Originally established by Polish documentary filmmakers Mirosław Dembiński and Maciej Drygas as Łodz from Dawn till Dusk in Łódź Film School, the project soon achieved international recognition as The World From Dawn till Dusk, and continues to host workshops for film school students around the world.
So far, the team has held film workshops in Minsk, Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Tokyo, as well as hosted presentations as part of the touring series From Warsaw to Brussels Around the World in 2011. The team most recently hosted workshops in the Moldovian capital Kishinev, northern Polish city Bydgoszcz, the Armenian capital Yerevan, as well as Georgian capital Tbilisi, where the final production was screened during the Tbilisi International Film Festival in 2013.
During the Istanbul From Dawn Till Dusk project, under the artistic supervision of their tutors, the students will work together on a number of documentary films in which the city of Istanbul will be their main subject. Within this framework, the project hopes to establish a series of films, as well as a final hour-long feature about Istanbul, which can be a starting point for deeper reflection on the contemporary image of the world at large.
1st Part: International Doc Forum:
Istanbul From Dawn Till Dusk is organized in two parts; the first part focused on the Polish Documentary Film School between 20-26 April, and the second part will include a hands-on workshop in September.
A major panel, International Documentary Forum, was held on 25-26 April at Istanbul's Bahçeşehir University - Galata Campus. The two-day panel was organized by BAU's Department of Cinema and Television in collaboration with the Polish Doc'n'World Foundation. Kynote speakers included Marceł Łoziński, Maciej Drygas and Jacek Bławut. Major themes discussed included documentary and politics, documentary and activism, documentary and social awareness, and documentary now.
2nd Part: Workshops with Filmmakers
The hands-on workshop and film production with Polish directors will take place between 15-27 September, at the Bahçeşehir Univesity, Galata Campus. The workshops will launch on September 15th, on the 3rd floor, starting at 11:00. The workshop format will involve the shooting of short films combined into a single film. As in previous projects, each student chooses an hour from the life of the city and – taking advantage of documentary observation – presents it as their 3 to 4-minute short. A dozen or so of these short films create a portrait of the city from dawn till dusk. The workshops will consist of daily plenary meetings, discussions, analyses of the shot footage, suggestions concerning methods of shooting, and later, the editing and postproduction of the entire film.
3rd Part: Film Screenings
Presentation of the final film will meet audiences during the final screening to be held for the wider public audience, at the end of the year. More information on screening schedules will be available on our website.
The final production will also be included in the collection of The World From Dawn Till Dusk , for future presentation as part of the project’s continuation in other regions of the world and at film festivals and on TV.
Guest Directors:
The series of events feature numerous renowned Polish documentary filmmakers. The list includes: Marcel Łoziński (a Łódź film school graduate, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, Academy Award nominee and current lecturer at Andrzej Wajda's Master School of Film Directing as well as a member of the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy); Jacek Bławut (a member of the European Film Academy as well as an actor, cinematographer and film director, who lectures in Berlin, Hanover and Warsaw); Vita Żelakeviciute (the director of nine feature films, including 'Schitzophrenia' and 'Beyond the Wall'); Mateusz Werner (editor of 'Polish Cinema Now!', previous director of the Gallery of Film Arts at the Zacheta National Gallery and contributor to Polish film periodicals 'Film' and 'Kino'); Maciej Drygas (a director and screenwriter whose early films explored the communist People's Republic of Poland and who also collaborated with wife Vita Żelakeviciute on two documentary film projects, including 'One Day in People’s Poland' in 2005); Mirosław Dembiński, (a director with almost 30 films to his name, for which he has received almost 80 awards - for films including 'My Little Everest' and 'Mountain Hermits'); Jacek Petrycki (cameraman on many acclaimed documentaries and features, directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Agnieszka Holland and others); Paweł Loziński (renowned Warsaw-based director, scriptwriter and producer) and Rafał Listopad (a lecturer at the Gdynia Film School and recipient of prizes at various international film festivals).