ZeLIG School for Documentary, Television and New Media

In these days we have the privilege of hosting students and teachers from the Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute of Kolkata, India.

Two schools, two geographies, South Tyrol and Bengal, held together by the same love for filmmaking and by the strong belief that film is above all a way of paying attention to the world.

We are spending these days together watching films, analysing images and sounds, writing projects.

Cinema remains one of the few languages capable of holding distance and closeness within the same frame.

The first year is behind them.

We have just closed the first year of our three-year programme in creative documentary: months spent watching films, writing, shooting, editing, and learning how to look.

Now, each of them steps into specialisation: apparently their paths divide, but still remain a collective since all the practical activities will be made in groups.

The year was tiring, full of activities: not everything was perfect but perfection does not exist; we are proud of how far they've come and impatient to see what they'll make.

Everybody talks about teamwork; film schools, production companies, jobs ads - they all talk about it.

But who’s actually teaching it?
The excerpts featured in this carousel come from "È un’impresa fare un film" by Carlo Cresto-Dina, a reflection on cinema as collective work, and on everything the industry rarely teaches about collaboration.

Because making a film is about learning how to function together.
Carrying cases at 6 AM, waiting, listening, solving problems under pressure, trusting each other, trying again.

We believe cinema is collective long before it becomes personal and that the ability to work with others matters just as much as talent, technique or authorship.

That’s why we are a community even before we are a school.

Three ZeLIG graduation films have been selected at CinemAmbiente in Turin.
Three different ways of looking at the relationship between humans, memory and territory.

AVERNO - by Filippo Maria Pontiggia, Mara Godino and Giulia Epifani- will celebrate its World Premiere at the festival.
An experimental film set in the Campi Flegrei area, where volcanic activity becomes both a geological condition and a social metaphor. A territory suspended between bradyseism, waiting, pressure and collective memory.

TORNERANNO I LUPI - by Bianca Vallino, Esther Kreiner and Elisa Cabbai - continues its festival journey after recently returning from Bellaria Film Festival, where it received two awards: Best Movie in the Gabbiano competition and the MYmovies ONE Audience Award.

MEMENTO MURI - by Jonathan Bugiel, Annieke Boer and Susanna Laruccia - arrives at CinemAmbiente shortly after its presentation at DOK.fest München. Along the Atlantic coast, abandoned bunkers remain as silent witnesses embedded in the landscape.

film .shortfilm

Il 28 maggio Briciole viene proiettato a Gardolo (Tn), nella Sala don Motter della Parrocchia, per un evento che mette il cinema in dialogo con il territorio e con le persone che lo abitano.

Diretto da Francesca Biaggi, con Sebastian Andreaus e Jana Rizzolli alla fotografia e Aldo Masini al montaggio, Briciole nasce attorno al Forno Sociale Migola e alle relazioni costruite attraverso il cibo, la cura e il tempo condiviso.

Ci sono spazi comunitari (associazioni, sale di quartiere, scuole, biblioteche) in cui i film non si limitano a passare, ma restano, sedimentano, diventano patrimonio condiviso, esperienza comune, occasione di incontro.

📍 28 maggio ore 20.00
Sala don Motter – Parrocchia di Gardolo

A seguire: conversazioni e racconti attorno al forno sociale.

Francesca Biaggi

Can cinema help imagine change?

On May 27, ZeLIG collaborates with Lungomare, Universitat Politècnica de València and the Eco-Social Design Master of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano for Progettare il cambiamento, an evening of screenings and conversation exploring ecosocial transformations through cinema, research and collective imaginaries.

The programme also includes ¿ME ENTIENDES? (2022) by Otto Lazić-Reuschel, Angela Disanto and Julia Inderst, graduation film of 2022.

🗓 May 27 · 19.00
📍 Lungomare, Bolzano

More info on Lungomare’s website.

We’re already approaching the end of an intense first year, and our students are now deep into the editing phase of their short films.

Developing a project also means learning through dialogue, collaboration and confrontation with professionals who bring years of experience into the process.

This week, each group will work on their rough cuts together with Luca Mandrile, an Italian editor and filmmaker working mainly in documentary cinema. Over the years, he has collaborated on award-winning films such as Faith by Valentina Pedicini, Dal Profondo, Un Altro Me and Gaza Hospital.
Alongside editing, he has also developed audiovisual workshops and collaborative documentary projects with the collective TodoModo.

While our first-year students are deep into developing their projects, the past month have been full of workshops, festivals and collaborations. Still in motion.

At the beginning of the month, we hosted a workshop with Jan Sebening (Head of the Student Award Program Selection and moderator at DOK.fest München) focused on using group feedback as a development tool: not just to improve a project, but to better understand what you actually want to say.

Then came Bolzano Film Festival Bozen, a central moment for our students to step into a real festival environment. They had the chance to interview guests including Montse Triola, Andreas Pichler, Ottavia Piccolo and Ulrike Ottinger; seven of them served on the jury for the ZeLIG Award, which went to "The Loneliest Man in Town" by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel. During the festival, filmmaker and producer Marta Andreu generously spent time with our students, offering project consultations and sharing her perspective on their work in progress.

The festival also featured several films connected to ZeLIG: "Memento Muri" (graduation film by Jonathan Bugiel, Annieke Boer and Susanna Laruccia); "Far finta che" by Anna Ciju and Filippo Maria Pontiggia, which received the IDM Commission Südtirol Award for Best Euregio Short Film; and "Il rospo e il diamante" by Beniamino Casagrande (ESoDoc 2024).

At the same time, MASO brought 18 filmmakers together in a shared atelier hosted in our spaces.

On April 19, "Torneranno i lupi", graduation film by Bianca Vallino, Esther Kreiner and Elisa Cabbai, had its World Premiere at Visions du Réel in Nyon, continuing its journey shortly after at ZagrebDox.

A dense month, with many entry points into the same ecosystem: learning, making, sharing, and meeting others along the way.

MEMENTO MURI, another Diploma film of our member, the ZeLIG School for Documentary, Television and New Media, is travelling to DOK.fest München .

The film, nominated for the Student Award, is running in the Dok.Shorts Programme and will have 3 screenings:
Friday, 8 May, 21.00h
Saturday, 9 May, 20.30h
Saturday, 16 May, 15.30h

Good luck to all the team.

It's tonight!

MEMENTO MURI, another Diploma film of our member, the ZeLIG School for Documentary, Television and New Media, is travelling to DOK.fest München .

The film, nominated for the Student Award, is running in the Dok.Shorts Programme and will have 3 screenings:
Friday, 8 May, 21.00h
Saturday, 9 May, 20.30h
Saturday, 16 May, 15.30h

Good luck to all the team.