The RAFF Generation programme at this year’s eighth Rab Film Festival began on Saturday, 22 August, at the Rab City Library with lectures by film critic Vladan Petković and university lecturer Tomislav Levak.
At the lecture entitled ‘How to Watch and Comment on a Film, as an Author or as a Viewer’, film critic and this year’s RAFF film programme selector Vladan Petković presented selected titles and the themes they bring to audiences. He introduced the participants to the different ways in which filmmakers and viewers approach a film. Together with the students, he also discussed and briefly analysed the Scottish documentary ‘Everybody to Kenmure Street’, which was screened that day as the first film in the official competition of this year’s RAFF.
Tomislav Levak, a lecturer at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek and a former journalist and editor with many years of experience across several Croatian media outlets, addressed the challenges of the journalistic profession in a lecture entitled ‘Motivation in Journalism at a Time of Major Changes in the Media Market’. The interactive lecture, during which he also answered students’ questions, focused on the changes affecting journalism, from the way news is produced to the way audiences consume it.
‘Croatia has never had more media and communication degree programmes, while the situation in the media has probably never been worse’, Levak said. He highlighted the pressure to publish media content as quickly as possible, leaving journalists with less and less time to research a particular subject. The way young people enter the profession has also changed. While young journalists once had mentors who helped them develop their stories, today they are unfortunately often left to find their own way.
Despite all these changes, he warned, one of the fundamental principles of journalism remains the same: journalists should never rely on a single source, but verify information through several sources.
The first RAFF Generation lectures connected film and journalism through what they have in common: investigating reality, verifying facts and thinking critically.
