The Aegean Film Festival organized the 2018 Storytelling Workshop; a unique approach to creative writing, idea generation and development. Applicants spent 12 days in Athens and Patmos island, creating new script ideas, testing and developing them to a complete 5-page synopsis, under the guidance of an acclaimed team of tutors and consultants.

During the daily sessions, participants got an in-depth introduction to storytelling and participated in intensive multiplication and brainstorming of ideas. In order to enhance creativity, participants and consultants had the chance to attend a series of seminars and theatre production in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus or the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. The participants had the chance to attend the screenings and events of 2018 Aegean FF, develop their ideas and presented their final synopsis.

The Workshop was open to storytellers, writers, directors, creative producers and authors who wanted to:

- Generate and develop new ideas
- Discover their own individual cinematic language
- Enhance their skills in prewriting and practice their abilities as storytellers
- Network and team up with directors, producers and co-writers
- Select the One amongst their own many original ideas and crash test its potential with industry leaders
before engaging with the long journey of writing it into a script.

The Workshop consisted of three phases:

Idea Generation
The main goal of this initial step was to nurture the conditions under which ideas were generated. The participants were encouraged to identify ‘the spark’ of their stories and talk about the drives behind storytelling. As the Workshop aimed to challenge the participants’ imagination, the writers had to visualize entirely new ideas along with the ones they brought with them in their luggage. At the end of this section, the participants had to come up with a logline for each of their ideas and prepare for selecting the one they developed throughout the workshop.

Idea Selection
During the idea selection phase, and in order for the writers to be able to choose an idea that would transformed into a successful feature-length or TV pilot script, the Workshop focused on subjects including; the psychoanalysis of the writer, the deconstruction of the ideas and the discussion around the conscious and subconscious ‘jury’ we had in mind when writing. As the last step, before the selection, we analyzed the potential dimensions of each narrative and provide the necessary tools for the participants to shape their own personal, cinematic language.

Idea Development
During the last four days of the session in Patmos, consultants and participants were focused on developing the narrative structure, the main characters and possible endings of their stories. They were working on producing different drafts, one full scene and dialogue examples, while towards the end of this stage, they prepared, practiced and finally presented to the group, their final story. This took place on a special event, around a bonfire by the sea, where the presented stories were recorded to create individual pitching videos.

On the final day, feedback from the groups and one-to-one consultations completed the Workshop and all participants left Patmos with a 5-page synopsis and the 4-minute-video presentation of their project.

The 2016 Documentary Workshop provided a unique opportunity to research, develop, film and produce a documentary portrait of people affected by the recent wave of immigration from the Middle East into Europe. Workshop participants spent two weeks on the Greek islands, working in teams of 3, to each create a 10-minute documentary portrait which was screened on the closing night of the festival. The project consisted of three phases:

a) Research & Development - done remotely and online prior to the filming.

b) Filming on the Greek islands of Patmos, Kos, Leros, Ikaria and Agathonisi.

c) Post-production work, plus seminars and attendance at the International Film Festival of Patmos.

Following the work of the participants, the footage was reworked by Sugar High Films into a single, feature-length documentary called FACES OF IMMIGRATION.

PITCHING MASTERCLASS
by Tassos Boulmetis, Alexandra Boussiou, Agata Darlasi and Greg Cokinakis
The aim of this Masterclass was to showcase how to professionally pitch a script in order to attract development financing (Producer or TV channel). A director, a screenwriter, a producer and a commissioner for TV shared all the necessary techniques that make a screenplay competitive in the market.

CASTING WORKSHOP & MASTERCLASS
by Debbie McWilliams
London casting director Debbie McWilliams ran a two-day workshop for actors during the 2015 Aegean Film Festival which aimed to improve actor’s audition skills for building an international career.

