From 24-28 June, a group of artists and cultural operators participated in a series of professional development workshops run by Reactor in partnership with Para Film & Teater (Norway) and Váróterem Projek (Cluj-Napoca), which took place at a location in the Apuseni Mountains.

The workshops aimed at sharing new methods and tools for working in multi-ethnic communities, both artistically, organisationally and managerially, and were curated by the Norwegian partners. The two trainers were Gianluca Iumiento (for the artistic workshops) and Ishak Jalimam (management workshops).

Gianluca Iumiento is an Italian theater and film director, actor, and acting coach. After studying philosophy at the Universityof Pisa, he graduated from the Italian National Film School, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, under the supervision of Academy Award Nominated Actor Giancarlo Giannini. From January 2012 to January 2019, he actedas Head of Acting at the National Academy of the Arts of Oslo (KHiO), where he taught acting and directing classes. Iumiento is currently working as an actingprofessor at The Italian National Film School in Rome CSC, where he teachesacting classes to first and third-year acting students. He has worked since2000 as both an actor and a director in several ensemble theaters, festivals, film and TV, while concurrently creating and then curating two acting festivals: the Metodi Festival in Italy and the Oslo International Acting Festival in Norway. He directed a feature film titled "November Oslo," and his plays have performed in some of the most important European Theaters, such as Det Norske Teatret, Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Teatr Polski in Wroclaw, Kilden Teater in Kristiansand, and many others.

Ishak Jalimam has graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, Department of Production and Management. He currently works at the Sarajevo Film Festival as CineLink Industry Days Coordinator, and coordinates Dealing with the Past program, and is the head of the Festivals' educational segment. He is also the producer of the Sarajevo War Theater. He works as a producer of the International High School Theater Festival: Juventafest, and as a technical director of the International Theater Festival MESS. He has worked on many films shown at these festivals: Sundance Film Festival, La Biennale di Venezia, Sarajevo Film Festival, Dokufest, Nashville Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Doxa Documentary Festival, Hot Docs International Film Festival etc. Founder and President of Realstage Productions and founder of the Students Association of Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo. He is the recipient of the Young Producers Award at the Sofia Film Festival – Sofia Meetings 2020.

The events took place as part of the project Fágás. Multicultural perspectives - the consolidation of cultural entrepreneurship in Cluj-Napoca in an interethnic Romanian-Hungarian context, funded by EEA Grants 2014-2021 under the RO-CULTURA Programme, call Strengthening cultural entrepreneurship and audience development (Session 3).

The project aims at collaboration between the two theatres and audience development in Cluj by providing a unified perspective of the Romanian and Hungarian independent scene in the city. The project also includes two co-productions Reactor- Váróterem Projekt, which will discuss multicultural coexistence and will premiere in the summer of this year and in 2024, respectively. The first co-production will be directed by Ovidiu Caița and the second by Martin Boross (Hungary).

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The EEA Grants represent thecontribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway towards a green, competitive and inclusive Europe. There are two overall objectives: reduction of economic and social disparities in Europe, and to strengthen bilateral relations between the donor countries and 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics. The three donor countries cooperate closely with the EU through the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). The donors have provided €3.3billion through consecutive grant schemes between 1994 and 2014. For the period 2014-2021, the EEA Grants amount to €1.55 billion. More details are availableon: www.eeagrants.org and www.eeagrants.ro.

RO-CULTURE is implemented in Romania by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit. The Programme aims at strengthening social and economic development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The total budget amounts to almost 34 million EUR. For more details access: www.ro-cultura.ro

 

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