On these and other
projects Eran has collaborated with international directors Philip Noyce
(Catch a Fire documentary, 2007), Mika Kaurismäki (Mama Afrika showed at
Tribeca Film Festival in 2011) as well as some of our prominent writers and
directors such as Barry Berk, Aryan Kaganof, Rollie Nikiwe, Akin Omotoso,
Vincent Moloi, Riad Desai and many others. Eran received the South African
Film and TV Award for his cinematography on the TV series Sorted and was
nominated for his cinematography on the popular South African series A Place
Called Home. More recently Eran was the cinematographer for the feature film
Impunity (Jyoti Mistry, 2014) which was selected for the Toronto International
Film Festival and Lamentation (Christo Doherty, 2015) which was selected for
IDFA 2015.
In 2013 Eran joined the division of Film & TV Studies at Wits School of Arts as
an associate lecturer on cinematography.
APPROACHES TO TEACHING CINEMATOGRAPHY
IN DIGITAL FILMMAKING – MY EXPERIENCE OF
PRACTICING AND TEACHING CINEMATOGRAPHY
Eran Tahor
I would like to start my presentation with the screening of a 17minute film
Lamentation (2015). The film was co-directed by Christo Doherty and Aryan
Kaganof, and I was the cinematographer. I will open the discussion by describing
some of the processes and thinking in the development of the film. As time
permits, this will lead to a discussion on the role of the cinematographer in digital
filmmaking and the subject of cinematography in contemporary film education. I
will draw on and offer examples from my
professional experience as cinematographer, outside the academic framework,
and discuss how the two domains – the professional and the academic, impact
each other.
Referring to examples from the workshops I do with the students at Wits, I will
discuss some of the challenges, and opportunities, in working with students that
already began filming at a very early age.
I will contextualise the presentation in the South African filmmaking economy
and discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facing our graduate
students.
Tanja Sakota-Kokot
Head of Division and Senior Lecturer at the University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in the Wits School of Arts
Tanja Sakota-Kokot has lectured at Wits University since 1999. During this time
she has also guest lectured at ARCADA Film School in Finland and the
University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Tanja has all her Degrees from Wits:
BA in Dramatic Art, MA by Dissertation and PhD.
After graduating with a BA and winning the Edgar Bold prize for the top
Television student, Tanja Sakota-Kokot started working as a Scriptwriter and
later as a Troubleshooter for Caplan Wilkie, a production house focusing on
promos and on-air imagery for both Mnet and the SABC.
Thereafter, Tanja moved towards directing inserts for The Television Production
Company. This launched her interest in the ideological impact of documenting
actual events. In 1995 Tanja flew to Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia to begin research
for her MA Dissertation, which focused on the merging of factual and fictional
boundaries in war reporting, particularly with reference to Documentary Film.
In 1999 Tanja started working for Wits and has since taught in both Documentary
and Fiction within both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The
critical questions which arose through interaction within her courses encouraged
her to make 180 degree turn for her PhD where she examined how we understand
conflict through fiction film focusing on how the global environment views
Africa and the Middle East.
Tanja is now continuing her research through publishing in Academic Journals.
Her article “When the Past Talks to the Present: Fiction Narrative and the ‘Other’
in Hotel Rwanda”, published in Critical Arts, Vol 27 (2): 211-234 examines
some of the ideas explored in her PhD.
Motto: You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
THE POLITICS OF REMEMBERING – CREATING
HISTORY, MEMORY AND CULTURE IN THE
CLASSROOM
Tanja Sakota-Kokot
Memory forms the fabric of human life, affecting everything from the ability
to perform simple, everyday tasks to the recognition of the self. Memory
establishes life’s continuity; it gives meaning to the present, as each moment
is constituted by the past. As the means by which we remember who we are,
memory provides the very core of identity1
Marita Sturken
In the last 5 years, South Africa embraced two remarkable discoveries:
Astralopithecus Sediba (unveiled in 2010) and Homo Naledi (unveiled in 2015).
These two findings provide us with a window into our ancestral past as well as
inform us about a time we cannot remember. The bones and fossils each tell us
something about the past and provide a passage to an unknown time. History on
the other hand, provides another way of accessing the past. In order to create
history, one has to rely on the memory of events and more importantly how they
have been incorporated into society, whether this is through testimonials, articles,
memorials, interviews or film.
South Africa’s turbulent past has resulted in its history being re-written a number
of times. The events of the last 450 years in particular has had a huge impact on
the social, political and historical context, resulting in the current social tropes
and inequalities that frequently emerge as topics for discussion within the
classroom. In April 2015, students from the University of Cape Town embarked
on the “Rhodes must fall campaign”. The spirit of the campaign spread quickly
across the country as students and citizens embarked on a heated debate around
the significance and memory that such Memorials initiated.