Debbie McWilliams CDG is one of the UK’s leading Casting Directors. Debbie has cast some of the most successful films in recent years including all the latest Bond movies such as SKYFALL, CASINO ROYALE and SPECTRE. Her other credits include feature films TAKE DOWN, TIGER RAID, THE SILENT STORM, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, and BORGIA and KNIGHTFALL for TV. Debbie is currently a committee member of the Casting Directors Guild, a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Spokesperson for the International Casting Directors’ Network.

DOCUMENTARY & THE WEB
by Lefteris Charitos
Through a short journey on what documentary really stands for, Lefteris Charitos and the participants unmasked the new dynamic aspects of what we call web documentary.

Lefteris Charitos is a director of TV series, documentaries and feature films. He is best known for the scripted TV series AMINA ZONIS for pubcaster ERT that was based on the acclaimed book of Petros Markaris, the 1821 series of historical documentaries for SKAI TV, the SCHOOLTUBE series of documentaries for ERT and the GREECE FROM A TO Ω TV series for Cosmote TV. His latest film is the feature documentary DOLPHIN MAN (2017) on the life of diver Jacques Mayol.

CAN YOU DIRECT A DOCUMENTARY?
by Dodo Hunziker
Dodo Hunziker, director of the documentary TIBETAN WARRIOR, gave an insight into his own work as a documentary director on the example of his film and revealed some secrets on the making of TIBETAN WARRIOR.

Dodo Hunziker is a filmmaker & producer based in Bern, Switzerland and co-proprietor of the production company DokLab. After studying graphic design, he started editing videos, resulting in a passion for documentary filmmaking. After several years of learning by doing, Dodo studied film in Prague and has been directing and producing films for TV and cinema since 2006.

HOW TO PRODUCE A DOCUMENTARY
by Jesper Jack
From a background in international financing and production of high-end documentaries, Danish producer Jesper Jack shared his company’s vision in making "sustainable" stories for a multitude of platforms and showed excerpts from not yet released films. Participants were encouraged to bring ideas or ongoing projects for a one-on-one consultation.

Jesper Jack is an award winning producer and co-founder of leading Scandinavian collective of non-fiction makers HOUSE OF REAL and a key player on the Danish doc scene. He has directed, edited, developed and produced documentaries and worked as a documentary film consultant at the Danish Film Institute where he commissioned more than 30 films – among them Academy Award nominated THE ACT OF KILLING and winner of best doc at Tribeca Film Festival DEMOCRATS. Lately he has been the co-producer of Michael Moore favourite TWO RAGING GRANNIES and is currently working on films in Syria, China and Uganda.

LEGAL MATTERS ON THE PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTARIES
by Alexander Setzer-Rubruck
From his background as an entertainment lawyer, Alexander Setzer-Rubruck gave an introduction into the legal structures of film producing, including the legal protection of intellectual and artistic work by the European copyright provisions, legal restrictions of the freedom of expression (i.e. personal rights), and financial aid from German and European film-financing institutions.

Alexander Setzer-Rubruck is a Certified Lawyer for Copyright and Media Law in Frankfurt. Since 1998 he specialized in Law for Copyright and Media Law. His focus was on consulting for publishers, agencies, producers, writers and artists on all legal aspects of the exploitation of their work. From 2006 to 2011 he was also a member of the Expert Committee for Copyright of the German Cultural Counsel.

PITCHING MASTERCLASS
by Agata Darlasi, Alexandra Boussiou and Greg Cokinakis
The aim of this masterclass was to showcase how to make a professional script pitching in order to attract development financing (Producer or TV channel). A screenwriter, a producer and a commissioner for TV shared all the necessary techniques that make a screenplay competitive in the market.

HOW TO PRODUCE AN OSCAR-WINNING SHORT FILM
by Tivi Magnusson 
Tivi Magnusson shared his experience on following all the necessary steps that produce an award-winning film. His Oscar-winning short film HELIUM was screened before the masterclass.

Tivi Magnusson has been a producer for over 35 years and has been running his own company M&M Production for over 20 years. He is also a founder member of the Danish Film Academy.