European Short Pitch: Book of Projects 2009

BOOK OF PROJECTS

EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH 2009

CONTENTS ABOUT NISI MASA ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH SCRIPTS Jerker Beckman

Synes Elischka

Sarah Grohnert Selim Güngör Vaclav Hašek Hannaleena Hauru Michiel ten Horn Joona Kivirinta Vedrana Klepica Susanna Kotilainen Ülkü Oktay Lyubomir Pechev Antonio Piazza & Fabio Grassadonia Eva Poirier Oana Rasuceanu Ariel Shaban Melissa Suarez del Real Paolo Taddei Mistre Tesfaye Laura Tonini Edward Windus Judith Zdesar

3 4

Sweden Austria UK

Germany

Czech Republic

Finland The Netherlands Finland

Croatia Finland

Turkey

Bulgaria

The Moon follows me where I go The Good son Chicken poetry Rotten tomatoes Man in a coat, made of a first-rate fabric, probably brought from far away Won’t lovers revolt now?

Fore Land of men The Coma Skinside out Scamps Family

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Italy France Romania Kosovo

Spain Italy Sweden Italy UK Austria

Rita The Day mummy died Stuck on christmas The Wedding tape Furniture Betting agency The Great escape Sled dogs Blood Break

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

TUTORS Antoine Le Bos & Atso Pärnänen Julie Peyr & François Pirot

27 28

PARTNERS AND CONTACT INFO

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European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

ABOUT NISI MASA Our profile

Our main activities

NISI MASA is a European network gathering hundreds of young film enthusiasts in about 20 countries. NISI MASA is composed of national organisations with different profiles, but all consisting of young Europeans sharing a common passion: cinema.

All the year long, NISI MASA organizes various events all over Europe, involving hundreds of film buffs & talents: scriptwriting and directing workshops, seminars, film screenings, etc.

Our main aims • •

•

•

To discover & promote new film talents To foster European awareness through the means of cinema To develop cross-cultural cinema projects To create a platform of discussion and

collaboration, for young European filmmakers

European Short Pitch 2009

NISI MASA holds an annual European short film Script Contest for people between 18 and 28, and assists the awarded scripts in production and distribution. On the 15th of April 2009 the 8th edition will be launched.

NISI MASA publishes a daily magazine during different European (Cannes, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Turin, Alba) and International (Tehran, Rio, Lima) film festivals and also the monthly newsletter Nisimazine.

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More information can be found on our website www.nisimasa.com.

Book of Projects

ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH

T

aking place from the 15th to the 22nd of February 2009, European Short Pitch is a pilot project aimed at developing European coproduction of short films. It combines a scriptwriting workshop in residency and a promotion event during a pitching session.

Selected on the basis of their short film scripts, young European talents gather to discuss, rewrite, and learn to promote their ideas on the European level. They eventually pitch their project in front of a panel of producers/commissioning editors and then meet them during individual meetings.

EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH 15th - 22nd February 2009 Moulin d’Andé-Céci France

Initiated by NISI MASA, European Short Pitch is the continuation of a scriptwriting workshop held for the finalists of its European Script Contest since 2004.

25 young European scriptwriters A 5-day workshop A pitching session with producers

A 7-day project in Moulin d’Andé for 25 participants from all over Europe, which follows the scriptwriting process. From collective brainstorming to working in groups or individually with professional tutors, participants discuss their project in depth, hence receiving various feedbacks nurturing their scripts.

The pitching sessions take place on Saturday 21st of February 2009 at the Moulin d’Andé, from 12.00 to 13.00 and from 15.00 to 17.00 in front of a panel of 25 European producers and commissioning editors. It will be followed by individual meetings.

European Short Pitch 2009

www.nisimasa.com

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Book of Projects

JERKER BECKMANSWEDEN

THE MOON FOLLOWS ME WHERE I GO Address: Ringvägen 155 / 116 31 Stockholm, Sweden Tel: + 46 736 55 01 02 E-mail: jerker.beckman@gmail.com

BIO

Synopsis

intention

A playwright at heart after having written for the stage forever, Jerker Beckman only recently turned to film. And he is delighted at this new medium, as it is quite different thinking in pictures as opposed to the actor-centered theatre.

