Dream workers: A filmmaking journey during the pandemic (Video Essay)
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Date
2026-09-04
Authors
Fontini, Pinar
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Film and Screen Media, University College Cork
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Abstract
In February 2020, just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started the production stage of my documentary Dream Workers (Pinar Fontini, 2022). This constituted the practical component of my doctoral research. The project was originally envisioned to feature interviews with seven contemporary women filmmakers from Turkey at the Atlas Theatre (an old cinematheque in Istanbul) alongside travel across the country to visit key locations from their respective films. However, the intersection of ongoing cultural politics with the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns necessitated a shift in approach. To adapt to this new reality, cinematographer Nalan Abbasoğlu and I converted my home into a film studio, acquiring equipment such as a projector, smartphones, and a gimbal, and experimenting with Filmic Pro, a 4K video recording application for iOS mobile devices. After extensive testing, we established the optimal setup for lighting and camera placement for the interviews which needed to take place over Skype. While the final documentary Dream Workers explores what it means to be a woman filmmaker within the sociopolitical context of contemporary Turkey, this paper and accompanying video focus on how, confined at home during the pandemic, I developed a feature-length documentary by adopting “instability” as a filmmaking methodology.
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Fontini, P. (2026) 'Dream workers: A filmmaking journey during the pandemic (Video Essay)', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 31, pp. 106–111. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.31.09