2012 Berlinale Talent Campus focus: "Changing Perspectives"

The 10th edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus received applications from 4,382 up-and-coming filmmakers from 137 countries. On February 11, 2012, the doors of the Theater "Hebbel am Ufer" will open for 350 selected participants during the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. With the theme "Changing Perspectives", the Talent Campus offers this new generation of filmmakers a prominent programme featuring many Berlinale guests and international experts. In addition, these young filmmakers gain practical experience from mentors in the hands-on-training programmes or may further develop their submitted screenplays in one-on-one meetings with expert script consultants. Producers and directors with completed screenplays are selected for the Talent Project Market and introduce their films to financiers and co-producers as part of the Berlinale Co-Production Market. The Campus will increasingly deal with expanding distribution and sales structures and look at new ways of attracting audiences. For the first time, young distributors could also apply for the Campus.

Composer Ryūichi Sakamoto to mentor the Score Competition

The internationally renowned Japanese musician, composer and music producer Ryūichi Sakamoto will mentor the Score Competition, the Berlinale Talent Campus competition for composers and sound designers. Ryūichi Sakamoto was born in Tokyo in 1952 and has found a home in a variety of musical genres. He wrote the scores for films such as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (dir. Nagisa Ôshima), The Sheltering Sky (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Little Buddha (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Babel (dir. Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu) and Women Without Men (dir. Shirin Neshat & Shoja Azari), amongst others. In 1987 he received an Oscar®, a Golden Globe and a Grammy for his music for The Last Emperor (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci). The Sheltering Sky gave Ryūichi Sakamoto to win the second Golden Globe for its original score. Participants in the 2012 Score Competition can look forward to a special mentoring experience with this unique and multitalented artist.

The Score Competition offers three young composers and/or sound designers an opportunity to newly score a short film excerpt and record it with the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg, with final mixing at the Film and Television University HFF "Konrad Wolf". The scores premiere during the Talent Campus, with the best score selected by a jury. The winner receives a Dolby-sponsored trip to the most important sound studios in Los Angeles.

First-ever Talent Campus Tokyo during the TOKYO FILMeX film festival

The first-ever Talent Campus in Japan will take place from November 21 to 26, 2011, during the renowned film festival TOKYO FILMeX in Berlin's sister city, Tokyo. Presented by the TOKYO FILMeX organisational committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, the Talent Campus Tokyo is inviting 15 young directors and producers from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, The Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand for workshops, master classes and discussion events. "We are finally fulfilling our wish to work with our colleagues in Tokyo and create a Talent Campus for young East and Southeast Asian filmmakers. I'm very happy to be invited as a mentor alongside such outstanding filmmakers as the Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke, producer Park Kiyong from South Korea, and World Sales expert Olimpia Pont Cháfer", says Campus project manager Christine Tröstrum. The Talent Campus Tokyo is a cooperation with the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Goethe-Institut Tokio.

Parallel to the Talent Campus Tokyo the capital campaign "be Berlin" organizes an open house on November 21 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which will close in the evening with the Japanese-German cross-cultural dialogue “Working for Culture between Worlds”. Under the label “Berlin Days” the Berlinale Talent Campus will be presented alongside the Berliner Philharmoniker, the DMY International Design Festival as well as the exhibition “Berlin 2000-2011: Playing among the Ruins”.

For more information about the Berlinale Talent Campus #10 and Talent Campus Tokyo, please visit www.berlinale-talentcampus.de

The Berlinale Talent Campus is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, a business division of the Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a decision of the German Bundestag, in co-operation with MEDIA - Training programme of the European Union and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

(Press release)