A sad eight-year-old girl moves into a new city neighbourhood with her distraught father. Walking through the dark alleys, she gets more and more uncomfortable and scared as shadow monsters and older, cooler girls threaten her. Running from her enemies, imagined or real, she seeks refuge at a library. But when the library closes she is once again forced to the dark street.

Walking on a starry night, you start to notice that the moon follows you. It moves when you move, it stops when you stop. Most of us have had this experience as a kid, a child’s imagination interacting with the illusion that is the world. This movie is about using that imagination, and convey it to action. It’s about anger as a reinforcing, creative emotion.

He grew up in two vastly different suburbs of Stockholm, one rich and one poor. He has worked in many equally diverse occupations, from fast food booths to mid-level management at a computer firm. Jerker is educated in theatre, philosophy, litterature and writing. For a living, these days he works as a light/sound designer and engineer for the theatre. Since his teens, he’s written a dozen long and short plays for various small stages in Stockholm. His first film writing, and directorial debut, is the short film 25m2, finished in the fall of 2008. The moon follows me where I go is his third film script.

‘‘The moon was her friend .

Now she’s trying to kill it.’’

European Short Pitch 2009

An unexpected ally appears: the moon seems to watch over her and follows her where she goes. For a while they both live in harmony. Strengthened by her new friend, she no longer feels afraid.

But the moon betrays her and fails to come to her aid when she is attacked.

As her sadness turns into anger, she sees only one solution: she has got to kill the moon. With determination and diligence she undertakes the effort, and even manages to get her numb and distant father to help her. In the process both find a connection they had lost.

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The child’s magical view of the world reflects on our lives as adults. We all possess it from the start. Gradually, as we get older, we learn the mundane view we call realistic. But really our hopes and fears are still imaginary, we still flee from shadow monsters. Life is hard, and it always was, for child and adult alike. But children seem to have a better way of dealing; a way that makes them happier.

This film takes place in the world as the eightyear-old heroine sees it. For a moment she is able to break the adult seal of rationality and in the end we are faced with the question: was growing up really such a great idea?

Book of Projects

Synes ElischkaAUSTRIA THE Good SON

Address: Cumberlandstraße 5/5/3 1140 Vienna, Austria Tel: + 43 699 111 529 77 E-mail: synes.elischka@gmail.com www.media-art.cc

BIO Born 1982 in Zurich, Synes Elischka started shooting experimental video films at the age of 15, using two VHS recorders for editing. He studied Cinematography at the ENERC in Buenos Aires and graduated Media Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Prof. Erwin Wurm) in 2008.

Since 2004 he directed and produced more than 25 Short Films and Video Clips for Cinema and TV. While working and volunteering as a cameraman, editor and lighting technician he also develops and exhibits Video Installations and Performances.

‘‘It would be an easy thing to provide for you.

We could be a family.“ European Short Pitch 2009

intention As an active Member of the International Film Network kino5, he produces Short Films in 60 hours and less, organizes Film Festivals as well as monthly Short Film Screenings in Vienna.

Synes Elischka lives and works in Vienna and Buenos Aires.

Synopsis A Lukas is 16 and lives in a rural suburb area.

His family background is dysfunctional and the relationship with his father could be described as frosty. When the 13 year old Conny gets pregnant, Lukas knows who’s guilty. They both flee, rupturing the suffocating silence, but instead of reaching the abortion clinic, they end up in the woods, somewhere near the German border.

Disillusioned, the two decide to head back home, where the surprising return of Lukas’ missing brother gives a base for new hope.

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‟Lucas also sometimes thought about turning the village his back, leaving it and everything associated with it behind, but in order to act, he would need an idea of something to do. Instead he is just killing time.”

The basic story of The Good Son uses all the elements of Melodrama, but concentrates on the Antagonist.

The strong and stable Conny, who would be the logical center of attention, only appears as a marginal figure in the film, making it impossible to identify with her. Instead we concentrate on the outcast Lucas, whose naive world-views lead both characters into a dangerous situation, when the two teenagers are confronted with an incident that alters their casual life. But Lucas believes his own lies, when he depicts his actions towards Conny as well-intentioned.

The film captures a very visual plot in the woods of Upper Austria that evolves into a suspenseful ending.

Summarized it is mainly about responsibility, dreams and growing up.

The film captures a very visual plot in the woods of Upper Austria that evolves into a suspenseful ending.

To summarize: The story is mainly about responsibility, dreams and growing up.

