8-day workshop
In this workshop you will work under expert guidance on your documentary film plan. You will participate in a varied program in which you will be immersed in all the many facets of the documentary profession, together with a small group of passionate participants. The focus is on concept development and writing and honing a film plan. And: there will be great food, lots of movies and great fun!

New dates for this workshop will be communicated early 2025.

Tutors
Two experienced documentary makers are at your disposal: Carin Goeijers and Walter Stokman. Both makers have dozens of (music) documentaries, international festival screenings and film awards to their name. They know the Dutch and international documentary and television world well and have experience as guest lecturers at IDFA workshops and film courses, among others. They also regularly serve as committee members of funds and as jury members for film festivals such as IDFA and the Netherlands Film Festival. 

Programme
The workshop programme includes both individual and group discussions and social activities. We watch films, discuss styles and approaches. Of course, there is plenty of room to discuss your film plan and together you will test it for feasibility and visual-content eloquence. You will also work independently on your film plan, formulating themes and questioning a plan.
You will work on subjects such as 'How do you make a research plan and which elements do you need to cover?' and 'How do you already visualize your film with a few sample scenes?'

This documentary workshop consists of:

-A preparatory talk (by phone or online)
-2 workshop days in Amsterdam incl. coffee, tea and lunch (online participation is possible)
-6 workshop days in a special location (tbd)
-Guidance by Carin and Walter during the workshop
-An individual wrap-up talk (possibly online)
-A number of social activities, movie nights and nature walks 

Ofcourse, you have freedom to plan your own activities outside of the programme.

In this workshop, there is room for approximately 7 participants. For international participants, the working language is English. Age, professional background or previous education do not play a role. Level of ambition and choice of subject are all the more important: we want to put together a group of enthusiastic makers who are a match for each other and who are open to inspiration and new insights. 

New dates for this workshop will be communicated early 2025.

Questions? Please contact me via nienke@bureauvanbeers.nl 

Participation fee
The participation fee is €1,795 ex VAT and travel expenses. This fee covers the entire programma, and activities, food & beverages as mentioned in the Programme section. You will receive a specified invoice. Travel costs to and from the workshop locations are at your own expense and participants are expected toy arrange their own travel/transfer. NOTE: Please make sure to arrange a travel and cancellation insurance. Please see 'Praktische info' for possible funding opportunities.

Cancellation policy
Once you're accepted to the workshop, we expect you to participate and will send you an invoice. So, our notice of admission is binding, only in very exceptional cases will we allow cancellation. This is why we stress again that cancellation insurance is necessary. Further details will be communicated upon the selection of participants.

New dates for this workshop will be communicated early 2025.

Participation fee (and possible support)
The participation fee is €1,795 ex VAT and travel expenses. This fee covers the entire programma, and activities, food & beverages as mentioned in the Programme section. You will receive a specified invoice. Travel costs to and from the workshop locations are at your own expense and participants are expected toy arrange their own travel/transfer to Terschelling. NOTE: Please make sure to arrange a travel and cancellation insurance.

A few FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES we would like to share with you:

-You can apply for a contribution for this workshop at Werktuig voor Ontwikkeling PPO, the best kept subsidy desk in the Netherlands. The application process is super easy and you get a quick response.

-You can investigate whether any of the schemes of the Fonds Bjjzondere Journalistieke Projecten (special Journalism Projects Fund) or the Mondriaan Fund apply to your professional practice.

-Maybe your employer has a budget for training or development you can use this year.

Contact 
nienke@bureauvanbeers.nl 

Carin Goeijers

Carin Goeijers (Breda,1967) studied at Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten and works as a documentary filmmaker. She won a Golden Calf at the Dutch Film Festival in 2000 with 'The New World', about a peasant family on the border of two eras. With 'But Now Is Perfect', a film about the hopes and fears of residents and migrants in the Italian mountain village of Riace, she won the 2018 IDFA Special Jury Award for best Dutch documentary and also prizes at several foreign festivals.

