MAGAZINE - Berlinale Talent Campus - Top-IX

PORTRAITCUT TO THE EDITORHER FIRST EDITING GIG HELPED GARNER “FOR ALL MANKIND“ AN ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION, BUT SUSAN KORDA ISN’T JUST A GIFTEDEDITOR, SHE’S ALSO A WRITER AND A DIRECTOR OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS. WE ARE DELIGHTED TO HAVE HER SHARE HER EXPERIENCES WITH USAT THE CAMPUS.Her advice to Talent editors: “The only way to master editingis to edit and play with the material – have it teach you.Editors also need to hone similar skills to that of writers anddirectors.”Editor and filmmaker Susan Korda“Editing has to be guided by emotions and not by logic.”This is one of the principles of editing that Susan Korda –film editor, screenwriter and director – communicates in theworkshops she conducts.Her first feature-length film credit as editor was writerdirectorAl Reinert’s documentary on the Apollo moonmission, FOR ALL MANKIND, which won both Jury and AudienceAwards at Sundance in 1989 and was nominated for anAcademy Award. Korda has enjoyed a successful career editingdocumentaries in the USA and abroad, and in 2001 SandiDuBowski’s TREMBLING BEFORE G-D (2001) was screened atthe Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festivaland won a Teddy Award at the Berlinale.Passionate about her work, she states that editing hascorrective and metronome functions within the filming processand that the editor is the architect as well as dramaticadvisor. Most importantly, she believes that the editor worksto keep the viewer connected to what are really disconnectedmoments or shots. That‘s why she likes to refer to theeditor as “the magician”.Korda is also a filmmaker in her own right, having madeseveral award-winning experimental films, including ONEOF US, which she presented at the International Forum ofthe 1999 Berlin International Film Festival. It is a personalexploration into the nature of deformity, violence and familyattachments. Korda builds a compelling and condemningportrait of her eccentric family, and a searing indictmentof Germany, and ultimately, herself. Dr. Tina M. Campt,Women’s Studies, University of California, is of the opinionthat the film “provides rich material for engaging the lastingimpact of the Holocaust on the second generation andbeyond.”Born in New York, and raised in New York, Vienna and Austria,she studied at the City College of New York/Picker FilmInstitute from 1979 and 1984. She made her first film, FILIALDREAMS in 1983. In between film projects, she lectures onwriting, film production and editing at the New York University’sTisch School of the Arts and at the International FilmSchool in Cologne. Korda has won numerous awards for hershort films and for her documentary VIENNA IS DIFFERENT.She is currently in pre-production on her narrative shortMAZEL, A DOG’S STORY.Susan Korda will speak about her work and her philosophyof film editing:WEDNESDAY 14, 17:00 HAU 2WE’LL FIX IT IN THE EDIT!22BERLINALE TALENT CAMPUS #5