Film production and criticism workshops for secondary school students were organized in Ulcinj within the scope of the 5th Seanema Film Festival. The programme is supported by the Film Centre of Montenegro.
Attendants of the film workshops developed a short film “Escape from reality” which premiered during the closing night of the Seanema Film Festival on 22 September.
Participants of the workshops and auteurs of the aforementioned film are: Maša Pejović, Dejan Radoman, Aleksandra Sekulović, Blendi Ramoci, Ivana Popović, Lahira Hajdarović, Lina Dacić, Aleksa Bujišić, Iva Todosić, Nikola Knežević, Petar Rakočević, Katarina Radmilović, Dragana Đermanović, Marko Đurić, Antonije Manojlović, Sanja Nikolić, Vanja Gojković, Marija Ranković, Mateja Mutapović and Jelena Krunić.
Producer Biljana Vušović and directors Pavle Simonović and Sabir Kanaći were mentors at the film production workshops. Ten secondary school students from Montenegro and Serbia learned about film and film production through interactive lectures and discussions, with the assistance of their mentors. Through these workshops, young people were introduced to the production of a live-action film, and they discussed topics such as principles of scriptwriting, story visualization, narrative structure development, filming, and post-production.
Apart from the Film Centre of Montenegro, the workshop was provided support from the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), and partners including Association Valjevo Cultural Network (VAKUM) and Cinemapolis from Montenegro. The second part of the film production workshop will take place in Valjevo (SEAVA Youth project), within the framework of the sixth edition of the Valjevo Film Encounters festival from 12-15 December.
Vuk Perović, a film critic, was a mentor at another workshop organized in the scope of the festival – the film criticism workshop. Ten workshop attendants received certificates at the closing of the festival: Đorđe Petrović, Milena Medenica, Đorđe Jaredić, Milica Pavlović, Bada Demić, Minea Selmanović, Daris Kajević, Sergej Radičević, Veljko Keljanović and Iva Marković.
The participants watched feature-length and short films of competition selections and, through mentoring, they conducted a creative analysis of film content on a daily basis. The objective was to develop, through an interactive method of film watching, the ability to express an opinion and to produce a literary analysis of a film in the form of criticism and essay. By writing critiques and analyzing films, the attendants actively developed artistic affinities, communication skills, as well as a critical attitude towards films. Using the knowledge, they acquired at the workshop, the attendants independently wrote a critique of a film of their choice that they watched at the festival.