Zelig – First Year
There they were, 30 new faces at the Zelig film school, and I was to be the first teacher of their three year long education at the school for ”documentary, television and new media”. Thank you Emanuele Vernillo and Heidi Gronauer for your trust in me to give the students inspiration to watch films, read books and study painters and photographers, who know about composition and use of light and shadow.
I had four days to motivate the students and to make them talk. About themselves and about what they saw. It was forbidden to say ”I like” or ”I don’t like”. We were looking for descriptions, impressions, analysis. They did so very well.
”My” film menu included Robert Frank, Wojciech Staron, Sylvain Biegeleisen, Herz Frank, Jon Bang Carlsen, Jørgen Leth, Viktor Kossakovsky, Piotr Stasik, Michael Glawogger… and a bombardment of other names and titles they should study. Auteur documentaries – and the youngest student of them all, 19 years old, knew where that term comes from.
And a game at the end: form groups of three, you have two hours to find a topic, put the proposal down on paper and pitch it to your colleagues and me the next day. They did so and the teacher was impressed. Themes: dreams, a monument in Bolzano, a tour with the cable car up to Ober Bozen, rituals, public transport when the cable car is out for inspection, grafitti artists, Schüttelbrot, a toxic mushroom, a vegan chef. One team – the one with the monument – even managed to make a two minute teaser for the presentation. I ran into them in the evening and took the picture.
