Call for Entries: Sarajevo Talent Campus 2011

You may remember that I had the wonderful opportunity to participate as a screenwriter to last year's Sarajevo Talent Campus, and that I posted articles about some of the lectures and sessions we had, like ones with Semih Kaplanoglu, Samuel Maoz, Gaspar Noé ... On top of these great filmmakers, we also had the chance to have a full session with Morgan Freeman (that was an unforgettable experience!).  The whole week was extremely productive and useful, a very rich professional and personal experience. I haven't been as productive as I would have wished to since I got back home and to my day job, but I did work on - and still am developing- some projects. And the Talent Campus definitely boosted me to have faith in my writing and my ideas. 

If you are a filmmaker, producer, screenwriter or actor from Southeast Europe, check out the Sarajevo Talent Campus website to apply for the 5th Sarajevo Talent Campus. The theme this year is Our Time, My Point of View. For more info visit the STC 2011 website.

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/.