This one-week master class is for filmmakers and students who want to sharpen their work with the mentoring of a master documentary filmmaker, specifically addressing how to improve your works-in-progress.

Dates:
Sep 16, 2024 - Sep 20, 2024

Levels: Advanced, Master,
Workshop Fee: $1595
Workshop Duration: 1-week (Monday-Friday)
Workshop Location: On-campus
Class Size: 12

Note: This master class will be held Immediately following The Camden International Film Festival, a 2-minute drive from campus.

This one-week master class is for filmmakers and students who want to sharpen their work with the guidance of a master documentary filmmaker. This year, we are thrilled to welcome Luke Lorentzen to lead the class. An Emmy-winning filmmaker, Luke was awarded Best Director (U.S. Documentary) at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival for his film, A Still Small Voice, which was also was listed as one of the best ten films of the year by the New York Times.

A Still Small Voice, 2023 Poster. Directed by Luke Lorentzen.
A Still Small Voice, 2023 Poster. Directed by Luke Lorentzen and winner of the U.S. Documentary Best Director Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

In addition to examining case studies from Luke’s work, the class will address how to improve participants’ works-in-progress, which can be in a written format (proposal, treatment, script) or a film already in production or editing. Projects can be either long or short form. They will be discussed as a group and, as needed, in individual sessions with the instructor.

The class will consider conceptualization, development, research, how to focus the story and structure, scripted and non-scripted storytelling, ethics, interviewing as relationship, how to balance multiple stories, and much more. We will also consider the dynamics of launching and financing a project: crafting a pitch and log line, synopses, treatments, key production elements, budgeting, and identifying funding resources and distribution opportunities. Work by the instructor and other documentarians will be analyzed.

Still from the documentary film Midnight Family
Still from Midnight Family, Luke Lorentzen’s documentary about the Ochoa family running a private ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other for-profit EMTs for patients in need of urgent help.

In addition to their work-in-progress, students are welcome to bring one of their finished films to the screen for critique and discussion. By the week’s end, participants will have re-evaluated and improved their projects and enriched their understanding of the form with guidance from this accomplished filmmaker.

Watch Trailers of Luke’s Award-winning Films

Meet your instructor, Jason Kohn:

Jason Kohn Profile PictureJason Kohn is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose debut film received the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and whose films have played to wide audiences on platforms such as Showtime.  Although born and raised in New York, his family’s Brazilian roots led Jason to São Paulo, where he produced and directed his debut film MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET). That film examined the connections between political corruption and violence in Brazil and won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury and Best Cinematography awards. LOVE MEANS ZERO (Showtime) was Jason’s second feature documentary about legendary tennis coach Nick Bollettieri and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. Jason’s new film, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (Showtime), investigates the criminal and philosophical controversies surrounding synthetic diamonds.

Earlier in his career, he worked as a research assistant on Errol Morris’s THE FOG OF WAR and on Morris’s TV documentary series FIRST PERSON.

Notable Documentary Workshop Alumni:

Maine Media documentary workshop alumni include Laura Poitras, winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Citizenfour (2015), and an Academy Award nomination for All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022); and Luke Lorentzen, whose feature-length documentaries, Midnight Family (2019) and A Still Small Voice (2023) have been shortlisted for Academy Award nominations. He was awarded Best Director (U.S. Documentary) for A Still Small Voice at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Camden International Film Festival (CIFF):

The Documentary Master Class immediately follows CIFF. Recognized as one of the world’s top 12 documentary film festivals, CIFF brings the finest nonfiction cinema to the coast of Maine, showcasing over 80 documentary features and short films from around the globe each fall.

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Instructor: Luke Lorentzen

Luke Lorentzen is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and lecturer in Stanford University's department of Art and Art History. His most recent film, A STILL SMALL VOICE, follows a chaplain completing a year-long hospital residency. The film won the U.S. Documentary Best Director Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, was listed as one of the best ten films of the year by the New York Times, and was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar.

Luke’s previous film MIDNIGHT FAMILY (2019), which tells the story of a family-run ambulance business in Mexico City, was also shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar after winning over 35 awards from film festivals and organizations around the world including a Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, Best Editing from the International Documentary Association, and the Golden Frog for Best Documentary from Camerimage.

Luke’s other work as a director and cinematographer includes the Netflix original series, LAST CHANCE U (2019), which won an Emmy for Outstanding Serialized Sports Documentary.

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