Searching Traces 2020
diyalog was organizing under the title Searching Traces a workshop series between June and December 2020.
Within the workshop, participants with and without film-making experiences were trained to use smart phones to create movies about mobility/immobility, their living situation and their aspirations regarding community life in one single shot. The movies created within the workshop will be published on the StreetWalking magazine.
The theme of the movies focussed on the newcomer and how he or she is an asset and enrichment to a local community worldwide.
Creative tools like video making will allow everyone to try to pave the passage to a new journey. Regarding the actual circumstances linked to COVID-19, the workshop content will be adapted to our actual life rythms, taking into account that the possibility to shoot outside will be limited.
The program was supported by the Embassy of Canada in Turkey, the Consulate General of the Republic of Germany Istanbul and WeVideo cloud editing software solution.
The program was originally scheduled to take place as physical workshop at arthere Istanbul in March 2020. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic the workshop was postponed and is taking place now in June and July as a remote workshop using the video conferencing ZOOM client.
The workshop program was also part of the events diyalog is organizing in the frame of the Mahalla Festival 2020 to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The video workshop Searching Traces introduced as well the Civic Journalism. Looking through different lenses Civic Journalism is a way to see things from that different view. It lets us get know the people of our community and it lets us deal with people’s ambiguity over issues and processes.
Through improved access to information, by breaking down national boundaries and especially by full participation Searching Traces will contribute as online product to social sustainability in many areas: use of mobile technologies as a creative tool, increased participation in community decision-making, international mediation of a cultural diversity and also the sense of its values.
Workshop Instructor
Kutaiba Hajirah is a Syrian, Canadian filmmaker who started his career as a camera man in the Syrian TV. In 2012, he moved to Egypt and worked in different media outlets as assistant director, post-production producer, and camera operator. In 2014, he moved to Turkey and worked as camera operator for many Documentary films, YouTube content and news TV channels. In 2017, he moved to Canada to study Documentary film making.
Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch are German documentary filmmakers based in Istanbul. The couple produces documentary Films in the Middle East and South Eastern Europe that were awarded on international Film Festivals and are screened in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France on prominent TV channels like ARD, ZDF, 3Sat and arte. The Filmmakers are educating trained and untrained filmmakers in short film production for digital formats in different countries. They are publishing the Online-Video Platform StreetWalking as a location for innovative new film narratives.
For further information of how to participate, please check out the Mahalla Festival website or watch the recording of the last session of the workshop
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