About us
Are you passionate about film making? Are you a professional looking for new opportunities and challenges? Are you a film lover curious how to get started? If you have experience behind or in front of the camera, or just starting up with dreams and aspirations - bring your talent and let's work together to make independent films. We are a group of passionate film creators focused on development, creativity and production of film in Berlin. We also offer help, film equipment, advice and all that goes into a film project.
The purpose of our community is to :
1. develop ideas for films, either narrative or documentary
2. build partnerships so that films can get shot andÂ
3. building the team/crew and shoot the short film(s)
4. educateÂ
4. If you already have an ongoing project and you need help/crew, this can be the group for you.
We want to stress is that we are not here to select or have opinions about what type of films you want to develop, it can be of any type or genre. The more diverse the better! But we do want to get started and shoot as soon as possible so that we get to start working together and learn more together.
Not all of us will work on all projects, you choose freely what project you want to get involved with and in what capacity. The community will support and assist all projects and facilitate planning and meetings and also create our own ideas together with you. And for those of you who don't have a massive experience already - this will be an excellent opportunity to get down and dirty and learn by doing :)
Upcoming events
4
More than Human in Filmmaking
·OnlineOnlineLevelBeginner - No previous experience required
Must be at least 15 years old
LanguageEnglish
DateSAT, JUN 20, 2026 · 11:00 – 13:00
Cost€25.00
LocationOnline
Contact linda@berlinfilmcommunity.com
Enrol here: https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=more-than-human-in-filmmaking
BFC members pay €22 - save €3 on this course.
Membership costs €30/year and includes 10% off all workshops plus member-only events.
Log in or join BFC while enrolling.In this 2-hour session, I will draw on indigenous knowledge, academic perspectives, and other sources to challenge the centrality of human narratives.
Together, we will explore how cinematic action can elevate the often unseen beings that we share our world with. I'll share practical techniques to decontextualize human-focused perspectives and incorporate the more-than-human into creative visual practices. This seminar will open new possibilities for storytelling, inviting a deeper connection to the natural and beyond-human world.## What YouWill Learn
- Introduction to an Ecological Frameworks in Visual Storytelling
- How Posthuman Theories challenge Anthropocentric Narratives
- Multimodal and Sensory Approaches in Filmmaking
- Indigenous Knowledge and Relational Ethics
- Recent Works (2023-2026) by Filmmakers and Artists
- Practical Techniques for Decentering Human Narratives
- How to open New Creative Possibilities
## Workshop Mentor
Linda Paganelli is an artist, anthropologist, and filmmaker integrating more than human perspectives in her storytelling. Drawing on over 13 years of experience across diverse contexts, Linda guides participants toward non-extractive, ethically grounded visual practices that challenge dominant knowledge paradigms and foreground embodied positionalities. Since 2018, she has been working with More-Than-Human frameworks, creating short documentaries such as Journey of Waves and Imprinted, as well as installations including Carbon Spa in collaboration with scientists from the university of Twente (Netherlands) and ECO-MOURNING developed through the Community of Practice with CitizensLab (Germany). Her practice center interspecies relationships, ecological interdependence, and the agency of non-human beings in visual storytelling.
Enrol here: https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=more-than-human-in-filmmaking
12 attendees
TURNING RESEARCH INTO A DOCUMENTARY
·OnlineOnlineLevel Beginner - No previous experience required
Must be at least 15 years old
Language English
Date SAT, JUL 4, 2026 · 14:00 – 16:00
Cost €25.00/ Students €17.00/Unemployed €12.00 (must show a proof)
Location Online
Contact linda@berlinfilmcommunity.com
Enrol here: https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=turning-research-into-a-documentaryBFC members pay €22 - save €3 on this course.
Membership costs €30/year and includes 10% off all workshops plus member-only events.
Log in or join BFC while enrolling.In this 2-hour online seminar, we will delve into how research can be transformed into powerful documentary narratives through multimodal expressions. We will critically examine the myth of neutrality in field research and explore the Theory of the Occasion as a means to engage with positionality and embodied knowledge. This session challenges participants to unlearn traditional scientific narratives and embrace creative, ethical approaches that honor complexity and subjectivity in storytelling. Whether you are a filmmaker, researcher, artist, academic, activist, or simply curious about this topic, this seminar invites you to rethink the relationship between knowledge production and representation through concrete examples and reflective practice.
