3 hour talk (my longest talk ever) at Newschool.

April 27th, 2011,
2 West 13th, Room 1204
1 pm

i-Docs is a lab/symposium dedicated to the rapidly evolving field of interactive documentary. A day in Bristol where the makers and explorers of web-based-documentaries meet. I have the honor to give the last talk of the day. I will talk about Planet Galata and how ARTE television forced me to make a linear film. Planet Galata exists in two versions: There is a Korsakow-film forever on the internet and a linear Film, that was broadcasted on television on a day in autumn last year. I might be the only person in the world that ever made his first linear film for television with a background of pure nonlinear filmmaking. From my perspective it look like that: Linear film is a monster that demands it sacrifices – it forces the author to get rid of protagonists, and it makes him lie – all that for the sake of fitting the film’s truth. I can prove that – I will prove that in my talk!

This is the second time will I give that talk. The first time was at Matt Soar’s class in Montreal a couple of weeks ago. In that talk everything went wrong, that could go wrong. Technically. Looking forward for version 2!

i-Docs 2011 will be held at the Watershed Media Centre in Bristol.

March 25th, 2011, 16:20 – 18:00 hrs

„The Art Of Flying“ – „Der Traum vom Fliegen“ is the title of a big exhibition, that takes place at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. „Everyone has the capacity to fly“ take your chance and fly with Ingold Airlines to Istanbul and visit the people of Planet Galata. Departure weekdays (except Tuesdays) from 11am to 7pm.

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, March 3rd – Mai 8th.

www.planetgalata.com

Matt Soar, my friend and colleague, who is with me (and programmer Dave Reisch) on the Korsakow-Development-Team did an interview with me about [small world], my first nonlinear and interactive work, published in 1997. The interview was done for Nomorepotlucks, a canadian-based journal of art, politics and culture:

Langsamkeit: Telling Stories in a Small World

Berlinale is over. (I did not go there.) I was one of three nominated for best documentary at the German Web Video Award in Essen (see blog-entry below (if you speak German)). The honorary jury award went to mopeten.de for a 17minute video about a trip of 8 guys on motorbikes („the idea was convincing: 1000 miles in 24 hours“) the audience-award to the short film „Freddy“ about a friendly and funny guy that masters life in a wheelchair (cool description of how the film was shot, which camera and software used on director’s Roman Michel’s blog). Only 7sons did not win a price. Therefore I was picked up at the airport in Istanbul in a black limousine and I had the pleasure to get squeezed into the car with the winners of Berlinale First Feature Award. „On the Ice“ – director Andrew MacLean showed me a photo of him and Wim Wenders on his mobile phone. That was cool! They were driven to their hotel from where I had to walk to my friend’s house: I have the pleasure to stay with Berke Bas – my co-director of Planet Galata. And, as winning producer of „On the Ice“ Cara Marcous said: „There is nothing better than staying at a home.“ – Right!

Planet Galata will be screened in Istanbul:

Wednesday, February, 23rd, 15:00 – 17:30 hrs

http://ifistanbul.com/blog/?tag=planet-galata

Montreal based journalist Frédéric Dubois wrote a great article about Korsakow for the Memfest-Blog. Highly recommended!

Korsakow, from film cuts & software codes

Poetics of Online Documentary at Hot Docs documentary festival in Toronto, Canada.

Maybe you’ve heard of the internet and how everybody is going to be watching documentaries online in, well, soon. But will they look like documentaries as we know them? Panelists will present samples of online works and discuss the emergence of new doc forms.

Thursday May 6 | 11:00am – 12:15pm
Location: Rogers Industry Centre.

Moderator: Ana Serrano | Director, CFC Media Lab (Canada)

Participants:
Annette Bradford | Online Producer, CBC Documentary Unit, CBC (Canada)
Katerina Cizek | Director/Coordinator, HIGHRISE, National Film Board of Canada (Canada)
David Oppenheim | Head of Development / Interactive Producer, Kensington Communications Inc. (Canada)
Florian Thalhofer | Director, Korsakow (Germany)

Update: Kelly Anderson & Lindsay Gibb wrote an article about the panel.

