SLOVENIAN DIRECTOR ON CAMPUS

Mitja Okorn, 22-year-old director of Not Sponsored, Not Sponsored II and the upcoming fiction feature Here and There, reports exclusively for Jigsaw Lounge on the first-ever Berlinale Talent Campus at the Berlin Film Festival of 2003.

Well, I didn't ask George Clooney why he made such a boring movie, but I asked him what he thinks of the Berlinale Talent Campus. He didn't know what I was talking about, and then he started to act like: OOO THAT THING, YES I THINK IT IS GREAT, I AM DEAF, HAVE TO GO. He didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

Well Slovenia won an award for Best Short Film. So we got a bear. But Spare Parts was rated very poorly in Screen Daily. So that was a miss. But we have an award for best short film. Well actualy the director is from Serbia, but film is officially Slovenian. And I think it must be a good movie. The name is: A[TORSION] or something like that. SO that was kinda fun, because I met the director and I liked him a lot. Well actually I knew his girlfriend from before because she was the first choice to be our Director of Photography but then she didn't have time to do it.

WELL BERLIN WAS THE BOMB. The first day we went on this German Film Foundation party with almutt where we met Dieter Kosslick. Almut Getto introduced me to him and all the cameras came immediatly there and the next day I was accepted to the talent campus. The party was great...FOOD EXCELENT and of course all the stars and main politicians were there. Even TOM TYKWER whose next movie I think I will not like. I also talked to the EDITOR OF RUN LOLA RUN and that was the best, because that is one of the best German movies ever.

Well the next day DIETER came to CAMPUS and opened the TALENT CAMPUS and in that opening he said: YESTERDAY I MEET THIS SLOVENIAN GUY - WHERE IS HE - IS HE HERE. And I came up. HE CAME ALL ACROSS EUROPE TO BE A TALENT SO NOW HE IS GOING TO BE ONE. And then they gave me the badge. Immediately I got some interviews for German TV stations (ZDF, WDR, BR,...). Well OK. We had some workshops and then at the end of the day PARTY again - OPENING TALENT CAMPUS PARTY. Everything was for free. We had a great time

Some things about lectures which were almost all great:

1. DENNIS HOPPER: Well he told his life story and how he in one point in his life he drank 28 beers and 2 litres of GIN in one day and of course took 5g of COCAINE. So that was kinda fun. And he told us everything about how he told all the major people of WARNER BROS to go fuck them selves, and that's why he didn't play in any movies for a long time. And then he played in BLUE VELVET, where he said that the first scene that was shot in this movie was the scene with him shouting that he wants to fuck. Well he said that the actress really didn't have any panties on.

Well let's move on: there are so many things that I would like to talk about: But almost everybody was talking how DIGITAL technology is great and how we are so fortunate to shoot films in digital and that everybody should shoot in digital. DIGITAL is the best. Well I totally liked those speeches. Especially MIKE FIGGIS who was talking about how he made TIME CODE. And how he likes digital because he can shoots very fast and without handling a crew of 70 people, who have to move all the lights and stuff around. And everybody said that digital has progressed a lot and that picture quality will soon not be a problem. Well Mike Figgis even brought his camera which is even smaller then mine. And he talked about problems and how they managed to shoot TIME CODE. And they shot it in 15 takes. And the last one was the best.

Then TOM TYKWER and ANTHONY MINGHELLA had a workshop where I fell asleep. I totally didn't like them. But after the workshop I talked to TYKWER which was totally cool. He told us how he gets ideas for films and how he only wanted to see a women run and that's why he shot RUN LOLA RUN. And for his other movie he only wanted to see a woman lying under the car. And then he made a whole movie out of that: THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR.

OK. SPIKE LEE sucked totally. Because he didn't even want to be there so his answers were mainly YES, NO. Well they were short. But he did mention, that nobody will give you money to shoot your movie and nobody will sponsor your first film and that movie business is the worst business ever. And that it is really to hard to work in this business and so on and on. And that we should again just take cameras and shoot because nobody can tell you how to shoot movies. Either you have ideas and vision and you just go and shoot or you don't and you should maybe be a lawyer. ut again he didn't say much. And I didn't get much out of this lectures. And he didn't even stay after the workshop so we could talk to him as everybody else did. So he just went and didn't say nothing. SPIKE LEE SUCKS.

We also had people from RUSSIAN ARK talking about how they did their movie and what were the problems of shooting the whole movie in one shot. But then MIKE FIGGIS shoot with four cameras and basically shoot four films. So those lectures were quite good.

Well let's again switch to parties: We went on this CUBAN party where the music was the best. And girls also. So that was kinda cool. We also went on this ZDF party where it totally sucked – old fogeys. Bunch of old people. SHOOTING STARS PARTY WAS THE BEST - A good dj. RUSSIAN PARTY was held in Talent campus and was also great. Everything was forfree. Well on all this parties everything was for free. And then we of course went on this Slovenian party where we made quite a commercial for our film and so on and on. And we knew a lot of people there. There were all the actors from SPARE PARTS and so on and on.

But the best party of them all was JUPITER PRIZE PARTY, which are quite like the Oscars in America. GERMAN OSCARS or something. No I think a magazine gives out awards for films. There were all the people from the German film business and I talked to a lot of them. We got in because ALMUT gave me an written invitation with my name on it. We met all the stars from Almut’s movie FICKENDE FICHE there and from DAS EXPERIMENT and of course GOOD BYE LENIN! So that was kinda fun. And there were really a lot of people there. And there was also a red carpet where nobody took pictures of us, but then we started to show our muscles and we started to do some crazy shit and again everybody started taking pictures and we had to give interviews for some TV stations and radios. That was again great fun.

Well at the end of talent campus we knew everybody and everybody knew us. So that was the best. Everybody knew my actor MIKI because he had one of the greatest films there. Where he is dancing quite funny and everybody was laughing. And of course DIETER KOSSLICK is one of the best persons in my life, he is really such a funny guy.

by Mitja Okorn
director of Not Sponsored, Not Sponsored II and the forthcoming Here and There.

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