Strong comittment to Artistic Research at the Norwegian Film School Text: Elin Festøy

Monday, October 5, the Norwegian Film School and NFI:LAB started a new meeting place, a monthly, open "Artistic Research Café", by presenting the entire scope of projects within artistic development work that currently run under the direction of the Film School. Eight different projects exemplify innovative work that covers themes like artificial intelligence, VR, interactive documentary, games, and experimental filmmaking.

- We have an extensive commitment to developmental projects within both the classic film format and, perhaps particularly, towards new, interactive forms of storytelling. In combination with the restructuring of our master's programme, these projects display a variety of new developments in the film format, Fredrik Graver says, vice dean and head of CEFIMA, the Film School's new laboratory for film, TV, and new media.

The projects presented were: Einar Egeland with "True or False", Elin Festøy with "Gerd's Children", Rafal Hanzl with "Ways of Expression", Frederick Howard with "Creating the Creatives", Nadja Lipsyc with "Lone Wolves Stick Together", Cecilie Semec with "A Contemporary Film Image", Bendik Stang with "Creative Processes in Interactive and Multidimensional Storytelling", and Maureen Thomas with "Queens Game".

- We have entered a very exciting time for audiovisual formats, where both altered media habits and technological developments create new opportunities for fascinating storytelling. This also means that we are in a very creative phase, where storytellers from all fields of expertise may experiment and learn a lot from each other. This is an important goal for our new, monthly "Artistic Café", in collaboration with NFI:LAB. We wish to open our doors to a greater extent – invite professionals and interested members of the public, so that we all may participate in a common exploration of new ideas and projects, Graver said.

- This will become an important arena for the entire film business, and we're looking forward to contributing to the creation of a meeting place for increased innovation and cooperation, said Rune Tellefsen, Manager Professional Training, NFI:LAB at the Norwegian Film Institute.

These artistic projects at CEFIMA, as well as the restructured master's programme are now to a greater degree mixing candidates with different professional backgrounds to create meeting places with crossing fields of expertise.

- New dynamics occur when students and artists with backgrounds in film, games, TV and other digital media meet and work together. This broader mix of expertise is also representative of the media world we will see increasingly more of in the time to come, and that our future students will work in. We want to build an including and creative environment that will strengthen both the Norwegian Film School as an educational institution and, through the collaboration with NFI:LAB, the Norwegian film industry, and we hope that this meeting place will be an enjoyable and creative contribution to this work, Karin Julsrud says, dean at the Norwegian Film School.

The monthly series starts January 28th, 2019.