Carin made short and long documentaries on various themes, including dance ('God Is My DJ'), the Limburg band DeWolff ('DeWolff') and honour killings ('Bahar'). She gained fame abroad with I Soeni (2003) about Sinti singer Rein Mercha. She also made the film 'Football Millionaire from East' about young professional footballer Mbark Boussoufa and the sudden fame and wealth that can overwhelm young footballers. Carin immersed herself in the Moluccan community with the docu 'Island of my father', and in this documentary she exposes the pain, anger and grief of three generations of Moluccan freedom fighters. In 2023, her film 'Candy' ran in Dutch cinemas, dubbed 'a musical feel-good movie' in the press, about bandleader and world famous saxophonist Candy Dulfer. In the film, we see Candy's struggle as a bandleader and daughter of vulnerable parents when the pandemic breaks out and she has to fight to keep her head above water. 

Read more about Carin and her films.

Walter Stokman

Walter Stokman (Bodegraven, 1966) studied film at the Kunstacademie in Breda. He has made several documentaries, including 'Let me have it all', about funk musician Sly Stone and 'Can't you hear me singin' about American musicians, from Ike Turner to 'Zydeco Sweetheart' Rosie Ledet. Since 1997, he has also worked as a freelance director for VPRO. For VPRO's music series Loladamusica, he made specials on Keith Caputo (Life of Agony), Kevin Coyne, Super Furry Animals, Motorpsycho and jazz legend Hank Jones, among others. 
His work gained international recognition when he was awarded Best Documentary at the Brooklyn International Film Festival in 2003 and when he won the Golden Calf for his documentary 'ASH WORLDWIDE SUICIDE' (2002).  
In his documentary 'Based on a true story' (2005), he goes back to the real story behind Sidney Lumet's film Dog Day Afternoon. It won a Grand Jury Award at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2005 and was also nominated and officially selected at the Berlinale and Tribeca, New York.
In 'Beautiful in Beaufort-Wes' (2006), he shows a portrait of this South African village with the music and poems of Gert Vlok Nel. The film was nominated for best camera and director at the Netherlands Film Festival (Golden Calf) and won as best documentary at the Dutch TV awards (Golden Picture) 2006.
'Scena del crimine' (2011) is about life in the city of Naples. It is a frame narrative in seven 'scenes'. The film was selected for the 67th Labiennale di Venezia and awarded the Art Competition Jury Prize at the Docu Days film festival, Ukraine. Most recently, Walter Lazu made Duck, a teledoc about the prosecution of a man suspected of murdering his wife during a sailing holiday in Colombia. His latest film The Kyiv Files, about a former KGB archive opened to the public, premiered at IDFA in 2023.

Read more about Walter and his films.

Previous edition and participants
In the Spring of 2024, 6 participants joined the first edition of this workshop. Location: Amsterdam and Moulin du Merle, a country house in Burgundy, France. Among the participants we welcomed:

a retired business man;
an experienced film editor;
a governement communications advisor/ project manager;
2 journalists
a fiction film maker.
This line-up was exactly as diverse as we had envisaged!

Film plans
The film plans of the participants were very diverse in theme and state of advancement. While one wanted to get the basic concept of her story clear by talking a lot with Carin and Walter (preferably during a walk in nature), another experimented with possible angles (from personal to much broader), yet another already edited some opening scenes on the laptop and we watched a lot of films that were close to the participants' choice of subjects.

Films
Prior to the workshop week, participants watched a selection of films by Carin and Walter, and were given film tips appropriate to the theme of their film plan. On location, we watched the following documentaries, among others:

Vaters Garten - Peter Liechti, 2013
When we were Kings - Leon Gast, 1996
Het zwijgen/Familiegeheim - Jaap van Hoewijk, 2001
Stories we Tell - Sarah Polley, 2012

A selection from the participant's reactions:

‘For me, the workshop came at the right time and in the right form. There was a very nice constructive energy. [...] Carin and Walter's commentary was nicely complementary and Nienke's hospitality and care was top notch. So much and good food - could fully concentrate on working on the docu.’

‘Overall: very fun/good initiative, fantastic care & location, very pleasant feedback cq coaching from Carin and Walter.’

In which area the workshop helped the participant further:
‘Good to talk about it and feel where the personal is transcended’, “Daring to write a plan/scenario in concrete terms”, ’I got good insight on how to turn my idea for a documentary into a film plan.’