Breadmakers

ABOUT A BAND

2011-09-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not Breadmakers, but this is another film (About a Band) which involves Robin Mitchell and Jim Hickey. So here goes . . .

About A Band will be screened at Paisley Arts Centre on Tuesday 13th September 2011 at 2pm.

The Columcille Ceilidh Band has a unique combination of musicians including a number of adults with learning difficulties. The joyous sounds of the ceilidh music are interwoven with personal tales and a true sense of just how important the band has been to the lives of its members. Watch a short clip here.

The screening is part of Glasgow Film Theatre's Great Scots on Tour project. About A band will be screened with the short film The Pedestrian.

To book tickets please access the online box office here.

Breadmakers - Special Olympics update

2011-06-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

This is an update to our earlier posting about the 13th Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens.

The screenings of Breadmakers have been moved to the Special Olympics main stadium in Athens. The film will be screened every day at the Festival Tent, at 11.00 and 15.00, from 26th June to 3rd July 2011 except for the screenings on Wednesday 26th June 2011 which will be at 13.00 and on Sunday 3rd July which will be at 17.00.

The invitation from the Special Olympics came about after Breadmakers was screened at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in March 2011.

The Special Olympics draws 7,000 athletes from 180 countries around the world, 3,000 coaches and officials, 25,000 volunteers, 40,000 family members and thousands of spectators.

Breadmakers: Special Olympics

2011-04-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected to be shown as part of a series of cultural events at the 13th Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens between the 25th June and 4th July 2011.

This invitation came about after Breadmakers was screened at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival in March 2011.

The Special Olympics draws 7000 athletes from more than 180 countries around the world, 3000 coaches and officials, 25 000 volunteers, 40 000 family members and thousands of spectators.

Breadmakers: The Sprout Film Festival

2011-04-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers is to be screened at the 9^th Sprout Film Festival New York on Saturday 30^th April and Sunday May 1^st 2011.

The Sprout Film Festival takes place between Friday 29^th April and Sunday 1^st May 2011 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and this year they will be screening 50 unique films from 16 different countries.

The Sprout Film Festival was founded in 2003 and is programmed and supported by Sprout, a NYC-based non-profit organisation, dedicated to bringing innovative programming to people with developmental disabilities.

More details at: http://www.gosprout.org

Breadmakers: Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival

2011-03-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers is to be screened at the 13^th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival which takes place between the 11^th – 20^th March 2011.

The Thessaloniki Film Festival is a leading European Documentary Festival since its inception in 1999. Through its tributes and retrospectives, the festival focuses on filmmakers with unique cinematic voices, internationally renowned for their contribution to the documentary genre.

More details at: http://www.filmfestival.gr

MALDON FILM CLUB

2011-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers is to be screened at the Maldon Film Club on Wednesday 2nd 
February 2011.

The Maldon Film Club works on a membership basis and is run by a 
committee that selects and screens a programme from the best of recent 
English and foreign language films at the Maldon Town Hall.

All films commence at 8.00pm unless otherwise stated.

InArte Meetings 2010

2010-11-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers is to be screened at the InArte Meetings 2010, Lisbon, Portugal on Tuesday 14th December 2010 at 6.30pm as part of the Inarte Video Sessions.

The main objective of InArte is to promote and expose art as a useful instrument that can be educational, occupational, therapeutic, and of social integration. In addition it allows consciousness among professionals who currently or in the future will work with disabled people that have fewer opportunities, giving them a tool to fight against social exclusion.

The project will carry on in the future, with an annual event that provides continuity and a possible course in which the most professional and competent authorities will join together with the same purpose.

Breadmakers: Festival Screenings to date

2010-11-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

Look & Roll Short Film Festival, Switzerland (2010)

The Supetar Super Documentary Film Festival, Croatia (2010)

The First International Creative Documentary Film Festival in Skopje, Macedonia (2010)

3rd Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, India (2010)

Cromarty Film Festival (2009)

The Normal Festival, Prague, Czech Republic (2009)

International Short Film Festival The Way We Live, Munich, Germany (2009)

The Antigonish International Film Festival, Canada (2009)

The Community Development Queensland / International Community Development Association Conference, 'Building Community Centered Economies - Dialogue for Action' (2009)

Gdansk DocFilm Festival , Poland (2009)

DOXITA, USA (2009)

The PICTURE THIS FILM FESTIVAL, Canada (2009)

ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival, Ontario, Canada (2009)

Mustafa Ali’s Gallery, Damascus, Syria (2008)

Kingussie Food on Film Festival, UK (2009)

Heartland Film Society, Pitlochry, UK (2008)
(Audience Award)

Microcinéfest2008, Toronto, Canada (2008)

Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival, California, USA (2008)

The Middle East International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2008)
(The Black Pearl for Best Documentary Short Film)

dokumentArt European Film Festival, Germany (2008)

Planet in Focus International Environmental Festival, Toronto, Canada (2008)

Milano Film Festival, Italy (2008)

Documentary Film Festival "Message to Man", St Petersburg, Russia (2008)

International Documentary Festival on Disability, Athens, Greece (2008)
(Best short documentary prize)

Krakow Film Festival, Poland (2008)

Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival, UK (2008)

Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, USA (2008)

International Women's Film Festival Dortmund / Cologne, Germany (2008)

SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival, USA (2008)

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, North Carolina, USA (2008)

Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, UK (2008)

True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, USA (2008)

London International Disability Film Festival, London, UK (2008)

Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival, Quebec, Canada (2008)

Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, USA (2008)

Ofensiva International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland (2007)

Film Festival Dokumenter, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2007)

Docudays - Beirut Documentary Film Festival, Beirut, Lebanon (2007)

Documentary Film Festival of IRAN, "Cinema Verite", Tehran, Iran (2007)

Seventh International Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland (2007)

BAFTA Scotland nomination in the best short film category (2007)

Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK (2007)
(Short Scottish Documentary Award)

Breadmakers at the GFT

2010-10-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be screened at the Glasgow Film theatre on Saturday 6th November with other Scottish shorts.

The screening is part of the IETM (International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts) which is holding its international convention and artistic showcase in Glasgow on 4-7 November 2010.

This one-off event will see up to 600 performance arts industry practitioners from 45 countries visit Glasgow for a 4-day programme of talks, performances, networking and events.

LOOK & ROLL

2010-08-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the look&roll short film festival in Switzerland. The festival is organized by Procap, the biggest Swiss self-helping organisation for people with special needs.

look&roll results from a close cooperation with short film festivals all over the world, with universities, distributors and festivals focussing on disability. Out of a shortlist of about 80 entries the programming commission selected 21 contributions from 11 countries.

BREADMAKERS will be screened on Friday 17th September at 7.30pm and Sunday 19th September at 4.30pm.

More details at: www.lookandroll.ch

SUPETAR SUPER FILM FESTIVAL

2010-07-03T05:05:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS is to be screened at The Supetar Super Documentary Film Festival on the island of Brac off the coast of Croatia. The festival takes place between 7th and 10th July 2010.

The documentary-film lovers have an opportunity to enjoy four days of film screenings, concerts, exhibitions and special events. The films are screened in the centre of town in an open area in front of the local church.

More details at: http://supetarsuper.com/wordpress

MAKEDOX Macedonia

2010-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS is to be screened at MakeDox - The First International Creative Documentary Film Festival in Skopje, Macedonia - at 1pm on Friday 11th June 2010.

The film will be shown at the film festival in the 'Short Dox for Children and Youths' section along with ANNA'S STORY (2009), CALLING HOME (2008) and THE ATOM ANT (2009).

MakeDox is inspired and financed by people who love documentary film. The festival will be showing 62 films.

More details at: http://www.makedox.mk/

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

2010-05-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS is to be screened at the 3rd Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, India. It will be held in Thiruvananthapuram (formerly known as Trivandrum) from the 11th-15th June 2010 .

The festival, a unique venture in India, is being organized by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy for the Dept of Cultural Affairs as part of its endeavour to catalyse a vibrant documentary and short film movement.

Increasing accessibility and affordability of media technology has led to a boom in the production and scope of films. The festival aims to map and reflect the exploding nature of the medium in its many facets of creativity and resistance.

More details at: www.iffk.in

Temple University Screening

2010-05-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the Society for Disability Studies annual conference taking place between 2nd and 5th June 2010. The conference is hosted by the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA.

As many as 500 scholars from around the world are expected to attend this year's conference themed "Disability in the Geo-Political Imagination."

Founded in 1982, The Society for Disability Studies is a scholarly organisation dedicated to the cause of promoting the disability studies as an academic discipline. Through research, artistic production, teaching and activism, the Society's mission is to augment understanding of disability in all cultures and historical periods, to promote greater awareness of the experiences of disabled people, and to advocate for social change.

More details at: http://disabilities.temple.edu/

The Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre

2010-04-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre on Wednesday 5th May 2010 at 6pm. It will be screened along with KINGS OF PASTRY.

KINGS OF PASTRY follows sixteen French pastry chefs gathered in Lyon for the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition (Best Craftsmen in France). It's three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy as one of the best. For pastry kings it's like the Olympics, only harder.

The Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre screen a diverse range of films including foreign language films, low-budget independent films, documentaries, animation and short films.

More details at: http://www.rbcft.co.uk

A destination and a jumping-off point

2009-11-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at 2009 Cromarty Film Festival.

The Festival has an intriguing programme that combines both classic film with special guests' favourites.

The special guests include leading film directors Paul McGuigan and Gillies McKinnon. Actors Paul Riley and Sanjeev Kohli. Musicians Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh. Film producer Andrea Calderwood and politician Charles Kennedy MP.

From its position at the tip of Scotland's Black Isle, Cromarty is both a destination and a jumping-off point.

More details at www.cromartyfilmfestival.org

BREADMAKERS continues its travels with doxita

2009-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

doxita is a travelling festival of documentary films that are under 40 minutes in length. The program, comprised of approximately two hours of film, represents a wide variety of documentary – domestic and foreign, super-short and longer format, serious and funny. It is designed to profile the great content and artistic vision that non-fiction short films provide, but that people don’t often get a chance to see.

Up and coming screenings:

Sept 18: IFC Center, New York, NY, USA
Sept 21: NC State, Raleigh, NC, USA
Sept 25-6 : Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, USA
Sept 30: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

More details at: http://www.doxita.org/

Festival Screenings of BREADMAKERS

2009-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Normal Festival, Prague, Czech Republic (2009)

International Short Film Festival The Way We Live, Munich, Germany (2009)

The Antigonish International Film Festival, Canada (2009)

The Community Development Queensland / International Community Development Association Conference, 'Building Community Centered Economies - Dialogue for Action' (2009)

Gdansk DocFilm Festival , Poland (2009)

DOXITA, USA (2009)

The PICTURE THIS FILM FESTIVAL, Canada (2009)

ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival, Ontario, Canada (2009)

Mustafa Ali’s Gallery, Damascus, Syria (2008)

Kingussie Food on Film Festival, UK (2009)

Heartland Film Society, Pitlochry, UK (2008)
(Audience Award)

Microcinéfest2008, Toronto, Canada (2008)

Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival, California, USA (2008)

The Middle East International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2008)
(The Black Pearl for Best Documentary Short Film)

dokumentArt European Film Festival, Germany (2008)

Planet in Focus International Environmental Festival, Toronto, Canada (2008)

Milano Film Festival, Italy (2008)

Documentary Film Festival "Message to Man", St Petersburg, Russia (2008)

International Documentary Festival on Disability, Athens, Greece (2008)
(Best short documentary prize)

Krakow Film Festival, Poland (2008)

Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival, UK (2008)

Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, USA (2008)

International Women's Film Festival Dortmund / Cologne, Germany (2008)

SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival, USA (2008)

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, North Carolina, USA (2008)

Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, UK (2008)

True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, USA (2008)

London International Disability Film Festival, London, UK (2008)

Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival, Quebec, Canada (2008)

Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, USA (2008)

Ofensiva International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland (2007)

Film Festival Dokumenter, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2007)

Docudays - Beirut Documentary Film Festival, Beirut, Lebanon (2007)

Documentary Film Festival of IRAN, "Cinema Verite", Tehran, Iran (2007)

Seventh International Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland (2007)

BAFTA Scotland nomination in the best short film category (2007)

Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK (2007)
(Short Scottish Documentary Award)

The Antigonish International Film Festival

2009-09-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at The Antigonish International Film Festival on Saturday October 24, 2009 at 10:50 am.

The Antigonish International Film Festival is run by a broad coalition of passionate volunteers from various Antigonish and St. Francis Xavier University communities who seek to foster awareness of development issues and the links between local and global concerns. The festival’s aim is to showcase documentary films made and directed by independent filmmakers from the local community, across Canada and around the world.

More details at: http://www.antigonishfilmfest.org

Czech the Bread

2009-09-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has been selected for The Normal Festival which takes place in Prague, Czech Republic, from the 4th to 7th November 2009.

This is an annual festival promoting cultural expressions in film, theatre and visual art of people with learning disabilities, as well as showing films and documentaries about them. The festival is organized by Inventura, an organisation working on the inclusion of people with learning disabilities through mainly film, art and theatre.

More details at www.normalfest.cz and www.inventura.org

The Way We Live!

2009-09-11T00:36:00.001-07:00

The Way We Live

BREADMAKERS has been selected for the 7th International Short Film Festival “Wie wir leben!" (The Way We Live). The festival takes place in Munich from the 4th - 7th of November 2009.

“Wie wir leben!" received 300 entries from 41 countries with BREADMAKERS amongst the 26 films selected. It will be screened on Wednesday 4th November 2009 at 6pm at the Filmmuseum Munchen with Director Yasmin Fedda and a member from the Garvald bakery in attendance to answer any questions.

Since 1995 "The Way We Live!" has been presenting authentic and controversial short films about the life and experience of people with disabilities and chronic or mental illnesses.

