Collaborative documentary: HEY! Tell me your story
Based on a holistic approach, the HEY! project aims to strengthen the capacities of young people, especially those with fewer opportunities. 2nd Phase: November – April 2022.
Development of the workshop: November 19th to 25th, 2022.
Registration form open until 16 November.
“HEY! Tell Me Your Story!” It is a storytelling workshop, and a place for meeting and collective reflection on the difficulties experienced by the young population during the transition to adulthood. A space where our story(s) become a tool through which to collectivise common problems, desires and paths.
Over the course of a weekend, we will reflect on the insecurities caused by the search for employment and economic independence, the right to quality public education, mental health care and social activism. mental health care and social activism. Challenging our idea of success, while collectivising possible solutions and inspiring proposals that can help us build other perspectives that respond to our needs.
The storytelling workshop, guided by Larissa Figueiredo – educator, filmmaker, writer and dancer – is also presented as a narrative laboratory where to transform these individual concerns into collective stories, generating a collaborative documentary and a device that can be remedy and vindication, a tool through which to think ourselves from the revolutionary power of the collective, aware of our capacities as agents of social change.
This project is part of the Erasmus+ KA220- YOU Cooperation partnerships in Youth programme and is carried out in collaboration with 7 partner organisations from 6 European countries (CY, ITA, IE, FR, SP, PT). As a result we will present 6 documentaries, one for each country.
Programme
1º Session: Map of challenges.
During the 1st session, we will create a safe and comfortable environment in which participants could feel secure to share their personal experiences.
The project and its activities will be presented along with the data and conclusions reached during the PR1, setting the basis for the results produced at the end of the PR2. The different challenges experienced by young people regarding employment, education, life conditions, physical and mental well-being, rights and social and political activism, during the process of their re-integration and inclusion in the society will be presented, alongside with common needs, strengths, vulnerabilities and opportunities that this situation creates.
In order to organize and visualize these ideas, we will create:
1) A collective map that will contain these five aspects, including: a) employment, b) education, c) living conditions, d) mental and physical health and e) rights and political and social activism in regard to the process of reintegration and inclusion in society. This will become a common working space that will help each partner organization identify the main topics that will be addressed in the documentary.
Identifying and sharing common problems is a basic tool for being able to tackle these issues.
During the second part of this session, we will develop some exercises to encourage participants to put their ideas into sounds and images. After being familiar with this methodology, each participant will choose a word from the collective map to be described in sounds and images, and based on that idea, participants will be invited to write a small scene.
2º Session: Our story.
The first half of the 2º session will be dedicated to theoretical aspects of storytelling. A brief History of Cinema will be introduced, as well as the differences between writing for literature and writing for the screen.
In the second part of the session, participants will be divided into three groups based on three themes -following their interests- chosen from: a) employment, b) education, c) living conditions, d) mental and physical health and e) rights and political and social activism in regard to the process of reintegration and inclusion in society.
Participants from each group will share the scenes they have developed during the previous session and together, we will discuss how to elaborate a creative documentary structure, mixing poetical images with interviews (that will be realized during the first 3 sessions of the workshops with the participants)
3º Session: Imaging our film.
During the 1st hour participants will work -divided into the same subgroups of the previous session- in the screenwriting practice. Departing from the first scenes developed by the participants and their discussions of previous sessions, we will elaborate structured screenplays. Each group will develop the script of their correspondent theme. For example, an idea could be to narrate aspects such as finding a job when returning to your own country from abroad, dealing withcclimate and economic crises, idea of success, lifepaths and future options we visualize ahead. Ideas will vary according to the needs and interests of each group.
During the second part, we will discuss what they have produced and how to organize the shootings. At the end of the session, participants will reach common conclusions on the visuals of the documentary.
4º Session: Filming our visions.
Following the individual interviews developed during the previous sessions, in which had been gathering some personal stories, the 4th session will be devoted to filming and finalizing the documentary. Participants will work together to complete all the sections of the documentary, as discussed and decided at the beginning of the workshop.
This will be achieved with the support of our technicians and local facilitators.
Filming will be performed indoors and outdoors according to each group’s ideas during the workshops.
The 4th session will complete the filming procedure undertaken during the other sessions.
Participants will have 1h for preparation and 1h for shooting. They will not be required to attend all shootings, only their group shooting.
5º Session. Editing.
During this session, we will watch the material produced during the shooting, and propose an editing screenplay together.