Book of Projects

SARAH GROHNERTUK CHICKEN POETRY

Address: 2 Turnpin Lane, London SE10 9JA, UK Tel: + 44 790 647 451 9 E-mail: mail@sarahgrohnert.com www.sarahgrohnert.com

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Sarah Grohnert is a freelance writer/director, born in Germany in 1980. She has lived and studied in New Zealand and the USA before working as an editor and post-production supervisor in Germany.

In 2003 she moved to the UK to study directing at The Arts Institute Bournemouth. Two years later she won the prestigious BMW Short Film Award in Germany under the mentorship of actor Moritz Bleibtreu and short film Oscar winning director Florian Gallenberger.

Chicken Poetry follows a chain of events portraying an elderly Asian couple at the centre of peculiar incidents: In a beautiful rose garden a posh lady cleans up after her dog. Elsewhere, a butcher tries to conceal the ridiculous abundance of sausages in his display. An alter ego reminisces about his cruelty towards flies in a karaoke song and a boy with downsyndrome tries to convince a blind man that a dead bird has fallen out of the sky.

The idea for Chicken Poetry came about an everyday life observation, repeatedly encountering an elderly Asian couple taking a walk in my local park. The image of them stuck with me like a painting, something that unfolds more and more in detail the longer or more often you look at it. There lay something both comic and tragic in their mundane connection to European society and I became interested in playing with the potential of creating a tension through exploring the cinematic junction between these opposing emotional qualities.

Upon moving to London in 2007, Sarah has been picked up for commercial representation both in the UK and Germany and 2008 saw her get a break into TV by writing and directing an online mini-drama series for SKY. Sarah is currently in development for a documentary through the Mobfilm Co. and has been selected by the Director’s Guild GB to shadow director Jon Amiel on his latest feature Evolution, starring Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany.

With a heightened look at the microcosms of life, the films absurdly entertaining focus eyes the truth that life is neither comic nor tragic until someone chooses to see it one way or another.

My intention is to create a visually driven, highly engaging and entertaining film, blending various genres within the short film format and surprising the audience with their emotional response to each scene.

“Take …your…pick .”

European Short Pitch 2009

Subsequently, the script is both deeply sad and deadpan funny, highly metaphorical and stubbornly concrete at the same time and it is these polarities that drive the narrative of the film as scenes accumulate, falling into places like a puzzle.

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SELIM GÜNGÖRGERMANY ROTTEN TOMATOES Address: c/o Meisheit, Köthener Str.6 10963 Berlin, Germany Tel (Germany): +49 176 96 34 78 76 Tel (Turkey): +90 531 621 81 66 E-mail: selim.gungor@gmx.net

BIO

Synopsis

Selim Güngör was born in Germany in 1981 from Turkish parents. After studying anglistics in Istanbul he went to England to finish a degree in communication & media.

Uday is a young Iraqi fleeing from the aftermaths of the war in his country.

He has been commuting since between Berlin and Istanbul where he is working in film production, as an assistant director, script translator/consultant and in festival organisation.

He sets out on a journey on the back of a lorry to seek refuge in Spain, where he’s hoping to work in the large EUsubsidised tomato industry.

Farouq is a young Moroccan who runs a small market stall in his hometown and sells his own tomatoes. He can’t compete with the dumping prices of the imported Spanish tomatoes from across the strait and cannot provide for his family anymore.

Intention I wanted to focus on a growing humanitarian crisis that we face today, which is forced migration, for all sorts of reasons. People are risking their lives trying to escape to ‘industrialised countries’ and the so called ‘industrialised media’ is still widely condoning this issue.

So he sets out to work with his cousin in the south of France in an arms factory which produces the kind of weapons that are used in the Iraq war and consequently made Uday flee to work on a tomato plantation in Spain which thus made Farouq bankrupt and forced him to flee to France…

This story is intending to explore the motivations of a war refugee and structures of displacement put into context with the socio-economical effects of globalisation and how ordinary people’s lives are affected by them.

‘‘The illogical logic of capitalism.”

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

Václav HasekCZECH REPUBLIC

Man In A Coat, Made Of A First-rate Fabric, Probably Brought From Far Away Address: Husovo nám. 83, 267 12 Loděnice, Czech Republic Tel: + 420 773 551 179 E-mail: vasek.hsk@seznam.cz

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Václav Hašek was born in the Czech Republic in 1986. He lives near Prague and is currently studying economy at the university. During his studies he worked in a commercial company and as a receptionist in a logistic company. The NISI MASA Script contest is his first experience in filmmaking.

