“Usually we, journalists are moving in the same circle and dealing with the same issues. After watching these films I realized that usual citizens excelled us in choosing the topics” Nino Chabashvili, a journalist

On May 26, 2010 another presentation of the films by the Eyewitness Studio took place in Signaghi. It was attended by representatives of local municipality, journalists and average citizens. Four films were shown during the presentation. After viewing the very first film the participants themselves demanded to be shown more films from the regions they were interested in. The films from Pankisi gorge and Samtskhe-Javakheti region attracted the most attention. After watching them the viewers got involved into an interesting discussion. Legal and social issues were discussed, with the emphasis on the unemployment which is as serious a problem in Signaghi as it is in other cities in Georgia.

Screening & Workshop

On May 15, 2010 Eyewitness Studio editor and manager have conducted screening and workshop for Pankisi Valley present and future resident reporters.

Screening

Five films produced by the Eyewitness Studio were shown at the Youth center in Bolnisi on April 26, 2010, and the discussion over them lasted for two hours. Most of the attendees were high-school students and, also, several teachers. The films – “Pankisi rules”, “We are not orphans!”, “Ajara cowboys”, “Running 80 kilometers every day” and “One family – two religions” set the topics for the discussion. Young viewers were especially interested in the film “One family – two religions” and in the issue of whether or not members of the same family can get along with each other’s different religious beliefs. Opinions were uttered that such phenomena can not and, moreover, should not take place. Nevertheless, several participants insisted that what makes a difference in a two people’s union is their humanness rather than religious or ethnical differences. “We heard different opinions here but we all agreed that the best way to tell about problems of this or that village is to let its inhabitants to speak about them. Nobody knows them better” – Robert Sarkisian said.

Screening and Discussion

On April 26, 2010 the discussion over the film turned into a quite heated argument, opinions divided. Some viewers simply didn’t believe in what they had seen, they were watching the main character of the film with doubt and saying than nobody could be sure whether or not he was really the member of the Council of Elders. The rest of the students took the author’s side and stated that everything in the film represented real facts while it was documentary. Four films were presented: “Pankisi rules”, “We are not orphans!”, “Running 80 kilometers every day” and “Victims of conflict”. Students of the became acquainted with the activities of a non-governmental organization GO Group. After the presentation of the films, a short workshop was conducted with the emphasis on camera handling, shooting and choosing of the topics for the films.

Screening and Discussion

On February 22 Eyewitness Studio arranged a workshop on filmmaking skills for journalists and resident reporters. The workshop was conducted by studio editor David Pipia.

Screening and Discussion

On January 31 the Eyewitness Studio arranged a screening of short documentaries at the “Liberali” magazine editorial office. Four documentaries were shown – "Cure of the souls", "Pankisi rules", "An ancient ritual at the modern age" and "Ukrainian Georgian". Journalists from the "Liberali" and authors of the films attended the screening.

Screening / Discussion

The meeting was hosted by Telavi State University.

Broadcasts

Beginning in January 2010 Telavi cable television “Gorda” starts presenting of short documentaries produced by Eyewitness Studio. The films will be broadcasted every Friday at 15:45. The y will be also available online, at http://www.livegeorgia.ge/en/telavi-live/central-square.html

The channel airs everyday and covers Telavi and ten villages of the Telavi district. It is planned to expand the coverage on the entire district in the near future.

“95 per cent of the population of the Telavi district are out viewers. Georgians abroad also watch the channel in live broadcast” – the director of the channel Givi Mamukelashvili said.

Screening / Discussion

On November 13 the Eyewitness Studio arranged the screening of short documentaries in Ninotsminda. Five films were shown: "The old man and matsoni", "Deportees return home", "Potato time", "Mother-Grandmother" and "Ukranian-Georgian".

Representatives of local government and non-governmental organizations, as well as journalists and films’ authors attended the screening.

The screening was followed by discussion conducted by journalist Sopho Bukia    .

Problems of the region were also discussed during the event. The film "Mother-Grandmother" had a deep impact onto representatives of provincial government. They assured the audience that the single old woman and her three grandchildren would be definitely taken care of.

Workshop

On December 12 the Eyewitness Studio editor David Pipia conducted the seminar/workshop on basic principles of video shooting. Resident reporters and authors of the films participated in the workshop, as well as new members who had expressed the desire to tell their own stories through their films.

Most common mistakes that prevent authors of the films from shooting the best possible footage were discussed during the seminar. The participants were shown several ruined footages as examples of such mistakes. Also, they watched the films that had been shot previously and posted at the Studio’s website. An interesting discussion between the authors and new members took place after the screening.

