June 18-21, 2009

Thursday through Sunday, 10am - 5pm 

Instructor: Shanti Thakur
Class size is limited:  10-12 students

Tuition: $250; if taken in conjunction with Lehigh University's Documentary Video Workshop, $350 combined.

Location: Maginnes Hall, 9 W. Packer Avenue, Rooms 483 and 490 on the campus of Lehigh Univerisity 

Summary:
You are a storyteller. An innovator. You have a story from real life that you're dying to shoot but talking heads or observational camera shots isn't the visual tone you're looking for. You're thinking edgy. Abstract. Poetic. This workshop will familiarize you with different experimental styles which have found their way into cutting edge documentary: the trance film, early American avant-garde, found footage, dialectical montage and structuralism. The workshop will help you learn tools to create alternative structure, to build a character's point of view, and to create a contained, visual and auditory story world. Screenings, discussions and consultations for your idea will be done over four days. We will also look at strategies for film festivals and distribution. It is highly recommended to come to class with an idea, but not a pre-requisite.

SHANTI THAKUR : b i o g r a p h y
Shanti Thakur's award-winning films Kairos (2002), Seven Hours to Burn (1999) Circles (1997),Domino (1994) have been screened in more than 200 film festivals and museums and around the world. She started in the documentary world, at the National Film Board of Canada, where her documentaries, Circles, Domino and Crossing Borders have broadcast in 22 countries and distributed in 17. Currently, she is in post-production for SkyPeople, a short, lyrical film in which scientists discover that the farther you are from earth, the longer you'll live. Shot in New York City and Bangkok.

Kairos (2002, 17 min., 35mm) a poetic tapestry of a woman's memories of two different lovers, two kinds of happiness. Screenings include: Hamptons International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Ex-ground Film Festival (Germany) and Raindance Film Festival (UK). Kairos won Best Short-Audience Award at New Haven Film Festival as well as 1st Prize, Best Editing at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It was made possible by the Pew Fellowship of the Arts in Film, as well as a Fellowship in Media from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.

Seven Hours to Burn (1999, 9 min.) is a personal memoir of two different wars based on notions of racial/religious purity experienced by her Danish and Indian parents. Seven Hours to Burn broadcast on the Sundance Channel, won 10 awards and screened in 45 international film festivals. Awards include: Best Documentary Short Film, Cleveland International Film Festival; Gold Award - Documentary, NY Expo of Short Film; Silver Apple, NEMN; Best Documentary, Philadelphia City Paper Independent Film Contest; Director's Choice Award, Black Maria Film Festival; Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film Festival. Other festivals include:Edinburgh, BBC British Short Film Festival, Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar, Doubletake Documentary Film Festival, Aspen Shortsfest and Tampere International Short Film Festival. It was showcased at the Cannes Film Festival by Kodak. The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently screened Seven Hours in the best of 25 years of the Black Maria Film Festival.

Documentaries made for broadcast focus on social issues such as aboriginal justice in the Yukon (Circles,1997, 58 min.); interracial families through the children's eyes (Domino, 1994, 45 min.); and cross-cultural tensions in a mixed neighborhood after a black-on-white murder (Crossing Borders,1992, 25 min.)

Shanti also works as a freelancer for Ogilvy and Mather's Discovery Group and TBWA/ Chiat/ Day, as a documentary shooter and interviewer for numerous major clients.

In addition, she teaches Film and Video Production at Hunter College of the City University of New York. She has been invited to present her films at Harvard University, MIT, Barnard College and Bryn Mawr, amongst others. She has served as a jury member for the New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) as well as the International Emmy Awards. Shanti returns to SouthSide to teach this course for the second year. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. For more info: www.shantithakur.com

Download Workshop Application (PDF)

Here is what two of our initial year participants had to say about their experience.

"This workshop is a transformative experience and a great next step after Filmtreks. If you can operate a camera and do simple editing then you can make a short film, but Shanti showed me how to combine story, visuals and sound in ways that resonate with an audience. She started with an historical review of film-making techniques, teasing out the methods of masters such as Eisenstein and Hitchcock. With these tools laid out before us, Shanti then showed us how to use them to create films that capture both the mind and the heart of the audience."

"This is not a technical workshop. It's a workshop that teaches you how to think about creating a film - any film - and how to use the established language of film to get the result you want. In some ways, I think, any creative endeavor ends in disappointment - the idea you have in your head is never fully captured in your finished work, but the techniques Shanti teaches certainly helped me understand how to transform an idea into a finished film that captures the essence and emotion of the idea."

"I felt empowered after this workshop. Although I'm still a neophyte film maker now I know how to think clearly about making the films I want to make." Jim Cowan, The Patsari Stove Project

"Experiments with reality". It was a a crash course in the language of film. Not only did I learn a completely different way 'see' works of film, I actually discovered new ways to enjoy what I was watching. As a young adult, I often fall victim to the MTV curse, and it was quite relieving to even perceive other styles of cinematography. What was even more rewarding about the course, however, was the fluidity with which we appropriated the examples we were observing into our own lenses of interpretation. This was where Shanti elevated the course from overview to practical application, and it made everything far more enjoyable and rich. I recommend the class to anyone who wants to learn a unique way to tell a story." Josh Senior