Students at the Bilgi-University in Istanbul produce short video-clips for the ARTE-Istanbul website. The videos will go online in May. The workshop is led by Sabine Lange (ARTE, Strasbourg) and myself.

March 1 – 3, 2010

My mother is proud. I am invited to give the keynote-talk at the Documentary Now! conference in London. I will talk about storytelling, the Korsakow-way of thinking and the history of the Korsakow-System (Korsakow will turn 10 years this fall).  I will also show exepts of my Korsakow-films and explain how the world works.

Saturday 16 January | 4:30 – 6:00 pm
Birkbeck Main Building (Malet Street/Torrington Square)

A new exhibition is on at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The very last piece in the exhibition is a Korsakow-Film:

What does koscher mean to you?

Religious, traditional and secular Jews from different generations and different
cultural backgrounds ponder the significance of the dietary laws in their lives. They talk about the many possibilities of living out traditions, interpreting laws and designing identities in a non-Jewish environment.

October 9, 2009 – February 28, 2010
Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Director: Ruth Olshan, Camera: Simone Schmid, Dietmar Ratsch
Sound: Matthias Pätsch, Edit: Kathrine Granlund
Concept: Media-Department of the Jewish Museum Berlin
Made with the Korsakow-System by Florian Thalhofer | Berlin, 2009

With:
Aviel Avdar mit Katrin Wank, Hillel Ben Sasson, Inge Borck (geb. David), Benjamin, Shulamit Jakobi, Rachel Kohn mit Familie, Yael und Shelly, Chris Merritt, Irina Rosensaft, Irene Runge mit Igor Chalmiev und Andreas Poetke, Shlomit Tulgan

Questions asked by:
Monika Flores, Dagmar Ganßloser, Edna Herlinger, Henriette Kolb, Mirjam Wenzel

“Sheik Suellim has seven sons” Maher says proudly.
“Seven Sons, and not one daughter?” I wonder.
“Seven sons,” Maher replies, “and further more six daugthers.”

7 Sons is now available online watch in any browser:

www.7sons.com

The Documentary Film School ZeLIG in Bolzano turn twenty. They have invited me to talk:

Samstag/Sabato 29.11.08 | 14.30-16.30
Non-linear, interactive: new ways of storytelling
Seminar by Florian Thalhofer

And there is much more: download the Flyer

Talk at Concordia University, Montréal, Canada

On Monday October 20th at 10.15am in CJ 1.114, Berlin-based media artist Florian Thalhofer will be giving a lecture about the emergent medium of database narrative. Specifically, this talk will focus on his development of the Korsakow System, a free authoring tool for creating interactive narrative works.

Florian will also show excerpts from a series of database documentaries he has created over the past eight years using Korsakow, exploring themes such as nationalism, identity, class and consumerism. This event is part of a three-week residency at Concordia sponsored by CINERG, and is open to grad students, senior undergrads, and faculty. (NB Space is limited since this talk will be part of a regular class.) Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

London
Oct 27 – Nov 1 | Moving Image Lab @ B3 Media London

Amsterdam
Nov 21 – Nov 26 | Any Media Documentary Workshop @ IDFA

I always thought I am Mr. Gadget. Maybe it is George.

Dear All,

Florian Thalhofer the developer of the Korsakow software will be doing a presentation of his work and a preview of the Sam the Wheels Korsakow project at the 198 Gallery on Friday the 15th of August at 7.30pm.

Please email your interest in coming to see his presentation to
info@mutinyarts.co.uk

Cheers
George

Together with the Cinedans Festival, Mediamatic present a hands-on workshop on interactive dance film with a focus on interactive film installations.

Amsterdam, 30 June – 4 July 2008

Price:
€ 420
€ 300 (for people from new EU countries)

EsoDoc is a EU’s Media Plus training initiative that encourages documentary film makers to work in the areas of human rights, social justice and environmental protection. ESoDoc offers three 1-week sessions held over a 6-month period, during which participants develop a documentary film projects.
I am invited as a teacher, to meet up with a fantastic group of people from all over Europe. The first session of this workshop takes place in a christian monastery (the second time I am in christian monastery, this year). It is a cool place in North-Italy, in the middle of the mountains.

May 31 – June 6, 2008
Kloster Neustrift – Abbazia di Novacella, Bressanone, Italy