During the workshop new members shared their ideas about future films. The outlines of the scenarios were made with the help of the editor and the authors of the shown films. New members were supplied with the questionnaires created by the editor-in-chief. It might help them to collect sufficient information about the heroes of their future films.

The last part of the workshop was devoted to the practical work. The participants were acquainted with the basic principles of camera handling and video shooting.

Presentation

Screening / Discussion

The Eyewitness Studio arranged the screening of short documentaries in Akhaltsikhe, Samtskhe-Javakheti region. You can watch multimedia report on the workshop. Presenter Sopho Bukia     tells how the discussion was going on 

Five films were shown: "The old man and matsoni", "Deportees return home", "Rural bus", "Mother-Grandmother" and "Ukrainian Georgian". The former four films are dealing with Samtskhe-Javakheti issues.  

Local citizens, including journalists, students of different departments of Akhaltsikhe State University and the authors of presented films attended the screening.

Screening was followed by discussion. The authors answered the questions from the audience, and shared their experience about the difficulties - technical or else - they had faced while shooting the films. The authors also spoke about the heroes of their films and the issues raised in them.

"So much can be told by these short films. The film "Rural bus" reminded me of my home village. It showed many problems that still exist - such old buses still running to villages, no glasses in the windows of the bus, etc. The problem is that nobody considers the fact that such old and damaged bus is running to three or four villages, a problem. Nobody ever have paid attention to this" – said Nino Nergadze, 22, a pharmacist.

The viewers especially liked the film "The old man and matsoni".

"Countless such indigent families exist around us and probably nobody remembers them. Who knows how many times have my friends bought matsoni from this old man and then enjoyed it, but nobody ever bothered to think what had made this man walk the streets in the rain, snow or wind with his heavy load" – said Teona Merabishvili.

"I liked the film "Deportees return home" a lot. In general, the attitude of the society towards Muslim Meskhs for some reason has always been negative and aggressive, although the film shows one average hardworking good-neighborly family" – said Nana Talakhadze, the head of Journalism course at the department of Humanities of the Akhaltsikhe State University. She also added that students are not treated with such screenings often, and therefore it is desirable to arrange them more frequently. "You can see how fast they got active, they’ve got ideas, and they spoke freely on many difficult topics. I talk to them all the time, but still such meetings are definitely necessary for them to realize their role in the life of the region."

Besides the screening, the discussion about the problems of the region took place at the meeting, such as: learning of Georgian language by non-Georgian population, integration, ethnic and religious problems, stereotypes and cases of discrimination.

At the beginning of the meeting youth talked about the problem of finding jobs in the region. By the end of the day most of them changed their minds and planned making their own films.

"I got several ideas, good thing that I don’t have to be a journalist to fulfill them. I will make a film as an ordinary citizen and will express myself through it" – said Teona Kokhodze, 22.

Discussion

Margarita Akhvlediani, director of the GO Group, participated in the discussion over August 2008 war in Georgia that had place on ATB Radio National in Australia on Monday, 26 October. The discussion (in English) is accessible as an audio file below or you can follow the link http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2724171.htm  

Workshop

The Dart Center on Trauma and Journalism in cooperation with the Global Initiative on Psychiatry-Tbilisi and Eyewitness Studio organized a series of workshops on Trauma and Journalism for Georgian journalists and mental health professionals as a next step in developing this interdisciplinary network. 

Three workshops took place on 11th, 12th and 16th of October, respectively in Tbilisi, Gori and Rustavi, with participation of both central and regional print and electronic media representatives. In total, 45 professionals took part in the workshops.

The workshops were led by Arnold Isaacs, a long time journalist-advisor to the Dart Center and a teacher of news reporting in post-conflict areas; Jana Javakhishvili, Georgian Psychologist, who is one of the region's leaders in trauma research, training and treatment; and Zviad Koridze, prominent Georgian independent journalist.

The following issues were discussed during the workshops: how to cover conflict, disaster and violent events in a way to prevent further spread of trauma among the audience and not to increase suffering of victims; how to deal with the painful emotions provoked by witnessing human tragedies; how to establish interdisciplinary network to decrease threat of vicarious traumatization and development of societal trauma. 

“Unfortunately, only after the Soviet Union had broken apart did we realize that journalism was something different from what we thought of it. In this regard America and European Union are quite ahead of us, and what they learned and discovered thirty years ago, is new for us. At the seminar we learned how to act during covering conflicts, what is the cause of stress, and how to overcome it. Many journalists think of it as of their own problem which they have to take care of themselves, but, as we discovered during the seminar, the entire system has been created to help journalists to deal with the stress while being in and after such situations. We welcome such seminars, the oftener they are conducted, the better,” says Nino Dalakishvili who lives in Gori and is an active member of the Eyewitness Studio network.

