A week of film education and audiovisual creation that brings children closer to the magical world of the moving image. Directors from Greece and abroad, distinguished cinematographers, editors and screenwriters, animators and actors, bring their knowledge and experience, and put together the most exciting film school. Under their guidance, students harness their imagination, creating impressive short films.
A special screening of all the films made in the workshops will be organized on Saturday, December 5th, immediately before the Festival’s Awards Ceremony. An international jury of film professionals will pick the best two, that will be screened at the Closing Ceremony.
Film creation workshops
Two workshops lasting five days each, during which students will write scripts and then create short fiction films aided by cinema professionals.
- Nikos Alevras, director: FICTION. Students learn who to write a script and direct a short film.
- Kiriakos Charitakis, director: FICTION, focusing on digital film editing.
Documentary Workshops
- Nikos Theodosiou, director: DAILY NEWS. High school and university students participate in producing Daily News, a daily documentary bulleting about the Festival presenting their unique, subversive perspective.
- Paolo Beneventi, director: Documentary (in English) for primary school children, on the subject of “Chasing” insects and spiders for the “Children’s Virtual Museum of Small Animals”.
- Evangelos Vlachakis, DoP, member of the animator ensemble for audiovisual activities of the film collective KINOglaz: DOCUMENTARY. Little filmmakers on a mission of the utmost importance: to record an event during the Olympia Film Festival. The workshop aims to bring children closer to the cinema, both as viewers and as creators, and familiarise them with the documentary film genre, highligiting its flexilibity.
Animation Workshops
- Kostas Katrakis, animator: ZIZANIMATION. Students write stories, create figurines and bring them to life using stop-motion techniques. They create one ore two animated shorts. This is Zizanimation’s 11th year!
- Agathi Darlasi, director and script writer specialising in Storytelling: STORYLAB (animation). The workshop teaches Storylab basic film principles in a practical way through the stop motion technique. Participants will be initiated in all stages of the filmmaking process: From writing the script to choosing the characters, preparing and shooting their footage and choosing their films’ soundtrack. The footage will be edited and the final result will be several short animated films up to 4 minutes long.
- Dimitra Myftari with the animation box of Media Education Centre (Belgrade): INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION. Primary school students learn how their favourite animations are made, creating experimental films a few seconds long.
Ο κόσμος αλλάζει. Εμείς; / World is changing. What about us?
- A Greek-German documentary production workshop designed and organised by Young Dogs (Germany) and Neaniko Plano (Greece). In this two-part workshop, take part two six-member groups of young creators from both countries. The Greek team consists of children from Pyrgos, who were trained in Camera Zizanio workshops during the previous years. Last October they travelled to Dortmund where the first part of the workshop was held, which was completed with the creation of three documentaries. The second part will be held in Pyrgos, with the participation of children from Dortmund and the creation of new documentaries. Instructors: Vera Schöpfer, Kiriakos Charitakis.
I Read Images, I Write with Light
- Argiris Theos, DoP – Visual Literacy Workshop. Children read images, read the “words” they consist of, and explore the way they are combined to create “image-sentences”. They also organise their own images, make them talk and say exactly what they want them to say.
CineLike Lab
- Ilias Florakis. Children get to know the cinema in front, but mostly behind the camera. They create characters out of things, drawings or their classmates and direct them, creating short films. They learn basic direction, filming and editing techniques, as well as ways to write and realise they stories they have in their minds. In Cine-Like Lab, children will get to know cinema and animation (stop motion), through games and experiments, without a lot of theory.
Film Analysis Workshops
Froso Sarli, Katerina Geitona, Sophia Giakmoglidou. Six Film Analysis Workshops for each of the six Children’s Juries: 18th Olympia Film Festival: a) Feature Fiction section; b) Short Fiction section; c) Short Animation section; d) Kids & Docs Section. 15th Camera Zizanio: a) Greek Section; b) European Section.
Zizanio News
Iro Riga. A workshop for students, who follow all events and activities of 18th Olympia Film Festival and of 15th Camera Zizanio and write articles, interviews, reviews, comments etc. about them for the Zizanio News blog (zizanionews.wordpress.com) as well as hosting a radio show at ERA Pyrgos.
Mythos Project
2015 marks the fifth year of dynamic film creation by Mythos Project. The tens of children from all across Europe participating in the 18th Olympia Film Festival and the 15th Camera Zizanio will form multinational groups, discuss, exchange views, and armed with cameras, laptops and their imagination, will create short films about the recession and its implications in only five days.
The programme is implemented with the co-operation of the Dutch student Festival NFFS (Nationaal Film Festival voor Scholieren) and is co-ordinated by Maria Bedeniti and NFFS educators.
http://themythosproject.wordpress.com
Seminars and Master Classes
Specialised technical filmmaking topics explained by film and new media professionals and specialists, mainly for teachers who implement audiovisual creation programmes with their students.
Film Lighting Tips
- A masterclass by multi-awarded DoP Nikos Kavoukidis who reaveals the secrets of film lighting.
Visual Literacy
- Award-winning DoP Argiris Theos analyses the educational process of teaching image language.
Editing
- A seminar for teachers by director and editor Yorgos Kourmouzas on “Technique of digital editing. The secrets of Premiere.”
Film Creation in the Classroom
- Young director Kiriakos Charitakis analyses step by step the process of creating a film, from its inception to editing and the final stages of post production.
Best Practicies in Using Video as a Teaching Tool
- Seminar for teachers by Sophia Papadimitriou, Head of Digital and Social Media at Educational Television and Helennic Open University PhD.
Video Technologies and the New Era of Human Development, Knowledge, and Interaction
- Video conference with Paolo Beneventi (in English)
Flash Forward
In this section Olympia Film Festival showcases the work of young people who once started out from the Festival and went on to make a great leap forward distinguishing themselves in various fields.
Yorgos Delidimitriou
- In this year’s Festival, we meet Yorgos Delidimitriou, key member of Jump Cat group. In his school years he participated in the Festival’s film workshops and was also chief editor of Zizanio Newspaper. Jump Cat’s most recent work will be presented, a documentary series about university life titled «During the Academic Quarter», a co-production of the University of the Aegean and the Hellenic Parliament Television
Camera Zizanio 