Development Lab
Online workshop for the development of documentary projects
The space
There are documentary projects that spend a long time waiting and seem to make no progress. You know it. You feel it every time another year goes by without securing funds and without being able to truly develop it, caught between life’s commitments and the feeling that it’s never the right time.
At Casatarántula LABS we sit down with you. Not to give you formulas or preset structures, but to listen carefully to what needs to emerge in your film, and in you as a filmmaker. Also to share strategies that have worked for us time and again along our own path.
This is a collective space for those who feel that a documentary is also a vital question. For those who need time to find the form that question deserves. For those who sense that developing a film is also a way of inhabiting themselves with greater awareness.
What it’s about
We work from the inside out
We start from what stirs the gut of whoever wants to make this film, in order to reach the most concrete: writing a solid dossier document for financing, or finding the narrative device or structure for a project that already has material but hasn’t yet found its shape.
The workshop accompanies projects in development and in editing. In both cases, motivation is the starting point for understanding clearly what it is you really want to tell.
Who it’s for
We are looking for people with a documentary project at one of these two stages:
In development:
Projects that have been in the making for a while without managing to move forward, or those that are just starting and don’t know where to begin. Projects with fundamental doubts about point of view, narrative device, or the next steps, and that need a solid written document to present to funds and markets.
In editing:
Projects that have footage but are still searching for the film’s narrative form, or that feel stuck and need a protected, accompanied working space to find the voice, the point of view, and the dramaturgy.
You don’t need to be a professional filmmaker or have a producer to take part. All you need is a deep need to make this film.
The Tutors
Clare Weiskopf
Filmmaker and journalist. She has been a tutor at CreaDoc-MiradasDoc in Spain, has taught film at the National Film School since 2018, and at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Javeriana, Magdalena, and Bern universities. She is a frequent juror and advisor for national and international film funds such as Ibermedia and the FDC
Nicolás van Hemelryck
Director and producer trained in architecture and photography. He has been an advisor and lecturer at the EICTV in Cuba, at Uniandes, the National Film School, the Tadeo, and the University of Bern. As a cinematographer he was nominated for the Fénix Award. He is a frequent juror and consultant for national and international film calls such as IDFA Forum, HotDocs CrossCurrents, and the FDC.
Clare and Nicolás
Together they have directed and produced films with an extensive track record: ALIS, their latest film, has won 30 international awards, including the Crystal Bear and the Teddy Award at the Berlinale; their debut AMAZONA premiered at IDFA and was nominated for Best Ibero-American Film at the Goya Awards. Their work has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca, IDFA Bertha Fund, Ibermedia, Chicken & Egg, Catapult, and Proimágenes. They have co-produced with Romania, Chile, France, the United States, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, the UK, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.
Workshop Structure
The workshop runs over four calendar weeks: two of intensive work, with two weeks of individual work in between to move forward and process.
Week 1
Intensive work (15 hours)
Daily 3-hour sessions, Monday to Friday. We work collectively on each project according to its needs and stage of development, focusing on motivation, form, device, and narrative structure.
Weeks 2 and 3
Individual work weeks
Time to work on the assigned tasks and watch the two masterclasses included in the workshop: one on project writing and another on documentary financing. Available at your own pace, whenever you need them most, with access for one month from the start of the workshop.
Week 4
Intensive work building on the progress (15 hours)
Daily 3-hour sessions, Monday to Friday. Each project presents the work done during the previous week. The group and the tutors accompany the progress with specific feedback and next steps.
Each session is backed by concrete tools to build the project’s elements, such as: logline, synopsis, motivation, structure, treatment, teaser, and development strategy. Not as theoretical classes, but applied directly to the projects.
In general, development workshops offer intensive spaces of just a few days: the participant receives feedback, gets excited, but then time runs out and they are left alone with the project and many doubts. The model we propose is designed differently. The four weeks exist because developing a project takes time: to work, for the feedback to settle, and for what emerges in the group’s other projects to also illuminate yours. The two weeks in the middle are not a break. They are an essential part of the process.
30 hours of live collective work.
Format: 100% online via Zoom
Schedule: 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, Colombia time
The process
Project selection
This workshop works by open call. We review each application to form a group of projects at a level of development from which everyone can benefit, and that complement one another in order to enrich each other mutually.
Capacity:
12 projects
Priority:
The first projects to register have priority in the selection.
To submit your project we need:
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Why do you want to make this film? What moves you from within? (max. 3,000 characters)
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A description of the film: what happens, to whom, where, when, and how it is told. (max. 3,000 characters)
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Development, production, or editing, and the specific point it has reached. (max. 1,000 characters)
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Why do you want to take part, and which aspect of your project would you like to focus on during the workshop? (max. 1,000 characters)
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Link to a teaser or sample of material, max. 3 min. (optional, recommended)
Investment
How much does it cost?
$600 USD / $2,000,000 COP per project
This price includes:
The participation of up to two people per project. We suggest a director-and-producer or director-and-editor pair.
One month of access to two masterclasses on financing, project development, and pitch-document writing.
Testimonials
“The experience gathered in this workshop is invaluable. Finding resources to make a documentary is always a great challenge, but with the tools offered by Casatarántula it doesn’t seem impossible. Deeply enriching and profoundly inspiring for those of us starting a life project in cinema.”
“This is a wonderful space, an inclusive space of dialogue, of active listening, of exchanging questions and reflections around cinema, aesthetics, and the projects. For us, this setting allowed us to rethink the production document, rewrite the synopsis, and approach new questions about our film. Clare and Nicolás’s feedback is bold and brilliant; by expanding the film’s horizons, they generate a whole new series of internal and creative situations that make the project take new directions, breathe, and be reconsidered from new places.”
“It gave me a great deal of knowledge and new approaches. I deeply value spaces like this that bring together those who believe in this work and give us solidity for our projects.”
“The Casatarántula lab was extraordinarily beneficial for us. In it we found meaning and a structure for our documentary, and we were able to work on it alongside all the fellow participants. It was truly delightful, especially because they know a great deal about financing funds and how to apply to them and how to write the dossier. It’s worth mentioning that I am Fina Torres, a director recognized in the field of fiction, but this was the first time I had faced a documentary. I highly recommend it.”
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