A conversation on artistic research in cinema as a vital incubator for innovative filmmaking, away from standardized narratives, through the project Politics of Intimacy: a collaboration between Norwegian Film School and HFBK University of Arts Hamburg. This talk opens a conversation on artistic research in film and its potential to foster innovative approaches to cinematic storytelling, away from the prescriptions of standardized (documentary) filmmaking. It offers a closer look at the research project Politics of Intimacy and Intimacy of Politics, a collaboration between prof. Lotte Mik-Meyer of the Norwegian Film School – Master for Conceptual Documentary, and prof. Adina Pintilie of the HFBK University of Arts Hamburg – Film department, in close cooperation with Arne Bro, former Head of Documentary at the National Film School of Denmark.

Emerging from Bro’s and Mik-Meyer’s many years of experience in mentoring, this research-based methodology has brought outstanding directors to international screens, with thought-provoking artistic approaches to our contemporary reality. Joining forces with filmmaker Adina Pintilie for the Politics of Intimacy project, they bring together young upcoming filmmakers with diverse backgrounds, from Colombia, Brazil, Belarus, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Norway. We will get a glimpse into how these artists develop their authentic, uncompromising voices, on the fluid boundary between lived experience and cinematic imagination, between the personal and the political. We will also explore how the film industry, and our democratic society at large, can both benefit from, and support such spaces for a diverse artistic development, in the various training and film production stages.

Moderator: Adina Pintilie (Professor for Film at HFBK University of Arts Hamburg, Germany)

Speakers: Lotte Mik-Meyer (Head of Conceptual Documentary (Mfa) at the Norwegian Film School), Arne Bro (former Head of the Documentary Department at the National Film School of Denmark)

Participating artists: Morgana de Mello, Hugo Francker, Bo Friedrich, Juno Jense, Max Kestner, Merle Morze, Kristina Savutsina , Marie Suul Brobakke, Jostein Venås