7-13 September, NOVOSIBIRSK

The photos on this page were taken by Péter Szabó, a teacher of PASSPORT CONTROL Workshop.

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Jenő Hartyándi:

I’m trying to do a summary about my impressions on the Festival, the city and the workshop, not following the events day after day, but discussing different topics.

1. „MEETINGS IN SIBERIA” – INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

The Festival, which is Russia’s biggest documentary festival directed by Ella Davletsina, had its 10th anniversary this year. Besides of its international program, it’s the gathering place of such a lot of Russian documentaries, which is unique among the film festivals.
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Before the screenings, the directors - who were present- were introduced to the audience, and after the screenings they could meet each other and had a discussion moderated by Ella. The audience of the festival varied from university students to older generations on a wide scale.
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In the mornings journeys were organized to nearby places. In the evenings parties were held in clubs. In one of these evenings we held a Hungarian night, which started with screening a selection of the films shot in the PASSPORT CONTROL Workshop and in the Summer Art Camp, then it continued with a dinner cooked by Péter Pusker and Kisjakab, finally ended up in dancing – the dj was Pusker, whose name proved to be unpronunciable, that’s why he was called dj Puskin instead of his real name.


2. NOVOSIBIRSK

Novosibirsk, which is the 3rd biggest city in Russia, is developing and changing significantly. Although you can still see those typical socialist buildings, just in their very neighbouring areas there are more and more high-tech constructions.
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Here comes some historical facts (we learnt them from Szása, an architect, on our way to Akademy Goroda). The city was established in 1894 as Nova-Nyikolajevszk at the crossing of Trans-Siberia Express and the vast River Ob. The first settlers of this rapidly developing town, which soon became very important for its trade, were the builders of the bridge and the railway. You can still find the exact list of the first 350 citizens. By 1917 it had a population of 100,000, while nowadays about 1.5 million people live here.
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The changings have had financial effects as well – which aren’t so attractive for us, of course, eg. a glass of beer costs 600-1000 HUF. It’s for sure, that the days of the American power’s hegemony are gone and the inheritents of it will be China and Russia. On our way back we made the conclusion: while Europe and Hungary try to make a living of the memories of the earlier times, Russia is engineered by hope and belief in the future.

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3. AKADEMY GORODA
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It was built in the era of Hrustyov for supplying enough space to research institutes. Later universities were established there, too. Nowadays it has a population of 80,000 people.
We were taken to a tiny, about 25 m² big room in an archeology center, where there were three glass coffins hidden under white blankets. In one of them there lies a 3000 year-od white princess’ mummified body. She was found nearby in an icetomb as a proof of the Asian white culture.


4. WOMEN IN NOVOSIBIRSK

Although I tried to get our young male participants prepared, they got amused because of the women living in Novosibirsk. We, who are used to our well functioning, traditional shyness, hardly can imagine that there is a place in the world, where women don’t lower their eyes if they get attracted to someone, but look into his eyes, even start a conversation with him without the tiniest shadow of frustration, in the most natural manner.
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The confidence of these women can be explained with the fact, that during the two world wars the male population decreased signifantly, that’s why women’s role increased. They got emancipated, and even nowadays it’s definitely the woman who coordinates the life of the family.

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5. PASSPORT CONTROL 3 International Film and Photo Workshop – EVALUATION

Jenő Hartyándi:

At the beginning we didn’t intend to organize the workshop abroad. However when Ella Davletshina, director of the Novosibirsk International Documentary Film Festival, invited me, the idea of this workshop held in Novosibirsk was born. We have had a long-time partnership with Ella, as she was a coordinator of the workshop two years ago and this year too, and she brought five Russian participants into the PASSPORT CONTROL as well.
On one hand the Novosibirsk Film Festival supplied us the accomodation and the coordination of our journey into the Altai region. On the other hand we took there films shot during the earlier workshops, photos taken during the Summer Art Camp, organized the so-called Hungarian night with dinner and music. In addition the costs of the journey were paid by the members of the workshop together with our Foundation.

