Lockdown and distant learning measures put our film workshops in jeopardy. The traditional way of conduction, meaning physical presence of the children-participants, was out of question. For the most demanding workshops, Zizanio Daily News and multinational Mythos Project, there was a special concern.

10th Mythos Project Online Edition (The multinational cinema workshop)

Mythos Project is way more than a cinema workshop. It takes place during Olympia Festival dates with the participation of tenths of young cinematographers, mostly from Europe, who are taking part with their films on Camera Zizanio. Multinational teams are being formed and the goal is to shoot and produce a short film on a given subject, within a week. Team leaders are tutors (educators or cinematographers) from abroad.

This year’s anniversary 10th Mythos project faced great difficulties, given the restriction of travels. Youngsters from different countries who never met before, had to collaborate. The challenge was to create films that their shots would come from all over the globe with editing stiches either seamless, or totally justified in order to have a whole movie and not a shot compilation.

Though the project was difficult, 45 youngsters from 11 countries participated at the end. 8 teams were formed and produced 8 films. We must highlight that the teams worked with great discipline, like everyone was in Pyrgos and their film was their only concern, meeting the strict deadline of 6 days.The result surpassed every expectation. Children created excellent films, obviously related to pandemia, but full of positive energy. It is no coincidence that two films had almost the same title “Hope”. Υou can watch 10th Mythos Project- Online Edition films on Camera Zizanio’s Youtube channel: https://youtube.com/playlist…

Zizanio Daily News- Selfie Edition

Zizanio Daily News is a workshop, a poetic or even heretic point of view on events and acts of Olympia Film festival and Camera Zizanio and the host city of Pyrgos. A group of children, during the festival, produces daily a 5’ video which is screened right before our official screening seances. Film shooting and highly demanding editing were utterly impossible under current circumstances, which led us to a new approach. Selfie videos, the beloved practice of youngsters, was adopted since it required a person and a camera-phone. Hence, Daily News 2020 was named “Selfie Edition”. To eliminate editing needs, single shot film technique was adopted.

The greatest emphasis was placed on screenplays , a procedure much more demanding to compose. 12 children entered this adventure with excitement, working cheerfully but with discipline. Although it was challenging to coordinate all these actions remotely, the result was more than positive. Zizanio Daily News – Selfie edition was every day on time and subtitled in english. The only difference was that it was not screened every night at the Apollo Theater but on Olympia’s FB page. The 7 “episodes” are available on Camera Zizanio’s youtube channel https://youtu.be/T0atZeRDFoM