Prague, 16 October 2013 – “How to recognise a potential story?” – that is the name of the workshop that the MIDPOINT dramaturgy programme is holding in cooperation with the Czech Film Center and the office of MEDIADeskCzech Republic from 17 – 19 October 2013 at Prague’s FAMU film school.
The MIDPOINT centre of Central European script development, whose activities are specialised primarily on the support of scriptwriting and dramaturgy for students and graduates of film schools, is giving Czech film professionals the opportunity, for the third year running, to exchange their experience and ideas with internationally renowned tutors.
The workshop will be oriented on feature-length projects meant for cinematic distribution. It will proceed in the form of discussions in small groups and individual meetings with the tutors, whose objectives will primarily be the analysis of the scripts for the individual projects in progress and the development of their strengths. The creative teams comprised of the screenwriter and the producer will be participating in the consultations. After the workshop is finished, its participants will have the opportunity for an on-line consultation of the already-developed version of the script with the tutors.
With regard to the preparation of the workshop Markéta Šantrochová, the head of the Czech Film Center, told us: “We are pleased with the interest in this workshop on the part of Czech filmmakers, mainly because it shows that the irreplaceable role of good dramaturgy in the development of a project is starting to be fully appreciated again. On our call, some very renowned filmmakers and well-established production companies also applied with interesting projects of a wide variety of genres. We trust that this interest will continue. During our work, we often see how difficult it is to succeed on the international field and how important a high-quality and well-prepared script is. This is one of the reasons we are trying so hard to support this area of the implementation of film projects and thanks to the cooperation with MIDPOINT and MEDIA Desk I think we are succeeding.”
Eight projects were selected for this year’s workshop – 5 live-action and 3 animated. The inclusion of animated works is new to this year’s workshop. They will be represented by the following projects: Lips Tullian, an adaptation of the legendary Czech comics about the impoverished aristocrat Filip of Mengenstein produced by Film&Roll (producer Veronika Finková, screenwriter Tomáš Hořava), the feature-length puppet film The Little Gentleman (Malý pán) about the adventurous journey of a kind-hearted boy who nothing surprises from the production of Bedna TV (producer Jakub Červenka, screenwriter Lumír Tuček) and the animated project Surabaya Johnny or Lonely Hearts (Surabája Johnny aneb Seznamka) produced by Negativ (producer Kateřina Černá, screenwriter Michaela Pavlátová).
Fog´n´Desire, represented by producer Viktor Tauš and screenwriter Evita Naušová, is coming with a feature-length project entitled American (Amerikánka), the Nextproduction project, Blameless (Bezúhonní) will be represented by producer Kateřina Špůrová and screenwriter Dávid Badin, on behalf of Moloko film producer Miloš Lochman and screenwriter Vojtěch Mašek will be consulting the script for their feature project Reconstruction (Rekonstrukce). The Orange Room (Oranžový pokoj) will be represented by screenwriter Štefan Titka and producer Vratislav Šlajer from Bionaut Filmsand the comedy Stick ‘Em Up (Ruce vzhůru) under the production of FilmBrigade by screenwriter Milan Tesař.
The tutors for this year’s workshop will be Martin Daniel and Milena Jelinek. Milena Jelinek’s public master class will also be taking place on Tuesday 22 October 2013 from 5:30 p.m. at FAMU on the occasion of the miniMIDPOINT being held.
Milena Jelinek is a writer of films and plays and a consultant for scripts. She works as a professor of scriptwriting at Columbia University as well as for the Mediterranean Film Institute. She has extensive experience with Czech and European film work. She wrote the scripts for the film Forgotten Light (1996) and the play Adina (2007), among many others.
Martin Daniel is a scriptwriter, teacher of scriptwriting and script analyst with extensive international experience, who teaches at the University of Southern California and at The Binger Film Lab. He has cooperated on scripts as part of the North by Northwest programme (an education programme supported by the MEDIA programme), he was a Fulbright lecturer at FAMU and he has led courses for Screen Training Ireland, UNESCO and other organisations. He has been cooperating with EAVE, a prestigious educational programme for European producers, since 1991.
MIDPOINT was established on the initiative of FAMU and in cooperation with film schools in Bratislava, Lodz, Berlin, Bucharest and Budapest. It helps students to develop stories that concern local themes, but also have the potential to appeal to audiences internationally. Apart from programmes oriented on young filmmakers, MIDPOINT also offers dramaturgy workshops to Czech film professionals.
MEDIA is a programme of the European Union, the goal of which is the support of the member countries’ audiovisual industries. The support takes place in the form of the direct financing of film and television work and projects, which contributes to the promotion and distribution of European audiovisual works or to the further education of European film professionals. The Czech Republic has been a member of the MEDIA programme since 2002 and has obtained more than 400 million CZK in support. MEDIA Desk CR is the service and information office of the MEDIA programme in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Film Centre (CFC) was established in the year 2002. The main goal and subject of its activities is to promote Czech film and the Czech film industry at foreign film festivals and markets, to provide up-to-date information on the state of Czech cinematography, to issue annual catalogues, DVDs and other publications and to make and maintain contacts in the area of the international film industry. From 2013 the CFC is part of the National Film Archive.
Denisa Strbova
PR project manager
Czech Film Center
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