Sylvie Gadmer – Editing, the third writing of a film

Sylvie Gadmer has earned great renown internationally as an editor. She often switches between fiction films and documentaries as a creative way of enriching the films she edits. She has worked with directors from a host of different countries and her films have premiered and won awards at festivals like Toronto, Visions du Réel, Cannes, Venice and Tokyo.

At MajorDocs she will offer the public a masterclass on her vision of editing and the editor-creator relationship, whether dealing with fresh talent or veterans in the field: What is the story ? How to tell ? How to choose the story telling ? In the editing room many questions are raised, many solutions are experimented. After, sometime, several years of writing and filming, the film is expected to be born. It is the time of the last decisions, where the shape and the identity of the film must be found and assumed. It is a long and exciting mental journey, which must be reinvented each time.

Sylvie Gadmer discovered documentary filmmaking at the Ateliers Varan in 1996 during a mission in Cambodia. Since 2004 she became a member of the association and she handles Ateliers Varan in Vietnam. After obtaining a degree in cinema, she gained experience as script and directing assistant. Since 1998 she traced a career as a chief editor, principally in cinema, acquiring a varied body of work. In taking on projects, she often chooses to alternate between working in fiction and in documentary, in the belief that this switching between forms creatively informs her work. She has substantial experience editing international projects.