More details at: http://www.abm-festival.de/

Breadmakers Down Under

2009-05-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be shown at The Community Development Queensland / International Community Development Association Conference, 'Building Community Centered Economies - Dialogue for Action'.

The conference takes place between the 17th and 20th June 2009 in Brisbane at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Queensland, Australia.

More details at www.cdconference.com.au"

Special Jury Distinction in Gdansk

2009-04-28T23:38:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has received a special jury distinction at the Gdansk DocFilm Festival (GDFF).

The festival is organised in cooperation with the Polish Institute of Film Art, University of Gdansk, the Marshal Office of Pomeranian Region, and with the participation of President of Gdansk, founder of the main prize in the competition part.

GDFF took place between April 22nd and April 25th 2009.

More details at: http://www.gdanskdocfilm.pl/

In Competition in Gdansk

2009-04-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be screened at the Gdansk DocFilm Festival (GDFF) and has qualified for VII DocFilm Festival Competition.

The festival is organised in cooperation with the Polish Institute of Film Art, University of Gdansk, the Marshal Office of Pomeranian Region, and with the participation of President of Gdansk, founder of the main prize in the competition part.

GDFF takes place between April 22nd and April 25th 2009.

More details at: http://www.gdanskdocfilm.pl/

Cinema Eye Shorts List

2009-03-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has been selected for the Cinema Eye Shorts List.

The Cinema Eye Honors is a new nonfiction filmmaking award recognising the wide breadth of the genre. It was created in an effort to honour high quality work of short documentary filmmakers.

The nomination committee, which included a dozen short film programmers from top international festivals, selected Breadmakers as one of five that will be recognized as amongst the year's best craftsmanship in nonfiction short film.

The five Shorts List directors will be recognised at 2009 Cinema Eye Honors which will take place in NewYork City on Sunday 29th March 2009.

More details on www.cinemaeyeawards.com

DOXITA

2009-02-11T03:58:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers will be screened by DOXITA, a travelling festival of documentary films under 40 minutes in length.

DOXITA was launched in 2008 with a programme of 6 short films. The festival was screened in 14 cities in the United States, including New York and was picked up by IndiePix to distribute a DVD.

The 2009 programme, comprises of approximately two hours of film, representing a wide variety of documentary – domestic and foreign, super-short and longer format, serious and funny. It is designed to profile the great content and artistic vision that non-fiction short films provide.

More details at www.doxita.org

Picture This

2009-01-01T05:10:00.000-08:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the PICTURE THIS FILM FESTIVAL.

The PICTURE THIS FILM FESTIVAL is Canada's first, biggest and best international disability film festival celebrating films by and about people with disabilities. The festival is a non-profit annual event initiated by the Community Development department of Calgary Scope Society, a registered non-profit society.

The 2009 festival will be held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on February 9th 10th and 11th, 2009 with the Awards Gala on February 7th 2009.

More details at www.ptff.org

ReFrame

2008-12-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday 24th January 2009 at 12 noon.

ReFrame celebrates the latest works created by filmmakers from Canada and around the world, selecting films that will develop the viewer’s appreciation for arts and culture in contemporary media.

The 2009 program involves over a hundred community organisations and local businesses. Community group representatives introduce films to help the audience make the connection between what is happening in the film and what is happening locally. Over sixty volunteers from all ages and occupations step forward to make the festival a reality.

Previously known as the Travelling World Community Film Festival, the ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival takes place between the 23rd and 25th January 2009.

More details at http://www.quidnovis.com/reframe/

Humanity and Dignity

2008-12-17T04:02:00.000-08:00

Yasmin has just sent this message by wire . . . well email.

BREADMAKERS has been shown at the Mustafa Ali’s Gallery in Damascus. The Gallery, with its various changing exhibitions, is situated in an old house in the Jewish quarter of old Damascus. It was so cold we went into the basement cavern-like bar, which has a bountiful supply of ironwork tables and wooden chairs. The bar was free (not possible in Scotland) and open (very possible in Scotland). We all had a nice time hanging out with the local cats.

About 50 people were at the screening, a mix of Syrian and International Artists young and old. I also noticed a couple of fellow filmmakers and a few curious local residents. There was a queue to see BREADMAKERS, so we screened the film THREE times. The third viewing included a very special guest – the Indian Ambassador.

The response to the film was overwhelming leading to an informed discussion afterwards. There was a nice comment from an older man, who said, "this film is not just about bread but about humanity and dignity". May I say that his words sum up the whole point of me wanting to make this film.

Tasty Treats

2008-12-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

This article was published in the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald.

TASTY TREATS abound at Strath Film Festival

THERE will be tasty treats everywhere at the second Kingussie Food on Film Festival which runs for two days from February 6, 2009 at Kingussie High School. The first festival of its kind in Scotland, it combines feature films, short films, documentaries and a film-making competition with locally produced food, celebrity cooking demonstrations, competitions and a local food market.

The BBC's Craig Anderson will host Saturday's Film Night and interview all the short film directors. He said: "I so enjoyed taking part in last year's inaugural festival that I immediately agreed to come along and be involved again. This year I will also be part of an X Factor-style panel of film industry judges for the Highland Youth award for Short Food Films, which will open the festival on the Friday evening."

This award was launched in September after a highly successful film-making workshop in Kingussie attended by six schools from across the Highlands including Grantown and Kingussie. The workshop was run by Triple Echo Productions, of Newtonmore, who make the well-known "The Adventure Show" on BBC 2.

A £300 prize will be awarded for the best film at the Friday "Oscar Night" event, complete with red carpet, chocolate fountain, evening dress and live local youth bands. Also involved in the Saturday Film Night will be helpers with learning disabilities from Kingussie's Caberfeidh, who will be giving out free chocolate to eat with the screening of the main feature film, "Chocolat".

Internationally renowned cook, writer and presenter Lady Claire MacDonald will demonstrate her cooking at The Food Hall on Saturday afternoon, accompanied by her head chef Marcello Tulley. There will also be cooking competitions for children and a blind tasting competition organised by French chef Lydie Bocquillon for those eager to show off their culinary skills.
One of the festival's main organisers, Lydie said, "We are really excited to see the way this festival is taking off. I am confident it will grow and develop year on year and become a major event in the Highland calendar. The unique combination of food and films is irresistible, especially in the winter."

Sponsored by the Cairngorms National Park and organised by the Auld Alliance Gourmet Academy, in partnership with Kingussie High School, the event also received support from the Kingussie Business forum, the Strathspey and Badenoch youth forum and the Kingussie Mums and Toddlers Group.

The award-winning short film "Breadmakers", about Edinburgh's Garvald Bakery, which is staffed by people with Down's Syndrome and autism will also be shown and its acclaimed Lebanese/Canadian director Yasmin Fedda will appear to discuss the movie. She recently received the prestigious Black Pearl Award with its cash prize of £46,000 in Abu Dhabi but was delighted to take part in the Kingussie event when she was invited.

British Baker Magazine

2008-11-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

This was a short article published in the British Baker Magazine on 31st October 2008.

BAKERY DOCUMENTARY WINS ACCLAIM

An 11-minute documentary about Garvald Edinburgh Bakery, which is staffed by people with learning disabilities, including Down's syndrome and autism, has won $75,000 (£46,000) at the Middle East International Film Festival, taking The Black Pearl for Best Documentary - Short Film.

Breadmakers, directed by Yasmin Fedda, a previous employee of the bakery, looks at the intricate social relationships that operate between staff, as they make a variety of organic breads, rolls and cakes for daily delivery to 26 shops in Edinburgh.

Robin Mitchell, who produced the film with Jim Hickey, told British Baker: "The team at the bakery absolutely loved being filmed and, after a few minutes, really came out of their shells."

Yasmin - Star On The Rise

2008-11-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

This was an article published in the Edinburgh Evening News on Saturday 1st November 2008 by Sarah Howden.

It shouldn't have worked. After all, the work of a bakery hardly makes for a riveting plot line. But Breadmaker has captivated audiences and just bagged its second industry award. Not bad for 28-year-old Yasmin Fedda from Abbeyhill, who swapped her apron for the camera and catapulted the Edinburgh bakers to international fame.

"The film allows people to see into a world they wouldn't normally see," explains Yasmin, whose film just won a £46,000 film festival Black Pearl Award in Abu Dhabi at the Middle East International Film Festival. "They got in touch with me and asked me to submit my film. I did but didn't think much more of it. Unfortunately I couldn't go to the awards ceremony so when I heard I was really surprised. It's amazing."

Her poignant 11-minute documentary is mostly silent, with the images in the Garvald Bakery speaking for themselves. Staffed by people with Down's Syndrome and autism, it was opened to provide a routine and creative space for adults with learning difficulties, as well as work towards college certificates for their skills. "It is such an inspiring place that it just made sense to make it there," she says. "Yes, it shows bread being made but, more importantly, it shows the relationships in the bakers and how people work together."

Growing up in Kuwait, Yasmin, who calls herself "Lebanese Canadian", decided to move to the Capital to study in 1998. "I had come to Edinburgh on holiday when I was young, but remembered nothing about it," she laughs. "Then, when it came to choosing a university, something made me pick Edinburgh."

Studying anthropology at Edinburgh University, Yasmin was unsure of what career path to follow. So when she graduated in 2002 she decided to volunteer. "This was when I first worked with Garvald and I just loved what they were all about. I went on to Manchester to get a Masters in anthropology and filmmaking and, when I graduated, I came back and became a relief worker with them. It was then I heard about the bakery and thought it was so unique."

Then she heard about the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap scheme. "The theme was white, and I came up with the proposal of white noise and the noises in the bakery. They liked it. From the initial proposal to editing, it took nine months with just two weeks of filming."

The heart-warming documentary went on to win an award at 2007's Edinburgh International Film Festival for Short Scottish Film and was also nominated for by BAFTA Scotland in the best short film category.

But Yasmin is unfazed – even when her film was shown at Robert Redford's renowned and star-studded Sundance Film Festival in the US."I went in January and it was a great festival – they had everything from small independent films to big budget ones," she says. "It was great for networking and they do say it's star-studded but I never saw anyone. I was too busy doing my thing."

Having recently tied the knot with city charity worker, Dan Gorman, 28, it's clear that Yasmin doesn't follow convention. Indeed her wedding was held in Syria, with her family flying in from all over the Middle East and Dan's Irish family travelling too, so it makes sense that the filmmaker's next projects are as thought-provoking and challenging as Breadmakers.

"Yes, one is a commission about a walk in Palestine which includes both locals and internationals. It was really exhausting to do but so interesting. The film allows you to see it from both eyes. The people there were really friendly and open, and it has such a beautiful landscape. We see the news, the economic problems, but until you are actually there you just don't realise how intense it is."

Her second film is set in Damascus and fuses Greek Orthodoxy with Christianity. "There's two sides to every story," is her philosophy in life.Her own life is firmly based in the Capital. "It's been a little bit hectic recently and I've been all over the place, but it's just till the end of the year," she laughs. "I love it in Edinburgh – apart from the cold and the darkness in the winter. Why didn't I realise that all those years ago?"

The Guardian

2008-11-02T06:05:00.000-08:00

This was an article by the journalist Erland Clouston that appeared in The Guardian on Wednesday 29th October 2008.

A short film about a Scottish bakery that employs people with learning disabilities has landed the biggest prize payout in the history of documentary film making.

An 11-minute film about life in a charitable Edinburgh bakery has been named best short documentary at the Middle East International Film Festival, picking up a cheque for $75,000.

The film's co-producer, Jim Hickey, was presented with the Black Pearl trophy last week in a six-star Abu Dhabi hotel. The prize money – the biggest sum in the history of documentary filmmaking – works out at more than £4,363 for each minute of the film, called Breadmakers.

The cheque was an unexpected bonus for the film's director, Yasmin Fedda, who was unable to pick up the award because the prize giving coincided with her wedding.

Her film's triumph over rivals including an Oscar nominee and a winner of a Sundance Festival award was received with delight in the humble Edinburgh office of the Scottish Documentary Institute, which had backed the film in 2007. "We could not believe the amount of cash – we thought it was a misprint," said Finlay Pretsell, the institute's distribution and production manager.

At the Garvald Bakery where 12 workers with learning disabilities turn out 100 loaves and 60 rolls a day in premises modestly located behind a car dealership, there was hope that international celebrity might induce a more sympathetic funding settlement from Edinburgh city council.

Profits from the bakery help subsidise a parent organisation, which provides 40 people with supported accommodation and 120 with training and workshop opportunities. "The publicity has been brilliant," said the day services manager, Nancy Macdonald.

Already an anonymous donation of £25,000 is being linked to the coverage given to Fedda's documentary, which has been shown at 22 film festivals, from Reykjavik to Tehran. Baking, despite being one of the oldest professions, has had a low cinematic profile.

And Fedda, 29, an Edinburgh-based Lebanese-Canadian, did not initially feel that her film, which has no dialogue and no storyline beyond the gradual heating of dough, was going to change this. "You know what it is like when you are doing something new: you struggle a bit, you wonder if it works. In the end I was just happy that it made sense," she said.

The director, currently filming Greek Orthodox nuns in Syria, completed two stints as a volunteer at Garvald before sensing that its contented world of hums, clangs, whispers and whistles offered artistic possibilities. "Sounds are very interesting," she said.

Some of the money will be shared among Fedda's former workmates and some will be used to subsidise an outing for the bakers to the Food on Film Festival in Kingussie in February.

The Scotsman

2008-11-02T05:57:00.000-08:00

This was an article in The Scotsman newspaper by Arts Correspondent Tim Cornwell. It was published on 23rd October 2008.

EVEN in Hollywood, film awards rarely bring more than a statuette, a movie star's handshake and, hopefully, enough publicity to sell a few more tickets. But the makers of a low-budget Scottish documentary about a bakery staffed by people with Down's syndrome and autism have won $75,000 (£46,000) at a festival in Abu Dhabi.