Within the classroom, the discussion that emerged with students, focused on the
politics of remembering. The theoretical framework rested on Marita Sturken’s
premise that history, culture and memory are immersed in cultural artefacts but
play a significant role in how we understand the past and its relationship with the
present and the future.
In my presentation, I shall discuss the key theoretical areas that emerged through
interactions with students with reference to the “Rhodes must fall campaign.
I shall present 2 short exercises made by students as a result of the debate.
1
Sturken, M. 1997. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Tommy Spaanheden
Subject teacher at Valand Academy
Tommy Spaanheden is a teacher and Program Supervisor of the bachelor
programme in independent filmmaking at Valand Academy. He has his
background as a song writer and music producer. In the mid 90,s he expanded his
field into film work with a speciality in sound design. During this time he was
also a part of initiating filmhögskolan which now is the film unit of Akademin
Valand. He is a certified trainer in editing tools and has a lot of post production
experience in film making. He has done animations and visuals for stage
screening as well as color grading for film. Tommy has during the last years done
research in rhythm and how to identify and use rhythmic components to
communicate within art, especially in film.
”Rhythm is patterns of movement. These patterns tell you things about people
and the world . It´s not science, you do this de-coding everyday, even when
you´re not aware of it. I strongly believe that the understanding of rhythm opens
up a new perspective on communication within a work of art.”
Andrea Östlund
Subject Teacher at Valand Academy
I have a backgrund from theatre where I had my own theatregroup for a couple of
years and worked both as a director and as a producer. Graduated as a
filmdirector at 2001 and have worked with directing drama for Swedish
television and as a commissioning editor on feature and shortfilms, working very
focused with gender.
Dan Sandkvist
Senior Lecturer at Valand Academy
Educated at School of Film Directing in 1995-98 in cinematography. Been
working in film since then as a cinematographer, gaffer and independent
filmmaker. Teacher in cinematography at Valand Academy since 2006. Examples
of topics and issues that interest and engage Dan are: Forms of production and
production processes, To communicate the vision and The images impact of the
narrative.
Hanna Sköld
Teaching Assistant at Valand Academy
I am a filmmaker and Teaching Assistant at Valand Academy / Film, working
mainly at the bachelor programme, parallel with studies in critical pedagogy. I
recently finished my second feature film “Granny’s Dancing on the Table” which
premiered at Toronto international film festival.
I am interested in new ways to create, finance and distribute films through
interaction with the audience, using transmedia, crowdfunding and crowdsoucing.
I started my work with audience participation during the online distribution of my
first feature film, “Nasty Old People” at The Pirate Bay.
Gustav Annerblom
Subject Teacher at Valand Academy
Gustav Annerblom is a filmmaker and teacher at Valand Academy film’s
bachelor program in independent filmmaking. As a teacher he has developed the
pedagogical model ”Reflective logbook”, a monthly recurring seminar with the
aim to encourage the students to take active part in a dialogue concerning each
others practices.
”I believe it’s of vital importance to engage the students in a dialogue concerning
each others work. The more they invite each other to take part in their processes,
the more insight they can gain from each other. It’s about creating a strong
collective in which the students are deeply involved in one another’s
development as filmmakers.”
Gustav is now finishing his first feature length documentary Previously he has
studied bachelor and master in independent filmmaking. He made the schools
first horror film as his graduation film. In his master’s thesis he studied slasher
films.
Cecilia Torquato
Subject Teacher at Valand Academy
Film director, photographer and producer. Started Kvarteret Filmproduktion in
november 2011. Born in Sweden, grew up in Brazil.
Education: bachelor and master of arts in Independent filmmaking at
Filmhögskolan, University of Gothenburg, studied animation at Konstfack.
With short films like Frog, The Miracle of Mrs. Rita (director) and Simpler Life
(producer) have been part of film festival scene all over the world. With Inbox
also made entrance to the art scene (Liljevalchs konstmuseum and Oslo Open).
She is also a Subject Teacher in Processes of Filmmaking (master degree) at
Valand Academy/FILM.
Lena Lind Brynstedt
Subject Teacher at Valand Academy
Lena Lind Brynstedt works with the one-year MA programme curator for film
and video and the BA programme in independent filmmaking. She coaches the
students in budget, planning, financing and communication. Former
journalist/researcher/editor in several of Swedish Television’s film programmes
and project coordinator at the Gothenburg Film Festival. ”I am interested in many
issues about film and the influence it has on human behaviour, and in the
changing of screening windows and the possiblities to reach out to a broader
audience with a seemingly small, quality film with an intellectual message.”
VALAND ACADEMY