The Man in the coat is running through a desolated factory hall. We don´t know why nor from what he‘s escaping.

After a while, we discover that his run has started a long time ago...

Everyone of us has already escaped from something. By escaping, we either solve the situation or complicate it and will have to solve it later. The hero of this story is a sample of the second possibility. The longer he is running the more complicated his situation gets and his way back thus harder. While writing the story my first vision was a frantically running man. Later, I aimed to clarify all the previous circumstances that caused the current man´s situation.

“It´s hard to face yourself.“

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

Hannaleena Hauru FINLAND

Won’t lovers revolt now?

Address: Hämentie 152 c 71 00560 Helsinki, Finland Tel: + 358 50 37 40 655 E-mail: hhauru@taik.fi

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Hannaleena Hauru (b. 1983) lives in Helsinki. She’s graduated from Tampere Film School, Finland, 2007. Her graduation work was the short film Jos kaadun - If I Fall, which was awarded in Nisi Masa’s script contest for young European screenwriters (2005).

Japu and Antti (17) are best friends in a Finnish summer night. They’re painting a graffiti to a shop window in their dying home village center and have ended up kissing.

The script has started building up from my want to process the borderline of friendship and romantic love. The angle I’ve selected is proposing the course of time being an allegory to different forms of love. For the main character Japu - who’s unrequitedly in love – things start to happen backwards. Antti is not seeing anything special - except the ceaseless fact that his friendship with Japu is about to end.

After Jos kaadun’s premiere (Cannes Critics’ Week 2007) the film’s been awarded in Tampere Film Festival (Youth Jury Award), International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Cinema Jury Award) and Uppsala International Film Festival (Uppsala Grand Prix). Hauru’s other filmography includes the films So there are no poems coming to me, (premiered also at Cannes Critics’ Week, 2008), and Ilja ei voi – Tadpoles (Vaasa Wildlife – International Nature Film Festival – best youth film 2006).

Won’t lovers revolt now? is Hannaleena Hauru’s first fully professional short film and continues her way of combining poetic storytelling to the human reality.

A Scandinavian night has a strange light as the kiss ends: Japu realizes something has happened with the passing of time, and tries to make Antti see what’s going on.

Love stories tend to end to a kiss, but when there’s a story of a friendship ending - a kiss is the first to come.

The film is using visual palindromes that make possible to read the story from end to beginning as a reverse love story. The two different courses of time indicate the collision of two different aspects of love: romantic (for Japu) and platonic (for the antagonist, Antti). The thematic aim of the visual palindromes is to get in touch with the delicate synchrony of these two feelings. The setting of the film in a small almost deserted Finnish village examines a wider scenery of what the times are doing to our surroundings

‘‘Beware of whispering in his mouth .‘‘ European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

MICHIEL TEN HORN FORE

Address: Stuyvesantstraat 36-3 1058 AM Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tel: + 31 611 372 238 E-mail: tenhornmichiel@gmail.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

Michiel ten Horn (25, Amsterdam) has been a drawer and a storyteller ever since he can remember.

This led him towards his study of animation which he finished two years ago. During this study however he discovered that his tales were better being told through life-action than ‘cartoons’. Nevertheless animation (and the rules it comes with), still plays an important part in his life. You’ll see this in his scripts but also in his work as a director. Writing and directing a full-length animation film is still one of his goals. But for now the main focus is writing for film.

On a peaceful autumn afternoon Berend the forest ranger enjoys a calm day in the woods. The wind blows softly through the trees and birds sing their favorite songs. There is not a cloud in the sky, so it seems. While Berend is fixing up a birdhouse he finds a little white golf ball near to his ladder. He picks it up, looks at it in disbelieve, wonders how it ended up there. From that moment on his day turns into an absurd nightmare; He encounters three obviously mad women, dressed in fancy skirt suits, he gets chased by two pompous men carrying large shotguns and he finds out that even his own house isn’t safe anymore.

I really wanted to bring a multiple interpertation on the subject ‘escape’ into the script.

Interpretering it as ‘running away from someone chasing you’ as well as ‘running away from the life that you’re living’. This in combination with a man facing a burn-out. With my parents being golfers and my brother being a forest ranger the main character of the story was soon created.