Breadmakers – made for little more than £8,000 – won the Black Pearl Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the Middle East International Film Festival. It was awarded to the director, Yasmin Fedda, who used to work part-time at the Garvald Bakery in Edinburgh, and producers Jim Hickey and Robin Mitchell.

Mr Hickey accepted the prizefrom Casino Royale star Eva Green and the actor Joseph Fiennes at the Emirates Palace Hotel, in its 1,100 seat cinema. "I will never forget it," he said. "It proves that a short film can make a journey from comparatively modest beginnings to holding its own against the best in the world. "One of the contenders was an Oscar-nominated short film and we managed to beat that to the prize."

He and his fellow film-makers plan to ensure part of the cash goes towards the bakery and the people who work there. Proceeds from the film have already helped pay for a new roll-slicing machine.

The 11-minute documentary shows Garvald's breadmakers kneading, shaping, and baking bread for more than 20 bakeries and delicatessens around Edinburgh. Mr Hickey said the film gave an insight into the lives of people with different learning disabilities. "There is a fascination of seeing a very everyday thing of baking bread of being carried out in a context where very few words are spoken because they communicate mostly in sign language. Baking of bread is something in every country which people can identify with."

"We're a bit stunned," said Alastair Baines, a workshop leader at the bakery. "Money-wise, it's incredible."

Breadmakers has already been screened at the Athens Disability Film Festival, others in Poland and Iran, and the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in the US. It was nominated for a Scottish Bafta award last year.Fedda plans to take bakery workers to see Breadmakers at a Food on Film Festival in Kingussie next year.

The bakery is run by Garvald Edinburgh, which provides support services for adults with disabilities.Grace Nicol, of the charity, said: "The film was made as quite a small scale plan to show people what goes on in our workshops. It's just got a life of its own. Our members at Garvald have achieved so much in confidence and credibility for the work they do by the film being screened. That is just as important." Breadmakers has brought other benefits as well. Ms Nicol said: "We recently received a £25,000 anonymous donation, a huge amount of money for us. Perhaps they saw Breadmakers." The Kendal Film Club in Cumbria, which recently screened the film, sent a donation of £50.

Breadmakers was funded as part of a new talent initiative by Scottish Screen and Skillset.

THE Garvald Bakery is an "unprepossessing building tucked behind a car showroom in Gorgie, Edinburgh," says Breadmakers director Yasmin Fedda. But she was inspired to make the film partly by the "variety of sounds" she experienced, when she worked for a year covering shifts there.The film was initially conceived as a promotional DVD for the bakery.

Made with £8,000 in funding from Scottish Screen and other backers, it has no spoken narrative, but features only snatches of conversation and singing, and the sound of dough hitting tables. The lack of language may explain why it has done so well internationally. It won a short film award when it was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and a Scottish Bafta nomination.The bakery is one of nine sites operated by the charity Garvald Edinburgh, providing "curative education" and therapy to more than 100 people.

Fedda, a Lebanese-Canadian who came to study in Edinburgh in 1998, made a previous documentary, Milking the Desert, based on her time in a Syrian monastery which encourages Muslim-Christian relations.

Audience Award

2008-10-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has won the second “Palme Dewar prize” as voted for by the audience at a special event organised by the Heartland Film Society on Saturday 25th October 2008 in Pitlochry.

The award was presented by Peter Guthrie of Dewars to Tony Pitchforth of HFS who accepted on behalf of Yasmin and the Garvald Bakery.

From a more general Scottish theme at the 2007 festival, HFS this year focused on films actually 'Made in Scotland'. The Heartland Film Society (HFS) was formed in 2001 to enable the showing of films on a big screen in an informal and friendly atmosphere.

More details at: www.heartlandfilmsociety.org.uk

Festival Screenings of Breadmakers

2008-10-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

We're often asked about festival screenings of BREADMAKERS. Here's the latest list.

Microcinéfest2008, Toronto, Canada, 2008

Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival, California, USA, 2008

The Middle East International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2008
(The Black Pearl for Best Documentary Short Film)

dokumentArt European Film Festival, Germany, 2008

Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, 2008

Milano Film Festival, Italy, 2008

International Documentary Film Festival "Message to Man", St Petersburg, Russia, 2008

International Documentary Festival on Disability, Athens, Greece, 2008
(Awarded the best short documentary prize)

Krakow Film Festival, Poland, 2008

Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival, UK, 2008

Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2008

International Women's Film Festival Dortmund / Cologne, Germany 2008

SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2008

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, North Carolina, USA, 2008

Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, UK, 2008

True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, USA, 2008

London International Disability Film Festival, London, UK, 2008

Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival, Quebec, Canada, 2008

Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, USA, 2008

Ofensiva International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, 2007

Film Festival Dokumenter, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2007

Docudays - Beirut Documentary Film Festival, Beirut, Lebanon, 2007

Documentary Film Festival of IRAN, "Cinema Verite", Tehran, Iran, 2007

Seventh International Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland, 2007

Bafta Scotland nomination in the best short film category 2007

Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK, 2007
(Short Scottish Documentary Award)

And the winner is . . .

2008-10-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 19th October BREADMAKERS was awarded a major prize at the Middle East International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi; the Black Pearl for Best Documentary Short Film, together with a cash prize of $75,000. Producer Jim Hickey was presented with the award in Abu Dhabi by Joseph Fiennes and Casino Royale's Eva Green.

The Middle East International Film Festival is one of the richest in the world, awarding prize money of $1 million. A total of 76 feature films and 34 short films from over 35 countries competed for the awards. Among the stars present at the festival were Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and Ben Kingsley.

BREADMAKERS has already been programmed by 20 film festivals and won prizes at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Athens Disability Film Festival.

Jim Hickey said, "This prize is unprecedented for a short film and it will help us all to move forward with our next projects. Robin and I are already working with Yasmin on her next film for which she has been shooting some material in Damascus."

The Middle East International Film Festival's website is www.meiff.com

"Palm Dewar"

2008-10-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened on Saturday 25th October 2008 at the Heartland Film Society at Dewars Distillery, Aberfeldy. The audience vote for their preferred film and the winner receives the "PALM DEWAR" with an appropriate prize.

From the more general Scottish theme at last year's festival, this year they have focused on films actually 'Made in Scotland'.

The Heartland Film Society (HFS) was formed to enable the showing of films on a big screen in an informal and friendly atmosphere. In 2004, HFS won the British Federation of Film Societies Best New Film Society award. The judges made special mention of the novel and unique method (the bean-o-meter) that HFS uses to evaluate the success of each film shown.

More details at: www.heartlandfilmsociety.org.uk

The Hollywood Reporter

2008-10-02T00:06:00.000-07:00

While Yasmin shoots her new documentary film in Damascus, BREADMAKERS continues on its remarkable journey around the globe. Future screenings have been arranged in Canada, Greece and back home in Scotland.

The following article is taken from the Hollywood Reporter about the 'in competition' line up for the Middle East International Film Festival, a festival BREADMAKERS will be shown at.

By Steve Brennan
Sept 28, 2008, 05:58 PM ET

More than 60 films from 32 countries have been signed in for the official competition at this year's Middle East International Film Festival that is due to run Oct. 10-19.

About 138 films will be screened with titles coming from East to West -- up from 80 films in MEIFF's inaugural festival in 2007. This year's competition includes features, documentaries, shorts and student films in four separate categories.

"I am pleased to say that MEIFF 2008 has attracted some of the top films, filmmakers and distinguished industry guests from all corners of the world, and we are honored to host them in Abu Dhabi," MEIFF vice chairman Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazrouei said.

"The official competition is the place to be at MEIFF to see up-and-coming films and premieres from across the globe," MEIFF director Nashwa Al Ruwaini said. "These films should be the first stop for cinema lovers in Abu Dhabi. Among our many world and regional premieres, the In Competition feature films "O'Horten" (Norway) and "Mermaid" (Russia) have both been submitted for the Oscar for best foreign-language film."

The festival's Black Pearl cash prize distributed to the winners, along with a trophy, has been increased this year with prizes totaling more than $1 million. Jon Fitzgerald, MEIFF's director of programming, noted: "With an expanded festival in 2008, it was logical to increase the number of films in competition."

The narrative competition features 15 films, seven of which are world premieres and two regional premieres. Among the films premiering are Samir Habachi's "Beirut: Open City" (Lebanon), Magdi Ahmed Ali's "Fawzia: A Special Blend" (Egypt), Saleh Karama's "Henna" (UAE) and the much-anticipated Rashid Masharawi's "Laila's Birthday" making its regional premiere.

Among the international films competing in the festival are Ayten Mutlu Saray's "Zara" (Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Kurdistan) marking its world premiere, Alexander Melnik's "Terra Nova" (Russia) making its regional premiere and Indian Girish Kasaravalli's "Gulabi Talkies."
Films participating in the documentary competition include "Seven Blind Filmmakers" (Iran), directed by Mohammed Shirvani; "Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love" (Senegal, Egypt, France), directed by Elisabeth Chai Vasarhelyi; and "Man on Wire" (U.K., U.S.), directed by James Marsh.

In the category of short films, 30 films from 21 countries will compete to win the prestigious Black Pearl. The shorts program is divided into four sections, Aspects of Life, A World of Youth, Middle East Vision and Animation and Experimental. Featured short films include "Sometimes" (Egypt), directed by Mahmoud Soliman; "Boxing Lesson (Romania), directed by Alexandru Marrodinue; "Breadmakers" (U.K.), directed by Yasmin Fedda, "Boutellisse" (Tunisia), directed by Nasreddinee Shili; and "The Graffiti of Mister Tupaia" (New Zealand), directed by Christopher Dudman.

The 17 student films in the competition include "Ali the Iraqi" (Lebanon), directed by Vatche Boulghourjian; "Kate Wakes" (USA), directed by Jasmine Kosovic; "The Morning With Other Eye" (Russia), directed by Philipp Yurev; "Ya Halawood" (Jordan), directed by Students of Workshop by Amman Filmmakers Cooperative.

Microcinéfest2008

2008-09-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS was recently screened at Microcinéfest2008.

Microcinéfest2008 is the brainchild of Toronto Cinécycle Martin Heath. At once Meta-Physician, Martin is the veritable Uber Miester Projectionist of mythic proportions, spinner of reels and wheels, stopping at nothing to light up our lives.

Originator of the famous bicycle powered projector, Martin Heath has been one of the most seminal influences in the Canadian film community. For 30 years, he was head of the restoration department of the Toronto International Film Festival.

More details at: http://www.microcinefest.ca/index.html

Temecula Valley

2008-09-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS was screened twice at the 14th Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival (TVIFF) on Thursday 18th and Saturday 20th September 2008.

Since 1995, the TVIFF has screened over 700 films from over 20 countries. The 2008 line up, featuring over 70 film programs from around the world, was held at the state of the art Movie Experience 10-plex at the Tower Plaza in Temecula, Southern California, USA. The categories showcased were U.S. and International full-length features, short films, student films, documentaries and animation.

The music competition component of TVIFF is designed to showcase the music vision and artistic wizardry of talented individuals and groups from across America and the world. The Festival is presented by Cinema Entertainment Alliance, a non-profit arts and education organisation dedicated to celebrating world cinema and music.

More details at http://www.tviff.com

Breadmakers heads to Abu Dhabi

2008-09-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be shown at The Middle East International Film Festival– Abu Dhabi (MEIFF) which takes place between the 10th – 19th October 2008.

MEIFF is a celebration of cinema, dedicated to bringing a diverse slate of international films to the community and to introducing filmmakers from around the world to the region.

With an extended ten-day festival in 2008, MEIFF will showcase more films, and with a number of editions to programming sections and the prestigious Black Pearl Awards, the festival will honour and bring together talented filmmakers with experienced film executives from all over the world.

More details at: http://www.meiff.com

DokumentArt European Film Festival

2008-09-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be screened at 17th dokumentArt European Film Festival between 17th – 22 October 2008.

The festival programme will be shown at the same time in Neubrandenburg in Germany and in Szczecin in Poland. Selected films are also screened in various different towns in the region.

The five members of German-Polish program commission for the festival selected 43 films from 19 countries for the competition of this year. Over 300 films were submitted. The commission selected eight further films for a special Eastern Europe program.

More details at: http://www.dokumentart.org

Return to Finland

2008-09-12T02:18:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS will be screened by the North Karelian Regional Film Association at a small free event for disabled people in Joensuu, Finland, on the 19th September 2008.

Breadmakers was previously screened at the seventh annual International Festival of Visual Culture (Viscult), Joensuu, in 2007 when the main theme was "Daily Bread".

YASMIN was suitably delighted with yet another screening of Breadmakers. “The journey of our film is amazing. I’m so pleased it continues to be shown around the world”.

Through the years Viscult has seen many great filmmakers and visual anthropologists, Asen Balikci, Peter Biella, Gary Kildea, David MacDougall, Colette Piault, Faye Ginsburg, Judith Okely and Jay Ruby among many others.

The 8th VISCULT FESTIVAL IN JOENSUU takes place between the 2nd and the 5th October 2008. The main theme of this year’s festival is TRANSFORMATIONS.

Milano Film Festival

2008-08-29T03:08:00.000-07:00

"Breadmakers" has been selected for the Special Section of the Milano Film Festival (2008) called Vite (R)esistenti / (Un)common people.

This special section will feature a selection of biographical documentaries: films depicting life-long struggles against hostile environments, suspicious governments, and absorbing, annihilating memories. Stories otherwise left untold, that manage to represent countries through the lives of their citizens.

The festival aims at giving an insight into the lives of extraordinary people, on which young, talented filmmakers have focussed their attention and cameras. Once again, in spite of lacking instruments, they have managed to concentrate on people's lives and bring them to the attention of the most important festivals worldwide.

The Milano Film Festival takes place from the 12th – 21st September 2008.

