March 2023

Geotechmin OOD and Ellatzite-Med AD launched the initiative Let’s Make a Movie for students in grades 5 – 12 from 13 schools in Etropole and Srednogorie region. Students will assume the roles of producers, screenwriters, directors, operators, film editors, sound operators, etc., to make short films about mining. The project is implemented jointly with Arlekin Association, an organiser of “Arlekin” International Festival for Children and Youth’s Media Art.

Let’s Make a Movie initiative comprises four stages. The first one includes training for scriptwriting, camera, shooting, film editing, etc. The lecturers are university professors from the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts “Kr. Sarafov” – the playwright Assoc. Prof. Yuri Dachev and the film director and TV presenter Dr Rositsa Mladenova. The next stage is preparation: collecting information from various sources, writing questions, planning the shoot. The third one involves field work: students will interview various specialists from Ellatzite-Med – a geologist, a land surveyor, an ore-dressing engineer, an IT specialist, a heavy truck driver, a front-end loader operator, a HSE expert, etc. The final stage is post-production: students will write their behind-the-scenes scripts, do the editing, choose the sound effects for each scene, etc.

The project has two main goals – the first one is to acquaint students with the magic art of filmmaking and help them acquire basic knowledge about scriptwriting, camera, shooting, film editing, sound selection, etc. The second goal is to familiarise students with some interesting facts about various types of mining professions featured in short 8-minute films. Each of the films will present a number of key mining professions. They will be publicly exhibited and will participate in “Arlekin” International Festival for Children and Youth’s Media Art which is held annually in Bulgaria under the motto “The World in My Eyes”.