***
## What You Will Learn
- Understanding multimodal expressions in documentary storytelling
- Deconstructing the myth of neutrality in field research
- Applying the Theory of the Occasion to creative narrative
- The role of positionality in shaping research-based documentaries
- Strategies to unlearn scientific narrative frameworks
- Analyzing concrete examples from documentary projects
- Embracing reflexivity and ethical responsibility in filmmaking
## Workshop Mentor
Linda Paganelli is an artist, anthropologist, and filmmaker who blends decolonial and queer*feminist perspectives with immersive visual storytelling. With over 13 years of experience collaborating with universities, museums, and cultural institutions, Linda draws on her extensive field research conducted in Afghanistan, Palestine/Israel, and the South West Balkans. She guides you through intimate, ethical, and inclusive filmmaking practices that honor memory, resistance, and more-than-human worlds.
3 attendees- €1.00
Cinema Camera Workshop: Professional Film Camerawork
Space Meduza, Skalitzer Strasse 80, Berlin, al, DE***
Note: In order to attend you must register and pay at https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=cinema-camerawork-workshop***
Level: Beginner.
The workshop is conducted in English and costs 299€.
If you become a member you get the first year of membership included in this price. If you are already a member you get 10% off of this workshop as well as all educational courses, plus loads more.
Find out the full member benefits below.
https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/membership.phpIf you’re looking to advance your filmmaking knowledge by learning the tools and techniques that will get your camera knowledge ready for a film set, this workshop will help you take several big steps down that road. You will learn not just the camera technology, but also how to apply it, because while filmmaking is very technical, that technical knowledge is only a means to an end, which is to give you more time to spend on the creative aspects of filmmaking.
This will be a heavily hands-on workshop that will be a mix of information, demonstration and practical exercise. You will learn how to setup a film camera, what all the parts do, many of the camera settings and how they are used in different shooting situations. Together as a team we will plan out and shoot a pre-scripted scene. However, before planning the shoot we will review the camerawork theory and reasoning behind shot selection. This exercise will familiarize you not only with technical camera information, but also how to operate quickly in order to allow more time for creativity.
Everyone in the class will get the opportunity to setup the cinema camera, use all the accessories, and shoot part of the scene.
If you have any questions or would like to know more, feel free to reach out to me at alex(at)berlinfilmcommunity(dot)com.
Schedule:
Day 1:
Saturday, July 18th – 09:00 – 16:00- Cameras used in professional filmmaking
- Mid-level and pro-level Film Cameras
- What to look for when renting equipment
- Event, documentary, and narrative camera choices at different budgets
Codecs and bit depth
- Raw, Log, compressed codecs
- Picture profiles and LUT’s
- Bit depth explained
- Sensor size and crop factor
- Dynamic range explained
Exposure and exposure tools
- False color, Waveform, Histogram, Zebras
- Protecting your highlights
- Exposing your subject correctly – skin tones
- Light meters & lighting ratios with demonstration
- Maintaining consistency between shots
Focus
- Wireless follow focus – setup and use
- Focus monitor and peaking
- Creating marks and measuring distance
Tools of the trade & misc. camera knowledge dump
- Filters – when to use which filter
- Tripods and heads
- Slating (clapper) and set commands
- Video Village monitor setup
- High capacity batteries
- Rolling shutter and moiré – how to minimize their effect
- Pushing footage until it breaks to learn your camera’s limits
Building up a cinema camera
- Cinema lenses, follow focus, focus monitor, wireless transmitter, & video village monitor.
- In camera settings – white balance, frame rate, shutter speed, exposure
- Q&A & Review
Day 2:
Sunday, July 19th – 09:00 – 16:00Scene breakdown
- Breaking down the scene we will be shooting
- Shot list, storyboard analysis
- Determining which shots to group together & why
- Estimating time for setup
Setting up the camera in a group
- Group work - Setup the camera to be ready to shoot.
- Creating shooting schedule and shot list
Shooting the scene
- Shoot the scripted scene using the schedule and shot list.
- Everyone rotating through all roles
- Review of the raw footage
About the Workshop Leader
Hi, I’m Alex DePew and I will be your guide on this filmmaking adventure. I have been working in the film industry for over 16 years and have led many filmmaking workshops. I absolutely love teaching beginners the ropes. I get tons of joy when I see someone light up as they make a connections between what I am teaching and something they have seen in a movie. And when they apply that knowledge to their own film it is a thing of beauty.***Please go to the below link to register and for the full information.***
https://berlinfilmcommunity.com/course.php?slug=cinema-camerawork-workshop2 attendees
Past events
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