Planet in Focus

2008-08-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers (Dir. Yasmin Fedda) will be shown at the 9th annual Planet in Focus International Environmental Film and Video Festival, which takes place in Toronto between the 22nd and 26th October 2008.

Planet in Focus promotes and showcases outstanding and compelling films and videos in all forms (documentary, drama, animation, experimental, new media), focusing on environmental themes and subjects by Canadian and international filmmakers.

Throughout the year and at their annual festival, Planet in Focus use environmental artistic expression as a catalyst for public awareness, discussion and appropriate action on the ecological and social health of the planet.

More details can be found at: http://www.planetinfocus.org/

Back to Beirut

2008-08-10T04:28:00.000-07:00

Yasmin will be attending Beirut DC, The Cultural Association for Cinema, 5th edition of Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya Arab Film Festival, from October 16th to 24th, 2008. It's nice to think that while Yasmin spreads the word of BREADMAKERS in Beirut, the film itself will be screened closer to home at the Heartland Film Society’s Autumn Scottish Film Weekend in Aberfeldy, Scotland (see previous post).

Beirut DC was founded in Beirut, Lebanon in 1999 by a group of cinema professionals and art advocates. The organisation began its projects towards the end of 1999. The aim of Beirut DC was to provide help and support to Arab independent filmmakers, in facing up and overcoming the constraints facing independently-minded Arab cinema.

In due time, Beirut DC became more capable and efficient in its efforts to adjust to the difficulties and challenges facing Arab independent moviemakers. The organisation was able to learn and profit from its prolonged experience, and to gain the knowledge necessary to define and pursue its ongoing projects.

In a region where individuality is generally restricted, Beirut DC encourages its partners and collaborators to produce films that are relevant to their society, that seek to question pre-established forms and beliefs, and aim to induce change and new, personal approaches.

HEARTLAND FILM SOCIETY

2008-07-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

After months of travelling the world’s film festival circuit BREADMAKERS will be screened closer to home at the Heartland Film Society’s Autumn Scottish Film Weekend in Aberfeldy. The screening will take place on Saturday 25th October 2008 at Dewars Distillery, Aberfeldy. The audience vote for their preferred film and the winner receives the “PALM DEWAR” with an appropriate prize.

Heartland Film Society (HFS) was formed to enable the showing of films on a big screen in an informal and friendly atmosphere. In 2004, HFS won the British Federation of Film Societies Best New Film Society award. The judges made special mention of the novel and unique method (the bean-o-meter) that HFS uses to evaluate the success of each film shown. Not only that but it received commendation for the programme notes issued for each screening.

HFS is run as a self-funding venture – fees cover only the cost of putting on films and the hire of the Locus Centre. Why not join? You don't have to join in advance – just come along to any of the performances. More details at: www.heartlandfilmsociety.org.uk

First in Athens

2008-06-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has won best short documentary at the 2nd Emotion Pictures International Documentary Festival on Disability, Athens, Greece.

The festival, composing of documentary films focusing exclusively on issues of disability, is organised by the Secretariat General of Communication – Secretariat General of Information, in collaboration with the Greek Film Centre.

The aims and objectives of the festival remained the same, those being, the use of documentary films as a medium that puts on the map issues of disability by artists from around the world and walks of life; to increase public awareness and promote the inclusion of disabled people.

Director Yasmin Fedda was suitably delighted. "It's always good when your work is recognised."

Another Good Write Up

2008-06-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Another good write up . . . I think.

Geschäftiger Alltag in der Bäckerei Garvald in Edinburgh. Zwölf Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Lernschwächen arbeiten hier. Yasmin Fedda deckt die sozialen Beziehungen der BrotbäckerInnen auf, die in diversen Sprach- und Zeichensystemen miteinander kommunizieren.BREADMAKERS entstand im Rahmen der Filmförderungsinitiative "Bridging the Gap" des "Scottish Documentary Institute".BiografieYASMIN FEDDA ist libanesisch-kanadischer Abstammung. Sie studierte Visuelle Anthropologie an der "Universität Manchester". Ihr Abschlussfilm über ein Kloster in der syrischen Wüste wurde weltweit auf zahlreichen Festivals gezeigt. Neben Projekten in den USA und dem mittleren Osten gab Yasmin Fedda in Newcastle einen Filmworkshop für junge Asylbewerber. Ihre Filme stehen in der Tradition des "Cinéma Vérité" - ihre Vorbilder sind Jean Rouche und Peter Brosens.

Breadmakers heads to Russia

2008-05-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected for the XVIII International Documentary, Short and Animated Films Festival "Message to Man" in St Petersburg, Russia. The Film festival takes place between the 15th and 22nd June 2008. It is the only international festival of this kind that exists in Russia.

The festival program includes International competition, National documentary film competition "Gateway to Russia" and special programs. Nearly 2500 submissions from almost 90 countries were sent for pre-selection.

Films produced in 2007-2008 were eligible for participation in the International and National competitions. Competition screenings and special programs will be shown in "Dom Kino" and "Rodina" film centres. Special programs will also be presented in "Dom Kino" and other theatres throughout the city.

International Women's Film Festival Dortmund / Cologne

2008-04-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected for the International Women's Film Festival Dortmund / Cologne in April 2008.

With the recent merger of the Feminale and femme totale - the two famous film festivals originally set up in Cologne and Dortmund in the 1980s - one of the most significant women's film festivals in the world has now come into being: the International Women's Film Festival DortmundCologne. Unique in Germany, the IWFF provides a perfect platform for the presentation of the latest film developments and trends as they relate to women working in all areas of film production. Not just women film directors but women cinematographers, film-music composers and other women filmmakers are given an unrivalled opportunity to showcase their latest work.

Based in the Rhine & Ruhr area, one of the world's largest metropolitan regions, the festival is open to all genres and styles. It takes place once a year, with the location alternating between two major and cultural important cities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne and Dortmund. The structures there that have organically grown over the last twenty years will guarantee that the tradition of expertly presenting the work of women involved in film production will be continued.

Pangea Day

2008-04-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected to be part of Pangea Day.

On May 10, 2008, Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of films, music and speakers. The program will be broadcast live at the same time across the world. The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

According to the festival organisers, "Pangea Day plans to use the power of film to bring the world a little closer together."

Pangea Day was created in 2006 when documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED prize. Jehane wished to use film to bring the world together. May 10, 2008 will be the first Pangea Day event.

Iowa City for Breadmakers

2008-04-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers was recently screened at the Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival.

ICDOCS is an annual festival committed to engaging their Iowa audience with the world at large through films that explore the boundaries of documentary and non-fiction filmmaking. The festival showcases independent, high-quality short non-fiction films from around the world, providing valuable screen time for rarely seen work, as well as providing the community the opportunity to see movies they would usually not get to see.

ICDOCS was founded in 2001 with the mission of serving as a catalyst for positive change and fostering dialogue on a range of contemporary issues, both international and local. They are a non-profit, all volunteer-run organisation whose board of directors programmes approximately 10 hours of short works in competition for a ‘Best of the Festival’ award as well as other cash prizes, and sponsors special out-of-competition screenings and events, including screenings by distinguished jurors.

In 2008, ICDOCS teamed up with the Mission Creek Midwest Festival in order to provide a weeklong event showcasing literature, music, and film.

Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival

2008-04-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be shown at the Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival on Saturday 19th April at 2pm.

The Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival is run by the Light House Cinema in Wolverhampton City Centre. It is run in association with Outside Centre - a local Disability Arts Charity headed by Dr Paul Darke. The Arts Council of England and Screen West Midlands are the main funders of the film festival.

Yasmin said, "This is the sort of festival I always wanted Breadmakers to be involved in." More details at: www.disabilityfilmfestival.eu

BAFTA Scotland and BAFTA Cymru present...

2008-04-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

BAFTA Scotland and BAFTA Cymru have joined forces to create a programme of award winning, emerging new work. The screening will take place at The Celtic Media Festival, Radisson SAS Hotel, Galway, Ireland, on Friday 18th April 2008.

SCOTLAND:
Breadmakers (Yasmin Fedda, 10mins)
At a unique Edinburgh bakery, a community of workers with learning disabilities makes a variety of organic breads for daily delivery to shops and cafes in the city. The workers interact using individual expressions, repetitive speech and sign language, revealing intricate social relationships with each other and their support workers. In what can seem a chaotic workplace, there is a mix of sounds that can approach levels of white noise amidst the carefully structured everyday process of bread production.

Butterfly (Yulia Mahr, 12mins)
When Gemma was born the midwife said she was the fairest child she'd ever seen. Not long after she was diagnosed with albinism, a melanin deficiency which causes very fair hair and skin, and poor eyesight. This rare and intimate portrait explores Gemma's perspective about her condition which has often made her an outsider - but equally determined to lead a normal life. "I'll never be able to drive a car, but that's about it," she says as she climbs the highest indoor climbing arena in Europe. A film about a courageous woman accepting difference.

How to Save a Fish from Drowning (Kelly Neal, 12mins)
How to Save a Fish from Drowning is a quirky film about the death of white rural America told through the voices of three old men fishing on a frozen lake. In a landscape cloaked in snow and hovering in a bright nothingness, they escape their wives, chew the fat about another neighbour having had to sell his farm, and they wait....

WALES:
Mummy's Boy (Nicholas Davies and Oskari Korenius, 15 mins)
When a twelve year old MARK discovers a drowned sheep he experiences a traumatic reminder of his brother's death. Driven by anger at his grief-stricken mothers inability to recognise his suffering, he destroys the shrine -like sanctuary she has created in her deceased son's room

Beryl, Y Briodas a'r Fiedo ( Joanna Quinn & Les Mills, 9 mins)
On acquiring a new Digi Video Cam Beryl becomes obsessed with the art of filmmaking using it to articulate her desires. Dreams and thoughts as a video diary. As "cineaste par excellence" she agrees to video the wedding of her friend Mandy, seizing the opportunity to "strut her stuff filmically" with disastrous and often hilarious results.

Breadmakers in Krakow

2008-04-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected for the Krakow Film Festival, which takes place in Krakow, Poland, from 30th May to the 5th June 2008. Krakow Film Festival is the oldest film festival in Poland, organised every year since 1961.

In the early 1990's, due to the political and economic transformations which caused a drastic decline of film production, the Krakow festival went through a crisis, as a result of which the national competition ceased to be organised for a number of years. It was only in 1997 that it was restored and since then both festivals have been held jointly every year in late May and early June.

The fact that the Krakow Film Festival has been officially recognised by FIAPF, the European Film Academy and the AMPAS only confirms its reputation in its field.

Consequently, the films awarded at Krakow are automatically eligible for the European Film Awards and the Oscars in the short film category. The Krakow Film Festival is also a member of the European Co-ordination of Film festivals, the association of Europe’s most prestigious film festivals.

Greece is the word

2008-04-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been accepted to the 2nd Emotion Pictures International Documentary Festival on Disability which will be held between 21-23 June 2008, at the New Benaki Museum for Contemporary Art and Design, 138 Piraeus Street, Athens, Greece.

The festival, composing of documentary films focusing exclusively on issues of disability, is organised by the Secretariat General of Communication – Secretariat General of Information, in collaboration with the Greek Film Centre.

The aims and objectives of the festival remain the same, those being, the use of documentary films as a medium that puts on the map issues of disability by artists from around the world and walks of life; to increase public awareness and promote the inclusion of disabled people.

More details can be found at: www.ameamedia.gr/en

SILVERDOCS

2008-03-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected for the SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival in June 2008.

SILVERDOCS is an international film festival celebrating the creative vision of independent filmmakers and the power of documentary to expand our world-view and enhance our understanding of the world around us. Entering its sixth year, SILVERDOCS has become the most talked about documentary festival in the United States. Due to record crowds in 2007, the 2008 edition of SILVERDOCS will be two days longer.

Leading filmmakers such as Nick Broomfield, Werner Herzog, Jim Jarmusch, Alan King, Barbara Kopple, Al Maysles, Stanley Nelson, Jonathan Demme, Penelope Spheeris and Martin Scorsese have shared their work and their perspectives with Festival audiences.

SILVERDOCS provides business and creative connections among filmmakers, broadcasters, distributors and funders from both established and emerging media markets at the International Documentary Conference. The conference includes over 60 panels and workshops and is attended by over 650 filmmakers and guests from around the world. Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore delivered the keynote address in 2006.

SILVERDOCS takes place at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Centre.

Labour Ennobles

2008-03-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

There will be a screening of Breadmakers in Amsterdam on the 18th and 19th April 2008 as part of the Amsterdam Shorts Teaser Night.

The event is entitled Labour Ennobles and this is their blurb . . .

" Let us shake up your drag of everyday life by showing you other people's humdrum routines at work. We guarantee this to be a refreshing experience for anyone. The third and final Amsterdam Shorts! teaser night presents five carefully selected films that show you that any kind of labour, ranging from the oldest job on earth to the newest quirks of globalisation, ennobles us human beings."

Calcutta Calling
R: Andre Hoermann
(Ge, 2006, 16')
Vikhee Uphall is making a career in telemarketing. Calling from Calcutta he sells phone subscriptions to Americans, Brits and Aussies.

De Zone
R: Ben van Lieshout
(NL, 1999, 18')
An accurately shot film about a typical Dutch phenomenon: de afwerkplek, a place where prostitutes and their clients can park a car to have sex in.

Morning / Evening / Morning
R: David Burrows
(Fr, 2006, 19')
A dreamy insight into the life of a couple who through conflicting work schedules never really are together.

Breadmakers
R: Yasmin Fedda
(GB, 2007, 11')
Somewhere in Scotland there is a bakery which has the happiest employees in the world!

Staplerfahrer Klaus. Der erste Arbeitstag
R: Jörg Wagner
(Ge, 2001, 10')
In this hilarious instructional video we follow lift truck driver Klaus' first day at work.

