Lab of Cultural, Creative and Festival Journalism

The lab of cultural, creative and festival journalism seeks to form a community of future cultural journalists. The lab will be held at Sevilla film festival (Spain), Les arcs film festival (France) and Trieste film festival (Italy), with prior online training addressed to all participants.

3rd LAB of Cultural, Creative and Festival Journalism is an initiative organised by the European Festival Network MIOB. It is a project financed jointly by the European Union within the framework of Film Festivals networks action and it is free for the selected grant-holders.

They are convinced that the quality cinema, the cinema in which they believe in and that they promote, should be appreciated through analysis, thought and discussion. Auteur cinema cannot be understood without film criticism and cinema journalism, since these genres have systematically contributed to highlighting and understanding the constant changes of cinematographic art. Despite the difficult moment that cinema journalism is going through, they are aware that there is a new generation of critics and cinema journalists who have their own way of writing and expressing themselves in a totally different way than their senior colleagues. By doing this, they would like to promote these new voices, offering them the opportunity to attend European events. As festivals, they also need the talented people they bring to the cities to express themselves and have visibility in the traditional media and on the Internet. The main goal is to promote the training of journalists specialised in culture, who can benefit from tutored, tailor-made training with top-level specialists in cultural journalism and who can experience field work at a film festival. It is a unique and concrete opportunity to support future cultural journalists.

Cost Covered

• 3rd Young Cultural Journalists LAB will cover the costs of travel, accommodation, subsistence allowance and festival accreditation.

What the Selected Participants will do?

• The selected participants will create content for the festivals and for MIOB websites, with interviews to film crews, articles and any other proposal the festival or the selected candidates may have. The articles, once their quality standards are reviewed, will be uploaded to the attended festival website and to the MIOB website.

Parts of the LabThey are looking for up to 18 young Europeans who are keen to learn journalistic resources focused on the cultural field, especially cinema. This lab combines online training, with 4 previous training sessions and face-to-face practical training at the Seville European Film Festival or European Film Forum Scanorama, Les Arcs Film Festival and Trieste Film Festival.

• Online Training
  • 4 preparatory online sessions with top-level experts in European cultural journalism (empathic interview, the creative critic, the documented article and report, digital and audiovisual journalism, press department work, etc.) in early November.
• On-Site Training
  • Participants will be divided into 3 groups of a maximum 6 persons to ensure fulfilling practice. Each group will attend one film festival:
    • 21st European Film Forum Scanorama (Lithuania): 6 days, 5 nights between 9 – 19 November 2023 or 20th Seville European Film Festival (Spain): 4 days, 3 nights last week of November 2023;
    • 15th Les Arcs Film Festival (France): 6 days, 5 nights between 16 – 23 December 2023;
    • 35th Trieste Film Festival (Italy): 6 days, 5 nights between 23 – 28 January 2024.

Applicants Requirements

• Under 32 years old;
• Passion about cinema and culture;
• A university degree or a university student;
• Proficient in written and spoken English;
• Provable experience of cultural articles, especially film-related articles in any format: print, video, audio or online media or other creative form of a daily report or Q&A events.

For more information, visit Trieste Film Festival.