Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Sarajevo Talent Campus 2010

I woke up to very good news this morning, receiving an e-mail from the Sarajevo Talent Campus team. "We would like to announce that we have selected 64 participants for the 4th Sarajevo Talent Campus. Our selection committee has thoroughly viewed all the applications and we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted to take part in this year`s Talent Campus. " Aaa those magical words "You have been accepted", it does feel good indeed.

The Talent Campus is organised in the frame of the Sarajevo Film Festival which will take place from 23 to 31 July. I've been willing to go to this festival for quite some time now but always missed it.

The Talent Campus is a one week event that will give the opportunity to young artists to exchange views and ideas among themselves and with film professionals from across the world, through a programme of workshops, lectures, inter-festival excursions, panels and practical tutorials.

I am especially excited that I will be able to share my project about post 1980 Turkey. I have been working on a script, that I am still developing, to explore the repercussions of the military take-over of 1980 on people who live in and outside of Turkey today. Being a Turkish woman living in Europe I am mostly interested in the effects, if any, on the lives of the "exiles" and the "immigrants", and how do we, Turkish/Belgian or Turkish/German or Turkish/Dutch... feel about it and deal with it. Sharing ideas and receiving feedback from other young artists and professionals will definitely be a great experience for me and it will certainly help me develop my writing. And of course I will see plenty of films, which is afterall the best part of a film festival!

I will definitely post as much as I can from Sarajevo, so keep an eye here!

For more information about the Sarajevo Film Festival check: http://www.sff.ba/.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Words in the clouds


I have been thinking since a long time about a way of sharing my writings online. I had posted my short stories on issuu, received some positive comments from readers there, which motivated me to rework on my stories and put them together into a short story collection. I have sent it to about ten publishers in Belgium and in France. I knew from the start that I was going to be rejected by most (so far I have received eight rejection letters and am waiting for the last two), but why did I still want to send out my work the "traditional" way, I am not sure. Of course, even if tiny, I still had hope that a professional from the sector would put an "approval seal" on my work. But rejection after rejection (being called Mister in various letters!), having explored what was published out there, seeing the reality of the publishing world at the moment and the very low chances to get short stories published in French... I believed that I still had stories to tell and that I had access to amazing tools to do so.

What I care about is writing, writing more, failing maybe, failing again to hopefully get better at it (failing and writing), and most of all, I care about sharing. What matters in the end? Being read, it's as simple as that. So I have created a brand new website called Des mots dans les nuages where I host my short stories and make these available for download to all, under a creative commons licence. Most importantly, I left a comments section open because I care about what readers would think and I'd like to read their feedback.

Because I write fiction in French and all my short stories are in French so far, the website, as the title "Des mots dans les nuages" (Words in the Clouds") suggests, is also in French and aimed at readers who speak the language. But I still thought it useful to share my experience of "self publishing" here, and I will certainly evaluate and share the process in the months to come.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

1Blog, 1Tree



I first read the info on Nicolas Quentin's blog OuiLeO.cOm and found this an amazing initiative.

The idea is pretty simple and efficient. You only need to write a short blog post about the programme “My blog is carbon neutral” and include one of their proposed buttons below on your site (see mine on the side bar). Then you send the link to your blog to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de and they plant a tree for you, neutralising the carbon dioxide emissions of your blog. The trees will be planted in the spring of 2010 by the Arbor Day Foundation.

For more information about how and where the trees are planted, visit http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/carbon-neutral/what-we-do/

It's easy and really worth it... so spread the word!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Open for all: Het Concertgebouw Open

On 12 June 2010, the prestigious Concertgebouw opens its doors to all for this second edition of Het Concertgebouw Open. From 12 to 17h, the Concertgebouw will welcome all for free and not only to visit their wonderful halls... but to listen to amateur musicians and artists from Amsterdam: soloists, bands, chorals... Visitors will also be able to participate to this festive event by showing their talent on the Open Zang Podium, where a pianist will accompany anyone who wants to sing, by dancing in the Tango Salon and by participating to one of the many workshops. Events will be spread throughout 10 rooms, from the Groote Zaal to the Cafe, with hundreds of artists, and a royal opening at 12h12 (it says so on the programme!) with Princess Maxima.

Some performances that have caught my attention:
  • Yim Kwan Fong: Cantonese opera from the Pijp.
  • Viola Viola orkest & Esther Apituley: a spectacular performance with 100 musicians and dancers.
  • Trio Wahnsinn: three friends improvising jazz.
  • Klezmagic: Klezmermusic from Turkey, Egypt ... by a young band lead by Emirhan Tuga.

You can see the complete programme here (in Dutch)

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Symposium on Graphic Design

The Breda Graphic Design Museum, which organized the excellent symposium about curating in the digital age I wrote about back in December, are presenting their second symposium: What are the concepts of the world's leading designers?

The symposium is organized in the frame of the current exhibition INFODECODATA exploring the place and role of data visualization in graphic design. The list of speakers is not as international as the first symposium's but it does include a great number of Dutch professionals who are experts in the field of graphic design and visual arts.

All the graphic designers out there who live in the Netherlands or in Belgium (Breda is a border town and is actually closer to Brussels than to Amsterdam), have a look at the INFODECODATA symposium page on the museum's website and don't be demotivated by the location or the date (13 June... it's a Sunday ...and my birthday). This museum is worth the trip if you're into graphic design, even more if there's a symposium during your visit.

Date & time: Sunday 13 June 2010 - 14:00 to 17:00
Language: English.
More info