More details at: http://www.amsterdamshorts.nl

CLICK HERE - Breadmakers on BBC Reporting Scotland

2008-03-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

A wee section about Breadmakers on BBC TV's Reporting Scotland
- click on the title above.

FULL FRAME

2008-02-24T05:22:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers has been accepted to the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, which takes place at the historic Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham, North Carolina, USA from 3rd to 6th April 2008.

Founded in 1998, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival celebrates the power and artistry of documentary film. Recognised as the premier documentary film festival in the United States by both The New York Times and indieWIRE, Full Frame is an important arena for documentary filmmakers. It is a place where they can showcase their work theatrically in an environment that stimulates conversation and community between filmmakers, industry executives and the general public.

The festival is produced by Doc Arts, Inc. and enjoys support from private and corporate sponsors whose generosity provides the foundation that makes the event possible. These sponsors include The New York Times, Duke University, A&E, and HBO, among many others.

More details at: http://www.fullframefest.org/

On the Making of Breadmakers

2008-02-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

An article from Short End Magazine.

In the parting shot of Yasmin Fedda's Breadmakers, a baker dances to the rhythm of his own quirky beat, a simple joy apparent in each of his movements. As the image lingers, the day in the life documentary study lives within a gorgeous subtly, observing in a quiet manner the lives of people born with learning difficulties. "I try to bring different worlds for people to watch, explore and think about," Fedda comments about her work.

Working on commission as part of the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap scheme--a program built to assist filmmakers in the creative transition from student to professional--Fedda teamed with producers Jim Hickey and Robin Mitchell to stitch the 10-minute short together. Responding to the commission theme 'white,' Fedda, also collaborating with sound designer Marcelo di Olivera, set her focus specifically on exploring white noise, as she puts it, that space "where creative and industrial sounds come together."

In this e-mail exchange, Fedda furthers the discussion about her approach to the gentle, humanist short.

SM: At Manchester University your master's degree work was in Visual Anthropology. The term is a new one for me, and I was hoping that you could define it. What makes that art format different than say straight documentary?

YF: Visual anthropology, in it's simplest terms (people define in in different ways, some more academically, such as the anthropology of visual media, to others more filmically) is using anthropological knowledge, research and ethics to inform filmaking. It doesn't really affect style, genre or visual approach but rather the approach to the content or subjects of your films. It is assumed you spend a lot of time with your 'subjects', getting to know them and them you. It is a loose term, generally meaning that the filmaker takes into consideration the point of view of their 'subject' as much as is possible to a wider audience.

SM: Breadmakers in particular is almost lovingly observational without living out the sentimentality of a thesis. It lacks a sense of manipulative judgement on a social topic that many people have preconceived and often erroneous notions about. How did you approach the topic in this way from a directorial standpoint? Additionally, how did you go about working with Vera Lettho from the perspective of crafting the cinematography?

YF: I had actually worked at the bakery as a relief staff member for about a year and got to know many of the people in the film in that time. When the opportunity to make this film came up, I really wanted to film the bakery and its rhythm. The film was commissioned as a short, and it was hard to incorporate much dialogue in that time (due to various issues of speech clarity) and I realised that what I found intriguing was the rhythm and the space itself and all the things that happen in it, from the mudane like the tea break to the funny and entertaining. I felt the bakery was a microcosm of the centre, and it reflected my expereince of working there as well, but I wanted to try and express this through the point of view of the bakery and its workers.

It was the first time I had worked with Veera Lehto on a film, but we have known each other for many years. I am a fan of her photography and cinematography because she frames shots in a way that you can see many subtle details through them, and I felt that this would work well in the bakery; for example in the closing scene, she filmed Thomas whistling and she framed the work table in the background, so we can see a show in the foreground, and people working and arguing in the back. She understood straight away what I found interesting and what we would be filming, and we spent a lot of time waiting for the unexpected, like the whistling shot, and she was happy to put in that time, so we could capture those kind of moments.

SM: What have you taken out of the short--whether that be a learning curve or even a small detail--that's surprised you?

YF: I learned a lot in the short and felt like I finally learned how to follow a story visually. After my last film, one judge at a competition said that there was too much talking, and so that stuck in my head until I made Breadmakers, and I feel like I finally understood what he meant.

I also learned that not having a voice-over can work and didn't take away from the subjects. I am happy that people have responded to it well and found some connection with the bakers. I have been surprised by the feedback from audiences about the bakery itself and how they are impressed by the work they do.

Stirling Bound

2008-02-14T05:38:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers will be shown at the Macrobert Cinema, Stirling on Monday 18th February 2008 (6.30-8.30pm) at an event called FIRST LOOK: a special programme dedicated to first time filmmakers. Mitch Miller, Director, RUSHES & Ben McNeill, Director, FILM LIVE will host the event

Part 1

Short Stories: From the weird to the even-weirder (6.30-7.35pm)

Stuart Condy: Loast (5 mins) and One More Minute (7 mins)

Mike Callaghan: Father's Day (9 mins) and Nowhere (9 mins)

Seth Hardwick: VoodooPhone (20 mins)

Followed by Q & A with Stuart Condy, Mike Callaghan and Seth Hardwick

7.35-7.45pm INTERVAL

Part 2

True Stories: In search of the unique (7.45pm-8.30pm)

Yasmin Fedda: Extract from Milking the Desert (25 mins)

Breadmakers (9 mins) BAFTA Award winner

Festivals Screenings & Awards

2008-01-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

We're continually being asked about festivals, screenings and awards for Breadmakers. Here's the latest list, and rest assured we will update the list at regular intervals.

Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, UK, 2008

True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri, USA, 2008

8th London International Disability Film Festival, London, UK, 2008

Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival, Quebec, Canada, 2008

Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, USA, 2008

Ofensiva International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, 2007

Film Festival Dokumenter, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2007

Docudays - Beirut Documentary Film Festival, Beirut, Lebanon, 2007

Documentary Film Festival of IRAN, "Cinema Verite", Tehran, Iran, 2007

Seventh International Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland, 2007

Bafta Scotland nomination in the best short film category 2007

Short Scottish Documentary Award, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK, 2007

The List

2008-01-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

From THE LIST magazine (issue 592)

A short Scottish documentary film is set to be screened at the world renowned Sundance festival.

The independent film festival, helmed by Hollywood star Robert Redford, will premiere Yasmin Fedda’s Breadmakers, a 12-minute film about a community of bakers with learning disabilities set in Edinburgh’s Garvald Bakery, which has already picked up the Best Short Scottish Documentary Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2007 and a BAFTA Scotland nomination for best short film.

The film was made as part of the Bridging the Gap New Talent Initiative, run by the Scottish Documentary Institute and funded by Scottish Screen National Lottery, Skillset Film Skills Fund and supported by Edinburgh College of Art and ADMC.

Noé Mendelle, director of Bridging the Gap said: ‘It’s our first film to get selected by Sundance, and we hope this is the first of many more in the future. It’s a great endorsement of our hard work in the last few years, and a brilliant way for Yasmin and the Bridging the Gap scheme, to get noticed within the wider filmmaking community.’

Leslie Finlay, Development Executive at Scottish Screen added: ‘It is fantastic news that Breadmakers has been selected for Sundance, one of the world’s premiere showcases for new work. Breadmakers is a heartwarming film with a talented team behind it and exemplifies what Bridging The Gap and Scottish Screen are aiming to achieve through our New Talent Development Initiative.’

Presenting 120 dramatic and documentary feature-length films in seven distinct categories and 80 short films each year, the Sundance Film Festival has grown in stature since its conception over two decades ago. As a film showcase it has introduced American audiences to cult classics such as American Splendor, Clerks, Hustle and Flow, Maria Full of Grace, Napoleon Dynamite and Sex, Lies and Videotape. This year’s opening night film is the world premiere of In Bruges, written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker and award-winning playwright, Martin McDonagh.

The next Sundance takes place in Park City, Utah, Thu 17–Sun 27 Jan.

The Reel Deals

2008-01-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

An article by CHITRA RAMASWAMY of Scotland on Sunday.

WHEN the Bafta Scotland nominations were announced last year, most of us – myself included – homed in on the fact that only one woman was nominated in the Best Actress category. While we were busy bemoaning the lack of women working in the Scottish screen industries, we failed to notice that the short film category was dominated by women filmmakers alone. More surprisingly, all three films were documentaries.

When Stuart Cosgrove, Channel 4's director of nations and regions, presented the short film award in November to Alice Nelson for Losing Myself: Annie, a tender study of dementia, he said: "This year's short dramas were blown away by documentaries. What we know is that a young and precociously talented group of women directors have dominated short film-making in Scotland. What we don't know is what they will achieve in the future."The future is already looking bright for Nelson, as well as the other nominees, Yasmin Fedda and Yulia Mahr, all three of whom live and work in Edinburgh.

This month Fedda's film set in a bakery in Gorgie, Breadmakers, is at Sundance. Meanwhile Mahr, whose documentary Butterfly tells the story of a Scots girl with albinism, is set to make her first feature documentary exploring the condition in Kenya.

Most exciting of all is Nelson's next project, The Ten New Commandments, which will see 10 Scottish directors, both established and emerging talents, each make a short documentary on a different article of the Human Rights Declaration to commemorate its 60th anniversary. Irvine Welsh, Douglas Gordon and Tilda Swinton are all set to be involved and it is hoped it will premiere at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

It's a genre that dates back to John Grierson, the Perthshire-born father of British documentary film, and his groundbreaking classics of the 1930s such as Night Mail. Like Grierson, many of the subjects this new wave of filmmakers are choosing stem from a commitment to social issues as opposed to the more salacious or faux-naif style of, say, Louis Theroux.

"Documentary is really healthy in Edinburgh at the moment," says Nelson, who started out as an artist in Dublin before studying at Edinburgh College of Art. "I find that the people here who are making short films are really passionate, and that they're making work just for that reason. This documentary on human rights really shows that.

In Glasgow, television and drama is strong but in Edinburgh there's a growing community of documentary makers. I think women are really good at relating to a subject, and getting inside it."All the women filmmakers I speak to credit this renaissance to a small research centre at ECA, staffed by just three full-time members.

The Scottish Documentary Institute was set up in 2004 by ECA's head of film and television, Noe Mendelle, and in that short time it has transformed the landscape of documentary film in Scotland. Nelson, Fedda and Mahr have all come through the centre, and the SDI's Bridging The Gap scheme, which every year commissions filmmakers to submit short documentaries on a particular theme, is the only such initiative in the UK.

"It does seem like there is a new wave of female Scottish documentary makers," says Sonja Henrici, head of development at the SDI. "Last year, five out of six of the Bridging The Gap commissions went to women. They just had great projects. This year we have selected five talented women again, from across the UK. We're trying to nurture a community of filmmakers with a creative vision for cinematic documentaries and a knack for storytelling."It's the SDI that is behind The Ten New Commandments.

The masterclasses they run have been hosted by filmmakers from Nick Broomfield to Kim Longinotto. Both Fedda and Mahr's films were made thanks to being selected for Bridging The Gap and with funding from Scottish Screen and Skillset.

The commissioned directors get £8,000 in cash and another £8,000 in kind for equipment, as well as the support to make their films. Though it started off as Scotland-wide, it has proved so successful, with around 120 films being entered each year, that it has been opened up to the rest of Britain.

"Through the SDI you realise there is an opportunity to make documentaries and an audience for them," says 27-year-old Fedda. "Having a hub like that is really encouraging." Nelson tells me she ended up at the SDI when the National Film School turned her down because she wasn't deemed "documentary with a capital 'D'. I got to the final 12 but they thought I was too much on the periphery of documentary film, whereas at SDI their attitude was all about making good films and not caring what category they fell into. I loved that."Mahr, who started out as a theatre director and is making her Kenya-based feature with the Institute, agrees: "When I went to the SDI I hadn't done a single documentary, but that didn't matter. There are so many great people coming out of that place. I was absolutely stunned when I saw it was all documentaries on the Bafta shortlist."In Bridging The Gap's fourth year, in which Fedda and Mahr were chosen and the theme was 'white', there were four other documentaries – beautiful, understated works about ice fishing in a small depressed town in North Dakota, and the huge and disconcerting market for skin-lightening products amongst the Asian community in Britain.

The stories may be varied, but what all these documentaries have in common is a commitment to their subjects and their own visual language.Another SDI alumni is Astrid Bussink, now based in the Netherlands, whose 2005 ECA graduation film, The Angelmakers – made with the support of the Institute and the winner of the Grierson best newcomer award at EIFF – is now being made into a film starring Helen Mirren and John Hurt. It's an astonishing piece of work about a Hungarian village made famous in the 1920s when a number of women poisoned their husbands with arsenic. For the film, by the way, the action is moved to Yorkshire.Bussink's next film, The Lost Colony, which travels to the world's oldest monkey laboratory in the former Soviet Republic of Abkhazia, will premiere this week at the Rotterdam Film Festival. Her work may take her all over the world, but Bussink says she loves working in Scotland.

"It's a great place to make documentaries. Especially at the moment, there is so much new talent. I find Scotland very supportive of documentary-making, which makes it a great place to experiment, and that's how great films are made."

Breadmakers at the Alhambra

2008-01-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers is to be screened at the Keswick Alhambra Cinema at 5pm on Sunday 17th February 2008 as part of a Keswick Film Club event.

Keswick Film Club began life in 1998 with the intention of bringing the best of World Cinema to Keswick. Since then it has won many awards from the British Federation of Film Societies including Best Programme four times, and regularly hosts 100+ audiences. In 2006-7 they were Film Society of the Year.

Breadmakers will be shown before 2 DAYS IN PARIS. As Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian) says, this is a very likable, smart, offbeat debut from Delpy as director, inevitably related to the Richard Linklater films in which she starred. Similar to the walk-and-talk intimacy of Before Sunrise and Sunset, but sharper, funnier and less syrupy, we follow a couple (Delpy and Adam Goldberg), she a Parisian, he a New Yorker, as they spend a weekend in her home town.

