Daniel Bird - Throw Away your Books - Limits of film education

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
311MDB credit 2 16 lecture hours (45 min) of instruction per semester, 38 to 48 hours of self-study English winter

Subject guarantor

Name of lecturer(s)

Department

Předmět zajišťuje FAMU International

Contents

1st December (from 9:30am – 17:30pm)

      Part 1: 9:00 - 12:00

      Part 2: 13:00 - 17:00

2nd December at Kino Ponrepo (NFA cinema) - from 9:30am – 17:30pm

What is true creativity? How do you execute it within the educational system of art schooling? Is it even possible to achieve that fully? When do we need to listen and follow and when we should break free and go against the grain to fully execute our vision?

in a series of screenings and discussions with Daniel Bird and Ladislav Babuscak, we will explore the works of multiple film legends, who have decided to break free from the traditional structures and fashion of their times, only to carve out a unique and highly individualistic path where their complicated career may not have signs of a total success, but eventually resulted in immortality and almost cult-like status of their works, which were not fully appreciated at the time of their release.

Lecturers:

Daniel Bird

Born in England. Studied psychology and philosophy at Keel University and completed a master's degree in philosophy at Warwick University. Subsequently, he worked with Andrzej Zulawski on subtitles, editing screenplays and restorations. He is a co-founder of Friends of Valerian Borowczyk. Since 2018 he directed the Hamo-Bek Nazarov Project. He is currently working on Projects with Stephen Sayadian and E.Elias Merhig.

Ladislav Babuscak

Born in Slovakia. Graduated from the department of photography at FAMU, Prague. Completed a prestigious internship at Peggy Guggenheim in Venice. After multiple photography solo shows curated many solo or group art exhibitions, directed a theater play, and eventually turned his full attention to film curating and screenwriting. He currently teaches at FAMU in Prague whilst also working as a film script consultant and screenwriter.

Learning outcomes

Goals:

this incredibly dense, demanding, and loaded module sets its goals in inspiring students to step outside their comfort zone and venture deeper into their inner world of personal themes and approaches. Through screening of multiple daring and influential films that challenged and eventually changed the landscape of filmmaking, students will be able to explore the important relationship between the life of an artist – his work – and subsequential context in what the immortal artwork exists / is / or will be shown. Being confronted with such examples, students will get a chance to apply these reflections on their personal approaches to problems of the creative process and will emerge from this experience enriched with the courage, to be honest, authentic, and more fearless towards the powers of visual storytelling!

Prerequisites and other requirements

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Literature

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Evaluation methods and criteria

To get credits for this module, students need to attend both parts of the module (Friday and

Saturday part) fully, and also write a brief reflection on screened material and discussed topics. The entire module will be constructed as an open seminar highly encouraging students to ask questions and discuss complicated and even controversial themes in a civilized fashion and safe space, yet without fear and prejudices.

Course web page

https://sp.amu.cz/en/predmet311MDB.html

Note

Screened material and themes:

at FAMU:

Cosmos (2015) by Andrzej Zulawski – fearless storytelling / picture and the abundance of words /age and creativity

Dr.Caligari (1989) by Stephen Sayadian – limits of execution / picture without words / fashion and immortality

Under the Skin (2014) by Jonathan Glazer – creativity and originality / physicality and film / beauty

and inconoclasm

at Ponrepo:

Hamo-Bek Nazarov Project (3 short films of Sergei Parajanov)

Sayat Nova – also known as The Color of Pomegranates (1969) by Sergei Parajanov (restored

version) – life of an artist in pictures / artist and its culture and origins / film as a physical property

Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans