16th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival
– DISTORToΠia – How do you mirror reality –
BBB in the Neighborhood
BBB in the Neighborhood: ‘Coffee, Memory & Image’ a visual anthropology workshop and marathon
What if a cup of coffee could tell a story?
If you love observing people, capturing moments, or discovering meaning in daily life, imagine how many stories a simple act, like drinking coffee, could unfold. So if you are passionate about using photography or video to discover the city, the workshop “Coffee, Memory & Image” invites you to explore coffee as more than a drink, but as a story, a symbol, and a way to connect with ourselves and others through the city’s environment. The workshop will take place at Galata University on Friday, 07/11, at 14:00.
Coffee has long been part of Balkan identity, a moment of pause, a social ritual, and sometimes even a way of divination. But beyond that, it’s a shared experience — a quiet conversation, a comforting pause, a piece of everyday magic. Drawing inspiration from this year’s festival theme, DistortoΠia: how do you mirror reality? participants will explore how familiar practices can both reveal and distort our perception of the world. Through film stills, theory, discussion, and creative exercises, the workshop opens up questions of memory, culture, and representation, inviting participants to look closer at the images and habits that shape their daily lives, and maybe, to see them differently.
From observation to creation, the ‘Coffee, Memory & Image’ workshop consists of three parts:
- Workshop: Participants will get useful insights of visual storytelling techniques, cultural anthropology and the creative use of memory.
- Marathon: Participants have two days to experience the neighborhoods of Istanbul to create their own audiovisual result inspired by the topic “Coffee, Memory & Image”.
- Evaluation: Participants will bring their audiovisual result (photography series, short film or audio) to present it to the instructors and get useful feedback. All creations will be uploaded at Balkans Beyond Borders website.
Through an immersive blend of social anthropology, storytelling, and practice in the field, this workshop explores how coffee connects people, places, and memories. Participants will move from reflecting on coffee’s social meanings across the Balkans.
Social and cultural anthropology teaches us that even the smallest rituals, like drinking coffee, hold stories of memory, identity, and imagination, and eventually how coffee can become both a subject and a storyteller. Each group’s piece will be presented at the end of the workshop, forming a collective and vivid narrative.
Useful information:
Duration: Day 1, Friday 7.11 | Theory, Sensory exploration & Creative practice (~1.30 hours)
Day 2, Sunday 9.11 |Presentation of the participants’ work
Language: English
Venue: Galata University
To participate:
- Fill the form until 4th of November.
- Bring a personal object (or experience!) that reminds you of coffee (e.g., a favorite cup, mug or jug, a picture, or anything else), which will be used as a source of inspiration and creative expression.
Instructors
Jim (Demetrios) Tsakiris
Jim Tsakiris is a member of the Greek Association of Social Anthropologists, with a degree in History and Ethnology. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia, focusing on the dietary practices of the Georgian community of Thessaloniki. He has researched the integration of Ukrainian refugees in Thessaloniki and currently is affiliated with the Amsterdam-based applied anthropology organisation “Namla,” which experiments with innovative forms of teaching ethnography in various organisations and companies. Jim creates workshops centered on the visualisation of social and cultural anthropology, blending it with creative art, aiming to reach wider audiences outside academia and make social sciences accessible to everyone. His interests focus on cinema, the intersections of vulnerable communities, dietary practices, gender, and migration within contemporary cities.
Miklós Barna Lipkovski
Miklós, born in Budapest in 1987, is a hard-worker and a dedicated movie lover. He is responsible for the technical proficiency and high quality of the films shot within the ŠVA. He is the co-founder of the Visual Anthropology Center (VAC) Summer School in Belgrade and works as a freelance photographer, video artist and journalist. He finished his MA in television journalism and documentary film directing in 2006 at the University of film and theatre in Budapest. He has been working in digital media covering different fields ever since. He has been working as a video journalist for Radio Free Europe since 2021. His focus has been split between journalism and artistic approach towards video- and filmmaking. His films have been selected for international festivals in the region and he has received a journalistic award in 2023.