Noka
Noka Mentoring is a Basque Government programme to supervise, guide and support feature film projects from emerging female directors in the Basque Country and Navarre.
For this second edition, Tabakalera will organise and integrate the project into its film and audiovisual programmes as well as the institutional and professional network of which it is a member together with the San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF), the Basque Film Archive and the Elías Querejeta Film School (EQZE).
Noka
Introduction
Noka Mentoring provides the participating female directors with time, space, context and professional support during the initial phase of their films. They also receive help to prepare a directorial dossier which is as robust as possible, enabling them to access other film-related support from the Basque Government, the ICAA (Film and Audiovisual Institute of the Ministry for Culture) and professional forums in the international film industry.
The entire process will be supported by three female tutors who will supervise the three projects selected during the programme. All three tutors will have direct links to the world of film creation.
The mentoring will have two strands: first, the creative approach to the process of ideating a film; and second, models for ensuring the projects stand up in the film market and industry.
To ensure that the three selected directors can engage in the Noka Mentoring programme and develop their projects under the best possible conditions, each will receive financial support of €4,000.
Who is the programme for?
Noka Mentoring is for emerging female directors (first or second film) born or resident in the Basque Country and Navarre and who are working on fiction or non-fiction feature films.
This is a programme for talented directors with a drive to develop their own cinematographic perspective and who see the process of searching as part of the work. It is for directors who want to ask themselves questions about the reason behind the images and sounds that they have started to define, who integrate not only artistic and creative dimensions into their work but the need to form part of the film industry and its professional processes, and whose films can enter into a dialogue with the three tenses of film: the past, the present and its future.
A searching and demanding attitude, one rich in diverse perspectives and which understands that film is at once part of an artistic tradition and of an industry that needs new voices, will be advantageous during the analysis of the projects.
*The directors who have been selected to take part in the NOKA mentoring programme are: Irati Gorostidi, Marina Palacio & Sara.
Ecosystem
Noka Mentoring is part of the professional and educational network already in action via the various collaborative programmes run by film-related institutions in Tabakalera. The building comprising the International Centre for Contemporary Culture Tabakalera houses a Film Archive that preserves and updates Basque film heritage, a category-A international film festival with programmes that bring together the industry, the market and contemporary creation, a pioneering and unique film school that uses its three areas of expertise (archiving, curating and creation) to question the past, the present and the future of film-making, and a cultural project that coordinates a shared cinema screen and various film development projects run by the members. This professional backdrop working collaboratively day after day in the name of film is what really sets Noka Mentoring apart from other programmes in this new phase.
The chosen directors will be able to engage with, and benefit from, the system of shared working in the Tabakalera ecosystem that supports emerging film talent. The three selected directors will therefore have free access to all film screenings on the shared screen in Tabakalera throughout the programme.
They will also meet with academic managers in EQZE to study the possibility (depending on their projects and the school calendar) of attending some of the workshops and classes in the film school as guest students during the Noka Mentoring programme. In addition, they will be given a professional industry pass for the 2020 San Sebastián International Film Festival from September 18th to 26th 2020, enabling them to attend the festival and see its inner workings as part of their training and support programme.
Noka Mentoring is all about STARTING the process of making a film. It is the first step along a long road. Hence, the programme focusses on this initial stage and on the preparation of the most robust directorial dossier possible. The most important question we ask the directors who wish to join the programme is what film they want to make and why. What films are inside you? Their knowledge of the project and of its motivations, strengths and cinematic potential is what we can help to develop in the programme.
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