The film was written, edited, directed and co-produced by its star, who reveals a wicked sense of humour and a real understanding of relationships. She also wrote the music and cast her real parents as her onscreen ones.

In Philip French's opinion, Delpy's ego trip proves, fortunately, to be a happy, very funny excursion

Home Made Breadmakers

2008-01-19T04:58:00.000-08:00

After visits to Poland, USA, Finland, Iran, Lebanon and Indonesia - it's closer to home for the next screening of Yasmin Fedda's Breadmakers.

Breadmakers is to be included in the Bonds of Belonging programme at the 2008 Glasgow Film Festival. The screening will take place on Sunday 17th February at 2.30pm in CCA5, and will then be available to view in the CCA videotheque from 19th February- 29th March.

Over the eleven days of the Festival there is a chance to see what will become some of the most talked about films of 2008. There are documentaries that will stir you to anger and tears and a special focus revealing the rich film cultures of our European neighbours in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and the Czech Republic. We have a dazzling crop of documentaries, an inspiring weekend of short films where you can spot the stars of the future and a return visit from Fright Fest that is not for the faint of heart.

True or False?

2008-01-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers has been invited to the 2008 True/False Film Festival.

The True/False Film Festival offers a wonderful opportunity to watch, ponder and discuss excellent and creative films with a wide variety of filmmakers and aficionados. The festival runs from Feb 28 - March 2, 2008 in Colombia, Missouri.

For four days, downtown Columbia, Missouri is transformed into a Midwestern utopia. Here forward-thinking filmmakers and audiences celebrate a passionate engagement with the world through rambunctious live music, white-hot DJs and the liveliest new nonfiction films in the world.

Most films come freshly discovered from Sundance, Toronto and other festivals, others appear mysteriously before their official premieres elsewhere. Sandwiched between the nonstop movies, we throw parties, host debates and field trips, and challenge local filmmakers to reimagine the possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking.

Young People Who Rock ... Sundance

2008-01-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

From CNN. com

With 3,624 feature-film submissions, 24 countries represented, 81 world premieres, 16 North American premieres and 12 U.S. premieres, the 2008 Sundance Film Festival represents the best of the best -- including these filmmakers under 30.

The Short Film Category at Sundance is full of talented filmmakers, and Tadashi Nakamura and Yasmin Fedda, both 27, are two of the young standouts with their powerful social commentaries.

Nakamura is as a fourth-generation Japanese-American and second-generation filmmaker. His introduction to filmmaking happened at the super-ripe age of 9 days old, in a film directed by his dad, award-winning director Robert A. Nakamura. Now he stands on his own with his film "Pilgrimage," a tribute to a small group of Japanese-Americans in the late 1960s who transformed an abandoned World War II internment camp into a symbol of solidarity.

Fedda has traveled around the world to produce documentaries on subjects like the Santeria religion and colonial stipends in Syria. She is a Lebanese-Canadian filmmaker currently living in Edinburgh, Scotland, which is the scene of her latest film, "Breadmakers," about a community of workers with learning disabilities who make organic bread for local shops and cafes.

Tune into CNN.com Live on Monday, January 21, when I will interview Nakamura and Fedda during the 3 p.m. EST hour.

On a Roll

2008-01-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

An article by Erlend Clouston in The Guardian on Wednesday January 16 2008.

The Gorgie district of west Edinburgh is a sinuous urban weave of railway lines and sandstone tenements studded with cheerful nodes of human activity, including Polish delicatessens, cobblers, a city farm, umpteen barbers, a gospel hall and Heart of Midlothian football club. Next week, audiences at Utah's Sundance film festival will enjoy watching another of the area's enterprises.

Breadmakers is an 11-minute documentary about a bakery set up in a former ice cream factory behind a car dealership on Gorgie Road. What makes the enterprise unusual is the fact that all 12 people who work there have learning difficulties.

The director of Breadmakers is Yasmin Fedda, a 27-year-old Lebanese-Canadian, with an MA in visual anthropology and, it seems, an affinity with small-scale food production: her previous film, Milking the Desert, was set principally in the dairy of a Syrian monastery.

Humble material

Breadmakers is one of only 200 (out of 8,000) films to make it through the vetting process for what is the world's biggest showcase for independent cinema. The scale of Fedda's achievement with her relatively humble material can be measured against the subject matter of the other documentaries on offer at Sundance. These include the late head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gang-rape in Congo, Russian fascists, and a dinner party with the president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf.

The Garvald bakery is one of half a dozen non-profit organisations that come under the Garvald Edinburgh brand, a voluntary organisation that runs projects "inspired by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner" in Edinburgh and the Borders and is registered to provide accommodation and day services for adults with learning disabilities.

The film is the result of the happy conjunction of Fedda's post-graduate stint in the bakery as a relief worker and the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI), offering bursaries for short films on the theme of "white". Fedda has interpreted white, in this case, not as flour but noise: the susurrus of scraping and clanking that acts as backdrop to the manufacture of loaves. "I was very interested in the blending of creative and industrial sounds," explains Fedda, who is a former samba drummer. The SDI funding helped pay for Fedda's visit to Utah.

Filming people with learning disabilities presents particular problems; the line between art and exploitation can be fuzzy. Fedda was aware of this and her MA came in useful: "We were taught that the most important thing is the people, not the story." After each day's filming - she spent nine at the bakery - she and her camerawoman would reflect on their new material. "We would talk about it to make sure that everything was being shown in a humane way," Fedda says. The sensitivity paid off. Breadmakers won the Bafta award for best short Scottish documentary of 2007.

Unusually, Garvald Edinburgh demanded no control over the finished product. Its reward is an unexpectedly potent negotiating tool in its imminent funding discussions with Edinburgh city council. It is a delicate subject in the Garvald Edinburgh canteen. "We have the impression that around the top echelons of the council they don't recognise the excellent value for money that we offer," says day service manager Andy Hunter.

Steiner philosophy decrees that everyone's core spiritual being is perfect but sometimes the enveloping body and soul can be flawed; it is just a question of maximising ability. Unfortunately, Garvald Edinburgh's faith in the remedial powers of communal craft workshops - it also provides tuition in, among others, joinery, tool restoring, puppetry, woodwork and ceramics - is not shared by everyone.

Intensive fundraising

Garvald Edinburgh receives only a small weekly three-figure sum for each of its 83 city council placements, significantly less than it needs, and significantly less than its local authority-run equivalents bank. The gap has to be made up by intensive fundraising. The daily sales of around 130 loaves and 70 rolls at least help the bakery to break even.

Fedda's documentary does not offer a critique of Steiner/Garvald policies. In fact, it offers little in conventional cinematic terms. There is no commentary, no interviews, no eavesdropping, no love interest and no conflict, unless you count the moment when Chak-Hong Fung, one of the documentary's participants, in an apparent fit of pique, drops his dough mixture off the end of the table.

In the course of 11 minutes, the only plot is the narrative arc of granary batches from telephone order to delivery van. The only music is a sign-off, straight-to-camera, whistling of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow by 32-year-old breadmaker Thomas Griffiths. Considerable footage was shot of the funeral of a bakery colleague, but Fedda opted to exclude it: "It was a distraction and it took too long to explain."

Jim Hickey, a former director of Edinburgh film festival and Fedda's co-producer, speculates that it is this sparseness that seduced the Sundance selectors. "Struggling farmers, football hooligans, cosmetic surgery - we've seen all that before. This takes you to somewhere you would never normally see."

Straight in at number 3

2008-01-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

Yasmin has been listed by Scotland on Sunday in a top ten of faces to watch in 2008. This is what they said.

"3 FILM Yasmin Fedda:
Fedda is the young Edinburgh filmmaker behind Breadmakers, which won the Short Scottish Documentary Award at last year's Edinburgh International Film Festival and heads for Sundance this month. In the past Fedda has filmed a desert monastery in Syria, members of the Afro- Cuban religion Santeria, and a group of pensioners in Damascus. This film, though, stays closer to home. Following a community of workers with learning disabilities working in a bakery in Gorgie, in Edinburgh, it's a beautifully observed study of the complex systems of communication that the group use as they knead their loaves. We think Fedda's going places, and not just in Gorgie."

The full article can be viewed at:
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/performing-arts/2008The-10-faces.3642782.jp

French Toast

2008-01-14T01:34:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers will be shown at The Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival.

This internationally renowned ethnographic film festival has moved from being a Montreal based event to one that now spans the province of Quebec. The University of Chicoutimi has joined the festival’s committee, thus reaffirming the success of their annual events devoted to the discipline of visual anthropology.

This year, the FIFEQ is celebrating its fifth anniversary and they will be holding events in Montreal, Quebec City and Chicoutimi on January 25th, 26th, and 27th 2008. Photography exhibitions, discussion tables and conferences will be presented in order to enhance their wide variety of films chosen for the festival…all of which are free of charge for everyone!

Dedicated to the promotion of ethnographic films, the FIFEQ will screen films created by new filmmakers from both Canada and abroad as well as from renowned figures in the discipline of visual anthropology and the social documentary genre. The festival is both a celebration of the discipline of visual anthropology, as well as a reflection on the debates and ethical issues surrounding the utility and relevance of employing visual media when studying cultures and societies.

This has all been made possible due to the efforts of anthropology students from Concordia University, Universite de Montreal, McGill, University of Laval and the University of Chicoutimi. The FIFEQ creates a forum for professors, professionals, students and others passionate about films and anthropology to watch contemporary ethnographic films on the big screen and in turn to exchange ideas, pose questions and learn more about film media within the domain of the social sciences

EIFF award winner selected for sundance

2007-12-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

An article from The Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Breadmakers, the winner of the Best Scottish Short Documentary at the 61st EIFF, has been selected for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.

The short documentary about a unique community of bakers with learning disabilities set in Edinburgh’s Garvald Bakery, which received its premiere at EIFF 2007, also picked up a BAFTA Scotland nomination for Best Short Film.

Director Yasmin Fedda was thrilled when she discovered that Breadmakers was to be shown at Sundance, which runs from 17-27 January 2008.

“I’m looking forward to having pancake breakfast with Robert Redford! No seriously, I’m really pleased, especially for the Garvald Bakery.

“I would have never expected all the interest my film has had to date. Maybe people are taking to it because they can recognise themselves in these characters.”

Breadmakers was made as part of the Bridging the Gap New Talent Initiative, run by Scottish Documentary Institute and the scheme’s Executive Producer, Noe Mendelle, was delighted that the film will be showcased at North America’s biggest film festival.

“It’s our first film to get selected by Sundance, and we hope this is the first of many more in the future.

“It’s a great endorsement of our hard work in the last few years, and a brilliant way for Yasmin, and the Bridging the Gap scheme, to get noticed within the wider filmmaking community.”

Fedda will be joined at Sundance by fellow EIFF alumnus John Magary, whose short films The Second Line and Our National Parks received their World Premieres at EIFF.

The writer/director has been selected to participate in the prestigious Screenwriter’s Lab from January 11-16 with his debut feature project Blood Abundance, Or The Half-Life of Antoinette.

The intensive five-day workshop will be led by an extraordinary group of creative advisors, including Christopher McQuarrie and Thomas Vinterberg.

Rising Stars

2007-12-13T03:49:00.000-08:00

An article by JIM GILCHRIST of The Scotsman newspaper.

ALL hands to the table. There is the heavy thump of dough on flour-dusted stainless steel as the morning's batch of loaves and rolls takes shape; there is banter, snatches of a Christmas carol, and much whistling from Thomas. The baking of bread may be a linchpin of human existence, but for the workers in Garvald Bakery - tucked away behind a Volkswagen dealership on Edinburgh's Gorgie Road - making bread is more than just an age-old craft: it is their therapy and their key to broader integration into society.

For the breadmakers of Garvald Bakery are surmounting a wide spectrum of learning disabilities, from Down's syndrome to autisim spectrum conditions. Round the bakery table, they mix, knead and pummel their way into teamwork and job satisfaction, producing a range of organic breads for bakeries, delis and grocers in and around Edinburgh. And now this extraordinary little bakery is enjoying international recognition: a short documentary film about it, having won an award at this year's Edinburgh film festival and a Scottish BAFTA nomination, is bound for Hollywood legend Robert Redford's prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah next month.

Not only has the acclaim attracted by Yasmin Fedda's ten-minute documentary Breadmakers placed a welcome spotlight on the bakery and the Rudolf Steiner-inspired charity, Garvald Edinburgh, which runs it, but it also resulted in several of its bakers enjoying red-carpet treatment at the BAFTA Scotland awards in Glasgow last month. Among those hobnobbing with Lorraine Kelly and other glitterati at the awards ceremony were Sian Mayne and Nathan Reid, both of whom were kilted for the occasion. "I enjoyed the BAFTAS a lot," says Nathan, an affable 25-year-old. "I spoke to Lorraine Kelly - she's on TV - and I was dancing."

A trip to the Sundance Festival seems an unlikely prospect, given the costs and logistics, but Nathan is quite taken with the idea: "I've never been to America, but I'd like to try for the Sundance."

The baking, he says, is a satisfying business, "and I'm a great worker. I've done baking at my home and at school as well. And I've done special needs. I am special needs because..." he grins, "I'm very special."

"Special" they may be, but the establishment's Steiner ethos capitalises on abilities rather than dwelling on disabilities, explains Victor Chlebowski, the director of Garvald Edinburgh. "One of the beauties of this form of working is that it doesn't really matter what the dependency level or ability level of a person is, they all contribute to producing what will eventually be a loaf of bread, whether [they're] sweeping flour off the floor, kneading the dough or mixing it. People find their own level."

