Camerimage 2019

Camerimage in Poland is one of the world’s leading film festival with a focus on the art of Cinematography. Now in its 27th year the festival has gone from strength to strength. 2019's festival was my fourth and there is lots to report. The festival was a little different to the previous three I have attended due to a relocation to Toruń from Bydgoszcz. The new location is much the same as the previous in that its based in a large town with a medieval history. 

Torun city wall

Statue of Copernicus

The main festival hall was based at the CKK Jordanki, a fantastic contemporary theatre with more than sufficient space to house the excellent marketplace of companies from the world of camera and lighting through to pre and postproduction facilities. However whilst attending the festival I heard of the exciting plans to build a permanent CAMERIMAGE European Film Centre on a disused site a five minute walk from the CKK. The centre will be for research and training in the area of filmmaking all year round and not just during the festival – a great asset to Toruń and the wider community and Camerimage festivals to come!

CKK Jordanki main festival hall

The festival site consists of many locations for workshops and seminars held by leading figures from the cinematography discipline. One such venue this year was a local high schools hall that made a fantastic location for a set construction to display live demonstrations of camera and lighting set ups. I attend one such event run by Canon and lead by Claudia Raschke a leading documentary maker who creates films using the Cinema Verite style.

Workshop centre directions

Claudia Raschke workshop

I also had the chance to attend the ARRI seminar on connectivity. ARRI are one of the leading camera and lighting companies in the world. Created by two friends Arnold and Richter (AR + RI = ARRI) ARRI was born in 1917. Today the company offers training and their seminars and workshops are leading the way to understanding the now very complex landscape of camera technology cinematographers are faced with understanding. Look up tables (LUTs), metadata, wireless connectivity and camera access protocol (CAP) being just a few things covered in this in-depth seminar.

As well as the fantastic workshops and seminars the festival is predominantly a film festival like any other, with awards presented in all major categories of filmmaking. The main festival winners (Golden Frogs) this year where 1st place Joker, 2nd place The Two Popes and 3rd place The Painted Bird plus there were also awards for best documentary Midnight Family, best music video for James Massiha ‘Natural Born Killers (Ride for Me)’ plus best music video Cinematography for the Jon Hopkins ‘Singularity’ and round table discussion of short films Lefty/Righty, Cactus Blossom and Boarder Crossing to name a few.

Award ceremony

Helena Trestikova documentary event

The whole experience of visiting Camerimage 2019 despite the change of location was a real treat and one to remember. Discovering all the new venues and seeing familiar faces in familiar scenarios made for a real adventure. The new home of Toruń looks set to be an interesting chapter in the Camerimage story. The ever-changing face of cinematography technology shows no sign of slowing and with other developments looming in the future such as computer gaming engines crossover into the film industry, events such as Camerimage are an essential calendar event for industry professionals.

Rose jam Paczki shop (Polish Doughnuts)

Flower stall at night

So, another Camerimage over and I have no doubt the organisers are already busy planning and refining the 2020 event to be even more impressive and integrated with the town of Toruń, which incidentally was the festivals birthplace in 1993. The previous site of the festival, Bydgoszcz will always be a place I have fond memories of, and I will no doubt visit the town again in the future.

Web links:

Camerimage Festival

https://camerimage.pl/en/

Documentry filmmaker Claudia Raschke IMDB

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0711070/

Cinema Verite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9ma_v%C3%A9rit%C3%A9

ARRI 100 History

https://de-de.facebook.com/TeamARRI/videos/arris-history-1917-the-beginning/10156022267839061/

CAP app

https://pomfort.com/pocketcontrol/

ARRI LUTs

https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/tools/lut-generator

Feature Films:

Joker

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Two Popes

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8404614/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

The Painted Bird

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667354/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Documentary Films:

Rene

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334606/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Katka

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533061/?ref_=tt_sims_tti

Honey Land

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8991268/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Music Video:

James Massiha ‘Natural Born Killers (Ride for Me)

https://vimeo.com/358604086

Jon Hopkins ‘Singularity’

https://vimeo.com/290574571

Short Films:

Lefty/Righty

https://vimeo.com/375462263

Cactus Blossom

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10719304/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_1

Boarder Crossing

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10814852/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Short film 'Garage'

In March 2020 just before the Covid-19 lockdown came into effect in the UK and during the four fights UCU strike action at Goldsmiths I was asked to shoot a short film with students and colleagues from Goldsmiths University MA Filmmaking course.

The film is set in a garage and sees two employees go about their work only to out perform each other in this high-jinks farce.

Photographs by Rose Cussen copyright 2020

Stade Films

Here is a link to the Stade Films website and you can also follow on Facebook here

Stade Films is a filmmaking collective based in Hastings, UK and I am proud to have helped out on the award winning short The Captains Daughter as well as also featuring in the fantastic Dancing in the Street video that wonderfully shows of Hastings pier and other locations in and around the seaside town.

Teaser for short film 'Mickels'

Last year as part of the ongoing production The Town of Figure Eight Lalacuna filmed Mickels (AKA Lokomotiv) one of the four short films to feature in the pilot program.

Short film 'Lokomotiv' as part of The Town of Figure Eight - stills

Here are a few still frames from the 'Lokomotiv' (AKA 'Mickels') shoot - part of The Town of Figure Eight pilot.

The Town of Figure 8 - The Rescue

"Huston we have a problem"

This is JON - JON is lost in space.

So to re-cap The Town of Figure 8 (or 'Fig 8') pilot program is well into the production phase now. We shot the train exterior section way back in late 2010 and some examples of that can be seen here http://www.facebook.com/Lalacuna (also earlier posts on this blog). We have also completed the overall script, clearing up some issues to do with the core meaning of the pilot program. The central theme is to do with connection and its various forms - for this pilot episode we follow a character called Mickels and his experience of connection with the town.

The Rescue is the first of the four short film sections that feature in the pilot episode of Fig 8 to be filmed. We shot the main bulk of the film over the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of April 2011 in the AVA immersion Space (studio) at the University of East London (UEL). We also went back to UEL two weeks later to achieve firstly the tricky opening sequence shots of the character JON (Tai) and also some pick up shots from the main shoot which saw the introduction of SAM (. A minimal crew was used for these shots in comparison to the main shoot which saw fifteen plus crew.

So as things currently stand we are pre-pairing to shoot the remainder of the short films that will feature in Fig 8 - 'Mickels', 'Showetime' and 'The Marching Band'. It has been discussed that we may shoot all of these in one block but this is still to be confirmed. We will then capture the parts that feature Scott, the narrator style character that is traveling around Fig 8 on the back of a train. These will be shot on a set using back projections of the railway line footage we captured at Chinnor using the GoPro HD Hero http://gopro.com/ (Examples can also be found on the Lalacuna Digest Facebook page).