New Media Forum

Journalists and resident-reporters of “Eyewitness Studio” network participated at the “New Media Forum” that took place with the support of “Open Society-Georgia” foundation at Mtatsminda Park in Tbilisi on October 12-13. The aim of the project was to familiarize the audience with the possibilities of the Internet media and citizen journalism. Instructors from the USA, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Poland, Azerbaijan and Armenia were invited to the forum. They conducted seminars and workshops on blogging, podcasting, social networks, as well as on social impact of Internet broadcasting and new media. Journalists, students and NGO representatives participated at the forum. 

“It was very interesting and even mandatory for me as a new blogger to participate at such forum. I met people I knew only through blogs and I was eager to meet them. I got useful advices from foreign instructors on how not to become the sole reader of my own blog, and how to make blogs popular in the Georgian web-space. My opinion is that Georgian blogosphere moved forward to more interesting phase” – says Maka Tsnobiladze    , GO Group associate director on administrative and communication issues.

Workshop

Four members of Eyewitness Network and four new recruits, all of them – citizen journalists, attended the workshop on filmmaking skills that was conducted by the Eyewitness Studio’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Akhvlediani on 2 October, 2009. Two main issues were discussed – what should be avoided and what is significant to do while shooting the draft material. 

 First part of the workshop focused on the most common mistakes that prevent production of the best possible material. The participants watched the spoiled footages illustrating how the best shots were ruined because of the author’s mistakes as: shaking the camcorder, moving too fast while filming, senseless use of Zoom functions, commenting during the interview and several more. Then, two short films were shown to demonstrate the difference between journalism attracted by the facts and documentary engaged in telling human stories. 

All the screenings were accompanied by thorough discussions.

Second part of the workshop aimed to teach the resident reporters several important skills such as developing the preliminary scenario for the new film, conducting interviews and wox-pop, filming round-about the main scene and several more. This part of the training was entirely practical and involved the video and photo sessions and production of the final film. 

“I have filmed a story how the trees are illegally cut by local residents, and I thought it was a perfect film that needed just some editing, - said Natia Suleishvili who became a new member of Live Voices network. – And now I see so clearly the mistakes I made. Happily, it is the story that allows me to shoot more, and now I know for sure what exactly I have to do and what I need to ask the heroes of my film.”

You can watch short multimedia report on the workshop and well as working materials made by Jokola Achishvili (Pankisi Gorge, Gvantsa Gomiashvili (Gori) and Mirza Borchashvili (Pankisi Gorge) 

Screening / Discussion

On December 16 GO Group arranged the screening of short documentaries produced by the Eyewitness Studio, at Tbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University. Three documentaries were shown: "Pankisi Rules", "The old man and matsoni" and "Anaida’s dream".

Second and third year students of the journalism department attended the screening. The screening was followed by the discussion. Participants shared their opinions about the films and the questions raised by them, as well as problems of the journalism itself.

The students especially liked the film "Pankisi rules" which had been made by the resident reporter who resides in the Pankisi gorge. The participants noted that they had received very interesting information about people of Pankisi and their traditions and rules. The students expressed the hope there would be more films about such places in order to fill up a gap of information from there.

The participants showed an interest in the activities of the organization and Eyewitness reporting studio. Many of them expressed a desire to actively cooperate with the Studio and to be involved into its projects.

"The films were very interesting. We, who live in the capital, unfortunately don’t know what is going on in the different parts of Georgia. It is quite important and interesting to learn as much as possible about traditions and rules of people who live there, and to find out their opinions. I am very pleased that the Eyewitness studio will inform the society about such issues" – student Tsisana Shergelashvili notes.

"I liked the films a lot. It is good such a studio does exist. Receiving the information from the places little is known about, is pretty important. I learned very interesting facts about kists and their traditions, I would like to watch such films from Ossetia and Abkhazia" – Lela Gogoladze, student said.

"In my opinion, it is very important for future journalists to learn such human stories, for they are few. I think it is possible to use such films in resolving the problems. It would be good to have the information from conflict regions since we have no idea what is going on there and how people there live" – Sopho Beriashvili, student.

The lecturer of the Department of Journalism Giorgi Lomsadze, who organized the screening, stressed that the "human histories" shown in the films often tell more and give a better picture than professional covering. In his opinion it is very important for future journalists to have an access to such non-trite materials.