The attention generated by the Breadmakers has been a real bonus, says Chlebowski: "Yasmin, the director, was a one-to-one worker here for a while and because her background was in film-making, she saw potential in what was here. We were basically interested in a promotional DVD to go to parents and potential new members, but also to show the work we do in our own, Garvald way.

"But now there has been the added bonus of all the publicity, of people from here going off to the BAFTAs and now being recognised. It's just fantastic. It can't be anything other than helpful."
The Garvald presence at the BAFTA awards took the whole concept of inclusiveness that bit further, he adds. "It was all about integrating. They came away with autographs and with memories - they're still talking about it."

Breadmakers also went down well at a film festival in Teheran. Part of its apparent ability to travel well is doubtless down to its lack of any spoken narrative and its simple, direct but engagingly evocative recording of this most universal of occupations, accompanied only by snatches of conversation and singing, by the satisfying wallop of the dough off the table - and concluding with a virtuoso whistling solo from Thomas Griffiths.

Garvald Edinburgh, the charity which prompted the film, started in 1969 with a community house (named after a Steiner-inspired school established in Garvald House, West Linton, in 1944), and now operates from nine sites, providing "curative education" and social therapy. It is one of six Garvald operations in the Lothians and Borders, each with its own management and board structure. Some 115 people use the charity's services on a day basis, while a further 40 or so live in a care home or in supported tenancies. Productive activities include puppetry and puppet making as well as other craftwork, and refurbishing tools for Third World use. The Gorgie Road bakery opened in a former ice-cream factory in 1982.

As we talk, the morning production line is in progress, starting with Jamie Scott sorting out the day's orders - he flicks through the list for my benefit - it includes Butterflies Café, Real Foods, Tattie Shaws. One of the members will also accompany the van driver, explains Chlebowski:

"That's another aspect of integration, getting to know the routes, handling the money, social aspects of meeting the shopkeepers, so there's more learning going on." (And the van runs on an LPG and unleaded petrol mix, furthering the environmentally friendly Garvald ethos.) The members can also enrol for training modules in various skills - baking or otherwise - tailored to their abilities, in an accreditation programme run in partnership with Borders College.

Back at the table, Chuck Hong-Fung doesn't talk much - he has hearing problems - but keeps a quiet handle on the proceedings as he chops up a large wad of dough mix for the others to knead and roll into shape. Among the group is Donna Padget. When I ask her whether she likes working in the bakery she tells me she hates it - while beaming enormously - and that she'd rather have a rich boyfriend and a limo... to which there is no reply, really.

They don't play any music while they work - that would pose an unwelcome distraction - but there is continual chatter, snatches of song, whistling and the odd burst of what one might call baking aerobics from Thomas. While his baking skills may be limited, what he adds to the proceedings - and indeed to the film - in terms of spontaneous musicality are invaluable.

Also at the table is one of the centre's part-time one-to-one workers, Andrew Mill, a young graduate who helps Thomas. He loves working here, he says. In the meantime his other half has gyrated away from the table: "Thomas," hollers Andrew, thumping a wad of dough, "let's make bread." After the morning shift, he's taking Thomas swimming - cue a chorus of the Jaws theme tune.

Amid all the joshing, however, there is serious purpose here. As Chlebowki points out, these members are engaging in meaningful activity, with a clear end product which is in demand. The neatly rolled bread and rolls are now accumulating on racks, waiting to go into the prover, where they will rise, and then into the oven. Michael Valente is brushing baking tins with organic palm shortening (an alternative to margarine) while Nathan is placing rice-paper labels on each tin.

One of three workshop leaders, baker Stephanie Taylor, explains that in the morning session, they generally produce large and small wholemeal loaves, white country loaves and white and brown rolls. The afternoon shift makes a variety of "specials", such as Russian, Tibetan, oatmeal, walnut and malted grain breads.

How does such a disparate group work together? "They're coming here to do a job," she says, "most people take a lot of pride in their work. I think, myself, that we have as much to learn from them as they do from us."

It is, she agrees, a very elementary human occupation. "There's a lot to be gained from all coming round the table and kneading bread."

THE director of Breadmakers, Yasmin Fedda, confesses to being taken aback by the enthusiastic reception for her ten-minute film. "I did it because I wanted to make a film about that subject and that place," says Fedda, who spent a year as a relief worker at the Garvald Edinburgh bakery, "but I've been really surprised at the response."

Fedda, who is Lebanese-Canadian, came to Edinburgh University in 1998 to study social anthropology and went on to do a masters in visual anthropology at Manchester, Now, 27, she lives in Leith. She worked with young asylum seekers in Newcastle and in 2004 spent two months in a Syrian monastery which encourages Muslim-Christian relations, where she made a documentary, Milking the Desert.

The Breadmakers project arose with the offer of funding from the Bridging the Gap initiative, run by Scottish Documentary Institute to encourage new talent and funded by Scottish Screen, the National Lottery and the Skillset Film Skills Fund, among others.

After winning a Short Scottish Documentary Award at Edinburgh International Film Festival in August, Breadmakers was selected for the first International Documentary Film Festival in Iran where, again, it was well received, possibly due to the universality of its subject matter, and of course its lack of spoken narrative dispensed with any language barriers. "The only narrative," Fedda says, "is the bread."

Now the film has been chosen for the Sundance Film Festival in Utah: "That was another surprise, but it's really great. It will be good to share the work of the bakery and its approach to social care, and I hope to meet some interesting people and get ideas and feedback."

Breadmakers fly to Indonesia

2007-12-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers, along with the other 2007 Bridging the Gap films produced through the Scottish Documentary Institute, will be shown at the Film Festival Dokumenter, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Since its inception in 2001, the Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) has endeavoured to revive the Indonesian documentary film and encourage the making of international-calibre, yet uniquely Indonesian documentaries.

This year, the festival celebrates documentary with a special focus on humanity themes, showcasing films from internationally renowned filmmakers.

The 6th Film Festival Dokumenter, Indonesia, takes place between December 10-15th 2007.

A Star in the Shadow

2007-12-09T05:55:00.000-08:00

Yasmin has been invited to appear at the Star and Shadow Cinema, Battlefield, Newcastle Upon Tyne, on Wednesday December 19th at 7.30pm where she will be in discussion with Light Bulb 08 Director, Craig.

Kuwaiti-born Palestinian film-maker Yasmin Fedda has a background in anthropology, and has worked on several film projects in the Middle East, USA and around the UK, including working with Bridge and Tunnel Productions in Newcastle. She comes to the Star and Shadow to talk about her life, politics, work, and future projects, all informed by a migratory life that has taken her from Palestine to Canada, Qatar to Scotland and Syria to Kuwait.

They will also be showing two of Yasmin’s short documentaries:

BREADMAKERS (2007, 10 min) looks at the intricate social relationships in a community of milking desertworkers with learning disabilities making a variety of organic breads for shops in Edinburgh.

MILKING THE DESERT (2004, 25 min) explores the life of Frederic, a French novice at the St. Moses the Abyssinian monastery deep in the Syrian desert. We follow him and Syrian monk Boutrous through their daily chores and routines: milking goats, making cheese and praying. Their lives create a backdrop for Muslim and Christian relations in the area.

Capital's Breadmakers to be toasted at Sundance

2007-12-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

Taken from an article in The Scotsman Newspaper on the 7th December 2007.

FLAVOURED with linseed, walnut or oatmeal, organic bread from the Garvald Bakery is already famous with diners at some of Scotland's top eateries.

Now a film about a unique community of bakers with learning disabilities is poised to spread the Edinburgh-based bakery's reputation to the United States.

Breadmakers, a 12-minute documentary, has won a screening at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. The event, founded by the actor Robert Redford, is held in Park City, Utah.

The film, which has no voice-over or narrative, concentrates on about four adults from more than 30 who work in the bakery in the capital's Gorgie Road, part of the Garvald Centre.

Funded by the Bridging the Gap new talent initiative, the film has shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and at another festival in Iran.

Breadmakers do a Sundance

2007-12-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers has been selected for the Sundance Film Festival. A delighted Yasmin was suitably excited. “It’s a big festival to be invited to. I will be making a big effort to attend”.

Each year the Sundance Film Festival selects 200 films for exhibition from more than 8000 submissions. More than 50,000 people attend screenings in twelve theatres in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. In addition to discovering filmmaking's newest talent through the Festival's program of documentary, dramatic, and short film, Festivalgoers experience live music shows, panel discussions with leading filmmakers and industry figures, parties celebrating the Festival community, and more.

The Sundance Film Festival takes place from the 17th – 27th January 2008.

JURY DUTY IN WROCLAW

2007-11-26T06:34:00.000-08:00

Yasmin’s success story continues. She has been asked to sit on the film jury at the Ofensiva International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland from 6th to the 9th December 2007.

The main part of the Festival will be the International Competition organized in four categories: plot, document, animation and video-clip. The competing movies will be judged by a professional jury. Moreover, during this year's edition in the cycle "World's Festivals" the festival will present images that were rewarded and appreciated from other festivals abroad; whereas in the cycle "New National Cinema" they will show the most interesting and the most important films from selected national cinematographers.

Audiences will have an opportunity to watch many films from all over the world that haven't yet been screened in Poland. In previous years the film festival has shown movies produced in distant and exotic countries such as; Georgia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Singapore and India.

More details at: http://www.ofensiva.pl/eng/index.php

MIND THE GAP

2007-11-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

Yasmin Fedda is a Lebanese Canadian national, of Palestinian origin, raised in Kuwait. So what was she doing in Gorgie of all places? As she tells Malcolm Jack, it's all about bridging the gap.

Yasmin originally arrived in Scotland to study social anthropology in Edinburgh. After graduating, she moved to Manchester to do a postgraduate in visual anthropology, which is where she first started looking at life through the camera lens.

"I was doing an academic subject," says Yasmin, "and wanted to make it more accessible. I wanted to experiment with making films. Using socially interesting subjects, but expressing them artistically."

"I wanted to experiment with film, using socially interesting subjects, but expressing them artistically."

Yasmin's masters film Milking the Desert proved her first screen triumph, gaining selections and shortlistings at film festivals as far and wide as Sheffield, Paris, Moscow, Montreal and Rio de Janeiro.

"It was my first film, set in a monastery in Syria," she explains. "It was a mixed sex, mixed sect monastery in the desert, where they work toward better understanding between Muslims and Christians. It's politicised, but in a country where you're not supposed to be."

A further documentary, exploring the Afro-Cuban religion of Sanitaria in Miami - Siento Una Voz (I Hear a Voice) - followed, before Yasmin undertook projects in Newcastle and Edinburgh.

"I'm just happy people liked the characters."

Yasmin was working as a volunteer at the Garvald Centre in Gorgie - a centre for adults with learning difficulties - when she heard the call out for the Scottish Documentary Institute's annual Bridging the Gap scheme. The theme was 'white', something that brought to mind the Centre's bakery workshop, which makes organic bread for shops throughout the city.

"I thought about it for ages," she says, "then thought 'oh, flour and 'white', in the bakery context'. That wasn't enough, so I incorporated white noise - all the sounds of the bakery mixing together: the mechanical sounds, people singing and whistling and chatting."

Shot over two weeks, her ten-minute short gives an insight into the community and characters in the bakery, and the way they interact. It's really struck a chord with audiences since debuting at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it scooped the Scottish Short Documentary Award.

"I'm not sure why!" admits Yasmin. "The one thing people have commented on is the absence of voiceover. A lot of people thought it didn't need one - it's quite visual - they just had to watch it. And some people felt it's kind of rhythmical as well. I'm just happy people liked the characters."

"It's good that people are interested in seeing that kind of thing - it's not just about political polemics."

As mundane an environment as Breadmakers' setting might seem, Yasmin saw no reason why a film shot there shouldn't be as fascinating as her previous projects.

"The reason I liked working there in the first place was that it's a really interesting project," she says. "Even though my other projects seem really exotic and far away, to me they're all equal. And as an outsider going there, Gorgie seems just as exotic."

It might well take her to more exotic locations yet, because Breadmakers has been selected to screen at further festivals in Finland and Iran. Yasmin hopes to attend both, although immigration might prevent her visiting the latter.

"I'm going to try and make it," she says. "Whatever happens, it's just interesting that they picked it. I'm glad they picked a film that's about something really small. It's good that people are interested in seeing that kind of thing - it's not just about political polemics."

"I'd like to bring stories from the Middle East here and vice versa."

Yasmin hopes to work further through her films towards narrowing the cultural space between the West and Middle East. As a fluent English and Arabic speaker with a foot in both locations, she's in a great position to do so.

"It helps when you can speak the languages," she says. "I'd also like to bring stories from the Middle East here, because often I feel that people don't know what it's like. It would be nice to share what's happening there with other people. And vice versa."

So where to next then?

"Hmmm, let's see... Newtongrange?" she jokes. "At the moment I'm in Edinburgh, but perhaps somewhere in Syria, and hopefully Iran as well. That's the first port of call. And the West Bank hopefully, in Jerusalem. I'm developing a few projects. We'll see which one happens first."

This article was published on Channel 4’s 4Talent website at: http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=7706

Shoot First

2007-11-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

BREADMAKERS is to be screened at the SHOOT FIRST event at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse on Wednesday 12th December 2007.

SHOOT FIRST is an independent organisation holding short film events in Scotland. They give filmmakers an opportunity to have their work seen on the big screen, showcasing work from around the world.

December’s event also features:

Crosswords - James Malcolm, Scotland 2007, 9min - Mrs Mitchell thinks she's receiving messages through crossword puzzles, and she keeps them filed in boxes, which pack her house from floor to ceiling. One day a salesman calls who says he can help her clean up the mess.

Standing Start - Finlay Pretsell & Adrian McDowall, Scotland 2007, 15 min - Craig is considered the fastest lead-out cyclist in the world. We experience what flashes through his head as he's locked into the blocks, awaiting the starting gun to fire and sense the feeling as he's whizzing round the velodrome.