It wasn’t their personalities that made Berend though, it was their different approach on life.

Michiel directs commercials and musicvideos. At the moment he is also writing a children’s book.

Berend fears his life and nearly collapses under the bizarre situations he falls into. On this peculiar day everyone seems to be crazy, everyone except Berend…

The contrast is what appealed to me. A wealthy man who has it all, but silently longs for a different life. Even in his dream he gets overwhelmed by the bitter realities of his life; money, power, his wife. I got inspired by old horror stories, where the character is captured in his own nightmare.

But the audience only realizes this during the last scenes of the movie. They have to respond fast towards the ending, because everything you saw turns out to be quite different after all.

And that is, to my opinion, the key to a good short film; the pay-off.

‘‘Everyone is crazy! Everyone but me!’’

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

JOona kivirintaFINLAND LAND OF MEN

Address: Sarvijaakonkatu 12 A 17 33540 Tampere, Finland Tel. +358 45 137 8682 E-mail: joona.kivirinta@metropolia.fi

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

Joona Kivirinta, born 1983, is studying screenwriting in Metropolia Polytechnic in Helsinki. He has written and directed several student short films and worked in theatre, creating video content for stage productions.

In 2008, he also debuted as a poet.

A secluded village somewhere in Finland. Its inhabitants are fleeing their homes – all except for an old man called Hannu. He watches from his window as a band of drunken men appear from the other side of the forest, vandalizing and looting the village. Hannu’s house, however, is left untouched. Only Leo, the leader of the men, comes in for a glass of scotch. He says he is looking for his wife Leena – not knowing that she is actually hiding in Hannu’s basement.

In my screenplays I have often dealt with gender issues, masculinity and femininity, and their cultural qualities. In Land of men I wanted to create a stylised, slightly humorous take on the mythos of Finnish men and alcohol.

He is currently developing his first feature film scripts, a pair of horror films set in modern day Finland.

When Leo and the men finally leave the village to go to the city, we find that not only Leena has sought refuge in Hannu’s house: In fact, all of the men’s wives have been hiding in Hannu’s basement. In a silent outro we follow them as they all go to their houses. They start cleaning up the mess after their drunken husbands: spilled ashtrays, empty bottles, overturned tables.

The film’s heavily biased world view does not match with my own perception of gender roles and values, but, sadly, for many families throughout the country these kinds of events are not so far from reality.

When morning comes, the men return from the city, bruised and dirty. We get the feeling that all of this has happened many times before and will probably be repeated again in the future.

‘‘A short film of a men’s night out.”

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

VEDRAna KlepicaCROATIA THE COMA

Address: Opatovina 43, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia Tel: + 385 98 9697 113 E-mail: vedranak@gmail.com

BIO

Synopsis

intention

Vedrana Klepica was born in Croatia in 1986. She is currently a MA student of performance dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She works as a journalist at Teatar.hr, the Croatian website for theatre and performing arts. Vedrana writes plays, scripts and prose. Her play 21. night has been adapted for the program of experimental drama on the Croatian National Radio.

Matea just came back from the hospital. She hasn’t been around for almost a year. Ivan’s and Snjezana’s marriage hasn’t been working out for even longer. So they decided to finally quit. But Matea came back, and they decided to fake it just a little bit longer.

It’s amazing how rarely we take chances, and how terribly and strongly we cling on to the safer things in our life. That much we are always aware of. The only things that can really ever change us are private disasters. I always thought that the biggest disaster would be to forget. Every character in this script is trying to find acknowledgment in the only person who can’t judge them, the safe one. The one who forgot. Though nobody really gets saved just as nobody really gets hurt, what is important is that they do try.

Also, once a year, she organizes a theatre festival FANI in her hometown Kutina. She lives and works in Zagreb.

Contrary to Filip, Matea’s boyfriend, who just really needs to get some things concerning his sexuality of his chest and can’t wait any longer. But he can’t do it alone, so he is going to ask his friend Bozidar to help him out. Bozidar doesn’t mind, but Matea’s parents do. Matea also doesn’t mind nor care, but that’s just because she has amnesia and can’t remember anyone at all from her life. Except maybe her doctor Simic who almost killed her, and who has a hot sexual relationship with a married nurse.

