Lecciones en Proceso (Lessons in Process)

“Lessons in Process” is a poetic documentary about a film making workshop given by Canadian filmmaker Philip Hoffman at the famed Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión de San Antonio de los Baños in Cuba. Founded in 1986 by Argentinean poet and filmmaker Fernando Birri, Colombian writer Gabriel García Marquez and Cuban filmmakers Julio Garcia Espinosa, and Thomas Gutirres Alea, “the school of the three worlds” was established to give students from developing countries in Latin America and the Carribean, Africa and Asia, an opportunity to participate in the democracy of the image. Hoffman collaborates with the students to produce exercises in cinematic process that employ haiku poetry, continuous takes and found footage as a connection to their temporal everyday. Like all of Hoffman’s films, serendipity guides the filmmaking process and establishes three weaving threads: the aging Birri and his return to the school, the Haiti earthquake and Hoffman’s father’s last days.