Zsuzsi Gazsó, a restless organizer of our camps and workshops, called for and then gathered together the applicants, which wasn’t easy at all because of the high route fare, the distance, and last but not at least our misunderstanding, false believes about Siberia. What was quite attractive for the applicants was the way of travelling: the Trans-Siberia Express.
Finally in the Hungarian team there were five workshop members, a music coordinator, Péter Pusker and Kisjakab, who has proved to be an essential part of the MEDIAWAVE even though he’s rather like a tourist than a filmmaker.
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Arriving in Novosibirsk we had to realize fast, that in spite of the fact they know a lot about our first two workshops, the Russian coordinators had different ideas about the project from ours. We planned the journey to the Altai region as a source of inspiration for the participants, while our Russian partners worried a lot about us because of this area, which is full of wonders but full of danger at the same time as well. I had to agree with them: we weren’t prepared for a journey like this, but with good luck we managed to travel and spend a few days there, then get back to Novosibirsk. In fact the Altaic part of the workshop proved to be the most efficient and the most organized one of the workshop. I hoped we could have a workshop there together with the Russian students. Finally, besides of the Hungarian team only one Russian participant, Anja, an experienced student of the first two workshops, two Dutch and a German participant accompanied us there. We had the chance to meet the other Russian students for the first time only on Monday.

THE HUNGARIAN TEAM
On their 5 day-long journey on the Trans-Siberia Express Zsuzsi started to shoot a film with the help of a S8 camera. It also turned out, that Kisjakab’s grandfather was a builder of the Novosibirsk cinema between 1945 and 1947, thus it seemed an attractive, stimulating topic for the team.
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On our first day in the Altai our students were so excited of the inspiring circumstances, they didn’t want to miss even a second without recording it. Its result was visible on the shots we checked at the end of the day. Next day they could draw conclusions on their former experiences, that’s why they took responsibility for different roles and different tasks: Zsuzsi became the director, Attila and Dani got to be the cameramen, Kisjakab held the microphone and the rest of us helped them, gave assistance to their work. We started to behave like a staff. Moreover we did really well our job, as the quality of the raw material can prove it.
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Back in Novosibirsk at the opening ceremony of the Festival we showed a 1 min.-long trailer, edited by Péter and myself, to give a taste of the material we shot in the Altai. Our Hungarian participants edited a 15 min. long film out of the whole raw material. Zsuzsi also shot an experimental using the Lenin Statue.
The main conclusion of the workshop is: there are two circles of the potential young workshop participants: those, who are still students, thus aren’t too experienced or professionals yet, but talented and are able to learn with the coordination of their teachers; and there are those young filmmakers also, who are nearly independent in filmmaking, thus don’t need any coordination and have specific synopsis/treatment accepted fromerly by the teachers at the beginning of the workshop.

THE SIBERIAN TEAM
On Monday the workshop started with the lecture of Alan Heim, an Oscar-winner editor. Here at last we could meet the Russian workshop members, who – as it turned out – were from the Filma Academy in Omsk and Keremovo. However they hadn’t had any idea participating in this workshop meant not only free entry for the screenings of the Novosibirsk Festival, but filmmaking, photo taking lessons, tasks, exercises, etc. They were happy of the idea to make films and photos during the workshop (’s last day).
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Péter tried to inspire them by giving them a short lecture about the era they live in, about their present which changes, demolishes past so fast they can’t even notice it, thus it’s worth making documentations, recording these changes until it’s not too late. The Siberian team got inspired by our words and advice.
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The photographers’ task was to take pictures of the Lenin Statue, the Krasnij prospekt and the sculptural group of the labour movement from their very special, personal, unique point of view. While the filmmakers had to make interviews with men of the streets what they think about Lenin nowadays, in addition they were asked to use visually exciting backgrounds. They had two hours to complete their projects, then we watched and analyzed them. They didn’t really need our advice, as they were not only enthusiastic, but also full of ideas and imagination how they would be able to continue this project in the future at their home. In addition they even edited a photo sequence about our one day – long cooperation for the closing ceremony of the film festival.
I wish we could have met earlier these young filmmakers, photographers, thus we would have moved forward. Of course, we’ll be able to go on with our cooperation the next year’s MEDIAWAVE Festival.