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In October 2022, over 250 production designers—from Academy Award winners to emerging talent—attended the inaugural Production Designers Gathering in Greece.
About
The Production
Designers Collective
With over 1500 members from 75 countries, the Production Designers Collective is the largest organization of production designers in the world.
The Collective creates and promotes content on its website, blog, social media and newsletters in addition to organizing workshops, panels and meetups around the world to advance the craft of production design.
The two major PDC initiatives are The Gathering and International Production Design Week.
The Story of the Gathering
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In 2022, as the world was slowly emerging from the COVID pandemic, PDC co-founders Inbal Weinberg and Kalina Ivanov decided to realize their dream of bringing together international colleagues for an in-person gathering.
From their decade of experience organizing events for the Production Designers Collective, the co-founders knew first-hand the benefits of professional meetups. Now, with the industry reeling from the recent global trauma of isolation and quarantines, it had become clear that colleagues were craving meaningful connections more than ever.
The concept was fresh and untested: Creating a retreat-like event, only open to production designers, with an emphasis on inclusion and shared experience.
Where Greece Comes In
As luck would have it, PDC co-founder Inbal Weinberg had spent the early pandemic months on the island of Spetses, Greece, shooting the film “The Lost Daughter”. While developing deep ties with the island, she perceived its potential as a gathering venue.
Co-founder Kalina Ivanov had her own personal connection with Greece. Years earlier her family had escaped Soviet Bulgaria, and was welcomed in Greece as refugees. The country played a crucial role in Kalina’s subsequent flourishing, for which she still feels immense gratitude.
While working in Greece, Inbal met producer and financier Christos V. Konstantakopoulos of Faliro House, founder of the non-profit Oxbelly, an organization which holds leading international writers’ programs in film, television and literature through the annual Oxbelly Retreat in Greece, while supporting the burgeoning Greek film industry.
Oxbelly joined as the first partner to PDG, ensuring the Gathering became a reality and Greece became its home.
Co-Founders' Statement
The 2022 inaugural Gathering was a turning point in our community that directly contributed to the founding of production design associations in several countries, launched an education network for production design professors, elevated the conversation about current technical tools and matched students with future mentors. We are honored and proud to have started a tradition, and look forward to seeing it grow and prosper with every edition.
Inbal Weinberg + Kalina Ivanov
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