This month, I spent a very busy and inspiring week at Berlinale Talents during the 65th Berlin International Film Festival. My project in-development BACK (“Namo“) was among 9 projects selected to develop at Short Film Station. I worked on my story in the group workshops and individual mentoring sessions with Veronika Grob, a funding advisor for Medienboard Berlin-Branderburg. Together with other participants, I had presentation training and pitched my project in front of a selected group of industry professionals.
 © Chiara Ferrau, Berlinale 2015
 © Bettina Ausserhofer, Berlinale 2015
 © Peter Himsel, Berlinale 2015
In addition to the Short Film Station program, I attended masterclasses by Darren Aronofsky and Claudia Llosa, Wim Wenders, and Laura Poitras. Here are some of the highlights from my notebook:
“90% of filmmaking is persistence.” – Darren Aronofsky
“Satisfaction is not linked to success.” – Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders’ advice for young filmmakers: “Find your voice that stands out in terms of film grammar, and find the subject you have the strongest voice about.” And this: “Cinema has a fascinating power of documenting. Sometimes fiction captures places and preserves them better than documentaries.”
Because of the intense Talents program I had time to see only 5 features (of which my favorite was Laura Bispuri’s debut “Sworn Virgin” on a young woman rediscovering her sexuality), as well as a dozen of short films.
Here are some articles about my experience in Berlin and my upcoming short film BACK:
Interview for Film Festival Life
Emerson College Press Release
Straipsnis Lietuvių filmų centro puslapyje (in Lithuanian)
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