About Black Room

Black Room is Industry@Tallinn’s training program that explores the visual language of cinema and focuses each year on a new skill set within the Art Department. One week of masterclasses and workshops by world-renowned professionals take place during the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and are held in English.

Black Room comprises the main course for 10 selected production designers and open masterclasses for film industry professionals who want to further their knowledge about visual storytelling. The program thrives on a goal to deepen the understanding of the visual vocabulary of cinema and nourish the appreciation of the multifaceted art of great production design.

The first Black Room launched in 2020 and was held fully online. The program started off with three outstanding mentors. Jacqueline Abrahams is an award-winning production designer known for „The Lobster” and „Lady Macbeth” among many others g films designed during her prolific career. The second mentor Simon Weisse came to teach straight from the shooting of „Matrix 4”. He is the master of miniature models for cinema, which have created the worlds of Wes Anderson films, namely „Isle of Dogs” and „Grand Budapest Hotel”. Black Room’s third mentor Maria Djurkovic stands out as one of the best production designers in the world who has created the worlds of ”The Imitation Game”, „Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and „Billy Elliot” to name a few.

„The mentors were great! Very easy to have a virtual conversation with. I loved how different they were and the different perspectives they gave. I valued the thoroughness of the workshop and the level of expertise of the mentors,” concluded participant Kaia in her feedback. „It was an amazing experience,” said Simon Wesse, who very much enjoyed the experience together with the other mentors.

The key to what makes Black Room’s program stand out will be its interdisciplinary approach to Art Department. Estonian Academy of Arts creates a proliferous possibility to integrate the faculties of the University where the production design itself is taught. The architecture department is an excellent learning ground for set models, drafts, building, and finding the best possible sets. The animation department on the other hand is a superb place to learn how to create concept drawings and storyboards. The design department is an outstanding setting to learn costume design and prop making with 3D modeling at hand. These are just a few outlines of the focus points for upcoming years.

Black Room aims to be the best-advanced learning opportunity in Northern Europe for the members of the Art Department and bring together with its varying and in-depth practical program professionals from all over Europe.