From BAFTA to BEIRUT

2007-11-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

Breadmakers has been accepted to DocuDays: Beirut International Documentary Festival. Yasmin was suitably delighted. “I’ve always wanted to show my work in Lebanon and now I have my chance. It’s very exciting”.

DocuDays was founded in 1999 with the aim of raising public awareness for the non-fiction genre as an entertaining and informative tool. The DocuDays program includes both competition and non-competition sections. The competition section will recognise Arab and international films in the following categories: Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Documentary, and Jury Special Mention.

The 9th edition of DocuDays: Beirut International Documentary Festival takes place in Lebanon from 3rd – 9th December 2007.

Bakery’s Fame is on the Rise

2007-11-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

(From Edinburgh Evening News dated 7th November 2007)
THERE'S a productive din in the busy bakery, while people scurry to put loaves on trolleys and wipe down flour-caked tables. It's 3.30pm and the apron-clad organic bakers are packing up for the day.
But as long-serving worker Alan Auld opens the oven door, a rush of heat and a comforting waft of freshly baking bread escapes - and all the team's dedication seems worthwhile.
In his white baker's hat and well-singed oven gloves, 60-year-old Alan looks every inch the professional baker, as he carefully removes a hot tray of loaves and places them on the cooling tray for all to admire.
At the Garvald Bakery on Gorgie Road, Alan is just one of 36 bakers who every day prepare breads and confectionery using only organic ingredients. The wide range of products are top notch, as the Edinburgh shopkeepers who watch them fly off their shelves will testify. But many who enjoy the fine walnut or linseed breads bearing the Garvald label may be surprised to know that the creators of their loaves all have learning difficulties.
A slightly floury Alan, from Dalkeith, proudly introduces himself as "the chairman of the rep council". Indeed, he is one of the longest-serving bakers, having been at Garvald 11 years. Standing over a fresh batch of wholemeal loaves, he declares: "The first time I made bread was when I came here. I feel proud to make it and I buy it myself if I see one of our loaves in the shops. Garvald is great."
The bakery, which produces up to 150 loaves a day - all baked to order - is part of the Garvald Centre, which has been offering creative day workshops to people with learning difficulties for more than 30 years, teaching them skills ranging from puppet-making to woodwork.
Members are trained in every aspect of work, from mixing the dough and kneading the bread to printing the labels and delivering the wares to shops, such as Real Foods in Broughton Street and Tollcross, and Tattie Shaw's greengrocers on Elm Row.
Though the efforts of the Garvald bakers may not be that widely known in Edinburgh, thanks to a locally based film-maker they are now famed as far afield as Tehran. Yasmin Fedda's ten-minute documentary Breadmakers was shown at the Iran Documentary Film Festival and has just been nominated for a Scottish Bafta.
The 27-year-old, from Leith, shot the film in March, after spending time as a relief support worker at Garvald last year.
She says: "It's an inspiring place. The film allows people into a world they wouldn't normally see. What's great about Garvald is that it provides a routine and creative space for adults with learning difficulties and they can get college certificates for their skills."
Members prepare a huge variety of organic loaves, including brown, white, linseed, walnut, malt, oatmeal, Russian and Tibetan breads. The not-for-profit organisation has 18 members making standard loaves in a workshop in the mornings and another 18 are employed on speciality breads in the afternoons.
The first lot of members, aged from 18 upwards, arrive at the bakery at 9am. Work starts later than in regular bakeries because it is a training facility, where the emphasis is on learning.
The first thing members do is grab their aprons and hats from the hooks and line up at the sink to wash their hands. After that well-worn routine, they gather round the silver table in the centre and work together to get the dough ready, weighing it and cutting it.
Twenty-three-year-old Sian Mayne, from Currie, is confident to turn his hand to most tasks.
"I make the bread and white rolls, and cut the bread," he explains. Kirsty Parsons, who leads the confectionery workshop next door, chips in: "His favourite part of the day is making the toast for the tea break." Warming to his subject, Sian adds: "I wash the tables too."
James Welby, owner of Tattie Shaw's, is fulsome in his praise of the Garvald bakers, whose produce he has been selling for the last three years.
He says: "It's fantastic bread. It comes in lovely and warm and fresh at 1.30pm every day and, as well as being organic, it's tasty and good value for money."
James says that over the week they order 30 to 40 small plain loaves, as well as a wholemeal, a walnut and a linseed loaf. "They also do fantastic homemade biscuits that are great with a coffee and hot cross buns at Easter," he enthuses. "It's all very popular with our customers, who like to buy local."
And he isn't the only one willing to testify to the high standards adhered to by the bakery.
Simon Sibley, general manager of Real Foods, says they have bought the Garvald bread for a decade due to its high quality.
"They make good-quality organic loaves and do the whole range of seasonal breads. We have been dealing with them for at least ten years. These things get brand loyalty," he says.
The bakery got its official organic certification in 1993 and day service manager Nancy Macdonald says staff try to think green in all they do. She says: "We try to look after the environment and recycle, as well as helping members learn new skills.
"Everyone contributes in different ways to the final product. It's about making products with a real value to the outside world. We concentrate on quality - we are not a factory churning out hundreds of loaves."
After a satisfying afternoon's labour, Alan wipes the sweat from his brow and takes off his hat. Members hang up their pinnies and the sounds of work are replaced by an excited chatter as they gather in the doorway to await their transport home.
It is these moments that are perhaps the most poignant captured in Yasmin's documentary. The film - which has already garnered the Short Scottish Documentary Award at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival - is mostly silent, allowing the images to speak for themselves, but the closing scene, filled with the sound of the merry whistling of a fulfilled baker, is the one that lingers most in the memory.
The Breadmakers short documentary by Yasmin Fedda, is one of three films nominated by BAFTA Scotland in the best short film category.
The bakery is part of the Garvald Centre which provides creative day opportunities for more than 120 members.
It also has its own retail outlet, the Mulberry Bush shop, on Morningside Road, which sells handmade crafts from the centre's workshops.
Produced by Jim Hickey and Robin Mitchell, the Breadmakers has been signed up for international distribution by Network Ireland Television. Yasmin was brought up in Kuwait and moved to Edinburgh nine years ago to study social anthropology at Edinburgh University. Breadmakers, which was made as part of the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap scheme, can be viewed on the BBC Film Network website.
The Lloyds TSB BAFTA Scotland Awards 2007 take place on Sunday November 18, in the City Halls, Glasgow.

BAFTA nomination for Breadmakers

2007-11-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

BREADMAKERS, a short documentary by young Edinburgh filmmaker Yasmin Fedda, is one of three films nominated by BAFTA Scotland in the best short film category.

It tells the story of a community of Edinburgh workers with learning disabilities in the Garvald Bakery in Gorgie, who make a range of organic breads for delivery to shops and cafes all over Edinburgh.

Produced by Jim Hickey and Robin Mitchell, the film has just been screened at Iran's International Documentary film festival and has recently been signed up for international distribution.

Yasmin Fedda, a Lebanese Canadian working in Edinburgh, said, "I'm delighted that the film has been nominated by BAFTA. I found the bakery to be an inspirational place and making the film allowed me to capture a world that would not normally be seen."

The Lloyds TSB BAFTA Scotland Awards 2007 takes place on Sunday 18th November in the City Halls, Glasgow.

BREADMAKERS, which can be viewed on the BBC Film Network website, was made as part of the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap scheme. The film has already won the Short Scottish Documentary Award at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Disability Film Festival

2007-10-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers will be screened in London at the 8th London International Disability Film Festival. The festival takes place from the 14th -19th February 2008 at the British Film Institute, Southbank.

The Disability Film Festival is a unique and internationally acclaimed showcase of drama, documentary, animation and experimental films made by disabled filmmakers. It is the largest and most inclusive disability cultural Festival in Europe.

The Festival work in collaboration with many organisations and media partners, such as the Big Issue magazine. Film London’s Audience Development Fund supports this project.

More details of the festival programme will be published nearer the time.

International Distribution

2007-10-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has been signed up for international distribution by Irish-based development and distribution company – Network Ireland Television.

Headed by Managing Director, Derry O'Brien, Network Ireland Television is the first Irish-based development and distribution company – established in October 1995. Since its start-up, Network Ireland Television has now accumulated a catalogue of over 1,000 hours of quality English language programming and short films and they are currently selling to over 100 overseas broadcasters, Home Video/DVD distributors and Inflight Entertainment companies.

Since winning the Short Scottish Documentary Award at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival, Breadmakers has been screened in Finland, and will soon be shown in Iran.

“I realize how rare it is to get proper distribution for a short film, so I’m understandably delighted”, said Yasmin. “It’s a chance to get my work seen by a wider audience”.

Short of the Month

2007-09-23T03:28:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers has been selected as "The Short of the Month" by the Independent Cinema Office.

Short of the Month
Breadmakers
Dir: Yasmin Fedda | Scotland | 2007 | 11mins
"In an unprepossessing building tucked behind a car showroom in Gorgie, Edinburgh, the Garvald bakery has a unique community of workers who have various learning disabilities and difficulties, including Down's Syndrome and Autism. My inspiration to make this film came from a variety of sounds I experienced while working there." Yasmin Fedda.

Established in July 2003, the Independent Cinema Office is a national organisation that aims to develop and support independent film exhibition throughout the UK.

The ICO works in association with independent cinemas, film festivals, film societies and the regional and national screen agencies.

Iran Film Festival

2007-08-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has been selected for the first International Documentary Film Festival of IRAN, "cinema verite": in Tehran in October 2007.

DEFC (Documentary and Experimental Film Center) is the main centre for production, distribution and promotion of fiction, documentary, animation and experimental films in Iran, as well as in the Middle East.

In Iran, annually about 80 feature and 2500 professional and amateur short films are produced.

Documentary Award Media Release

2007-08-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS, a short film by young Edinburgh filmmaker Yasmin Fedda, has won the Short Scottish Documentary Award at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of a community of Edinburgh workers with learning disabilities in the Garvald Bakery in Gorgie, who make a range of organic breads for delivery to shops and cafes all over Edinburgh.

Yasmin was presented with a cheque for £1000 after the packed award screening at Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema this weekend. She said "The featured Garvald bakery is part of a centre inspired by the ideas of Rudolph Steiner. The workers interact using repetitive speech and sign language. I worked there last year and it's an inspiring place. The film allows people into a world they wouldn't normally see.

After receiving the award, I heard that the film has been invited to the Iran documentary film festival, so I'll now be taking a small piece of Gorgie to Tehran!"

The film is produced by award-winning Edinburgh producers Jim Hickey and Robin Mitchell.

EDITORS NOTES:

The Short Scottish Documentary Award is sponsored by Baillie Gifford.

Yasmin Fedda (27) is a Lebanese Canadian working in Edinburgh.

BREADMAKERS will be screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Tuesday 21st August at Filmhouse (12.30pm).

BREADMAKERS has been selected by the BBC Film Network and can be seen on the website after its Edinburgh premiere.

BREADMAKERS was made as part of the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap scheme, the only documentary talent initiative for cinema in the UK offering training linked to production.

The Garvald Centre which runs the bakery is committed to making a real difference to its members' lives with creative day opportunities for over 120 people through a wide range of workshops in craft and artistic skills as well as the bakery and confectionery. It also provides supported accommodation for over 40 people in their own homes.

Short Documentary Award

2007-08-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

Yasmin Fedda, the director of BREADMAKERS, has won the Short Scottish Documentary Award (funded by a donation from Baillie Gifford) at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The judges had a difficult decision to make, so much so, they presented a runners-up prize to the film HOW TO SAVE A FISH FROM DROWNING (dir: Kelly Neal).

Made as part of the Scottish Documentary Institutes' Bridging the Gap scheme, BREADMAKERS tells the story of a community of Edinburgh workers with learning disabilities making a variety of organic breads for daily delivery to shops and cafes in the city.

The film has already been selected by the BBC Film Network and will be screened on the site after its Edinburgh premiere.

Edinburgh Film Festival

2007-07-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

There are two chances to see Breadmakers at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (15 – 26th August 2007).

On Tuesday 21st August at the Filmhouse (12.30pm), Bridging the Gap present a selection of short documentaries on the theme of 'white'. Run by the Scottish Documentary Institute, Bridging the Gap is the only documentary talent initiative for cinema in the UK offering training linked to production.

All six titles in this programme (including Breadmakers) have been selected to compete for the Short Scottish Documentary Award. This screening takes place at The Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh on Saturday 18th August at 12:45pm.

BBC Film Network

2007-07-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

The 10-minute documentary BREADMAKERS (Dir. Yasmin Fedda) has been selected by the BBC Film Network and will be screened on the BBC site after its premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Film Network is the BBC’s interactive showcase for new British filmmakers, screening three new short films in broadband quality every week, adding to a growing catalogue of great shorts.

The site allows people to comment on and rate films and also provides filmmakers with tools to create online profiles and exchange tips, advice and ideas. The purpose is to expose new talent and create a platform for some great films that are rarely seen elsewhere.

More details at www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A22860759

Finnish Film Festival

2007-07-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

BREADMAKERS has been selected for the seventh annual International Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland, which will take place between September 26th and 30th 2007. The main theme of Viscult 2007 festival is "Daily Bread"

The Festival of Visual Culture is a personal event with the majority of filmmakers present to introduce their work encouraging the opportunity for profound discussions of the films, film-making, and culture. The festival is also in close co-operation with the University of Joensuu and its students.

Through the years Viscult, the Finnish film festival, introducing ethnographic, anthropological and documentary films, has seen many great filmmakers and visual anthropologists, Asen Balikci, Peter Biella, Gary Kildea, David MacDougall, Colette Piault, Faye Ginsburg, Judith Okely and Jay Ruby among many others.

The festival in Joensuu, which is located near the Russian border in Finland, is known for its warm and intimate atmosphere, and of course, the Finnish sauna.

More details at www.viscult.net