International Filmmakers Panel

Reviewed by Ashley Gatimu. Viewed behind the Lobero Theater at the SBIFF.

Directors, producers, writers, cinematographers, actors, actresses, and so much more all come together for the great annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival each year. One of the best features of this festival is all the amazing and creative work people submit from all corners of the world. Truly Santa Barbara’s festival wouldn’t have the same feel each year without the International’s that come each year. This year’s International Filmmakers seminar was held in a tent behind the Lobero Theater and had quite the impressive line up. The line up included Steven Chen (DIRECTOR), Ivona Juka (DIRECTOR), Alessio Lauria (DIRECTOR, SCREENWRITER), Svetozar Ristovski (DIRECTOR), and Gerd Schneider (DIRECTOR). While the time was short, they sat down to talk to us about funding for films, advice, experiences, and their love for filmmaking.

Steven Chen is a director and his movie Dreamland is featured in the festival. Chen openly admitted to funding this movie all by himself, although he doesn’t advice others doing the same. He says it’s pretty cheap to shoot in Cambodia (where his film took place) and that he’s a fan of loose script, or in other words improv.

Ivona Juka is a Croatian and Montenegrin film director, and her film You Carry Me is featured in the festival this year. Ivona noted that Croatia has the wealthiest film funding industry and private investments. In Croatia, you have to have permission by the government to even shoot on the streets. Ivan says the biggest obstacle for making movies is the language barrier.

Alessio Lauria, who is a screenwriter, grew up north of Italy and currently lives and works in Rome. His movie MONITOR was featured in the festival this year and he was happy to talk with us. He says he won over $200,000 to do this film and half of the actors you see in the movie are actually students. He owns up to making a lot of mistakes during this film, but we give him credit being this is his first feature film!

Svetozar Ristovski, who is a director, was born in Macedonia but now resides in Canada. He received all of the funds for his movie LAZAR from public funding. He admits it took well over three years to get but was well worth it in the end. He says the greatest aspect to look for when finding funding for your film is to know who you’re targeting. When films represent culture, you should be targeting that specific business in that culture.

Gerd Schneider, who is a director, had to leave early due to double scheduling. But while it was short it was most definitely sweet. He shared with us that his film The Culpable took seven and a half years in the making and that in Germany filmmakers must go through their government to get financing for a film. So that’s exactly what they did, and received over one million eruo’s to make this film. Because the German’s financed the film but the the whole cast and crew were not German, the Germans wanted a say in a lot of what had to go on with the movie. Gerd wasn’t having it though, and tried to stay ahead of the film’s creative planning as much as possible.