“It ’s hard to escape from your problems if you are not sure what they are .“ European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

Susanna KotilainenFiNLAND SKINSIDE OUT

Address: Noljakantie 86 C 20 80140 Joensuu, Finland Tel: + 358 50 493 5747 E-mail: susanna.kotilainen@gmail.com

BIO Susanna Kotilainen was born in 1984 and lived her childhood in the small town of Lieksa.

In 2008 she graduated from the North Karelia University of Applied Sciences Culture degree programme specializing in scriptwriting. As her thesis she wrote and directed a short documentary about a 9 year old girl who suffers from leukemia.

She also wrote a study on how a documentary film works as a therapeutic device.

Intention

Kotilainen has written short films, plays and radio plays. She has been awarded in the national Finnish radio play competition.

Nowadays it’s impossible to escape from sex.

Sex is a means for selling, making money and appealing to people. You can’t escape from it, no matter how hard you tried.

At the moment Kotilainen resides in the city of Joensuu and is the president of the Joensuu University theatre.

Sex is no longer a personal matter, but has become somewhat public. It surrounds us everywhere in our society. It is sold everywhere and especially to young people. Still – or because of that – young people are often uncertain about their sexuality.

Synopsis After a chaotic sex education lesson teenage girl Eeva begins to associate sex with bananas – and the other way round. She has to face her fear of the fruit stand.

I wanted to write a movie about a person who is escaping from sex and her own body. The movie tells also about a trauma and shame. I tried to make the movie a bit absurd and comedic, instead of giving it a melancholic and serious tone. My goal was to talk about the subject through black humour.

“Do you dare to look under the skin?”

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

ÜlkÜ OKtayTURKEy SCAMPS

Address: Otello Kamil Sk. Billur Apt. No: 5/23 Şişli/İstanbul, Turkey Tel: + 90 532 2503123 E-mail: ulkulku@yahoo.com

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Ülkü Oktay was born in 1980 in Ankara. She graduated from the Department of Architecture of Middle East Technical University in 2004.

She continues her education in the Graduate Program of Film and TV at Istanbul Bilgi University.

This is the story of two ten-year-olds who live in a small village near Kars and receive education in a neighboring village. Captivated by Geography and Turkish attractions, they engage on a journey to the Fairy Chimneys upon discovering the place on a 50 Turkish lira banknote they found on their way back home from school, using the latter as a map. However, in order for them to reach their goal, public transport and hunger will make them use their money, thereby changing their destination as well

Scamps is a demagogy-free and naïve story built with the innocent dreams of children. First, the characters being kids are both adventurous and, as result of living in some remote village, unaware of any prior experience with money, although they do have the common knowledge of its usage.

She has worked in several TV serials and films as an art director. Now, she is working on her thesis project Zilo which is a short film, shot in Kars.

The role of money throughout the story, beyond being a mere trading instrument, reveals to lead the children to their yet unveiled dream world. This story therefore relates the way these children who live in Kars see the West and an East-West and child-grown-up relationship from a Kars perspective.

“Follow the money.’’

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

LYUBOMIR PECHEVBULGARIA FAMILY

Address: Otets Paisii St. 42A, ap.12. 6000 Stara Zagora, Bulgaria Tel: +359 886 361 998 E-mail: lyubanches85@abv.bg

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Lyubomir Pechev was born in Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) in 1985. He is studying at the National Academy of Film and Theatre in Bulgaria. He has made several shorts.

Back in High-School he staged a couple of his own plays.

Peter, a nineteen-year-old student, lives with his family: a domineering Mother, a silly sister and an annoying granny. His ambition is to study at a university, in order to exercise for the entrance test Peter needs solitude, silence and time.

I love my family. I love writing. I love contrast.

I love son-mother relationships. I love mocking on ideas about “the essence of true love”. I love nerd guys whose dream about fame and fortune makes a big crashing sound. I love lunch. So the equation is simple.

His family provides him with chaos. It’s the escape from home, which brings back Peter’s sanity.

But just on paper.

Family is a comedy which presents the price one has to pay, in order to achieve something in life.

My intention is to show that decision - taking is a difficult procedure among the young people and awfully difficult when ethics, morals and family relationships are involved.

And as Tolstoy says: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“You want to go in your room and study?

You wish so.’’

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

Antonio Piazza & Fabio GrassadoniaITALY

RITA

Fabio Grassadonia E-mail: fabio.grass@yahoo.it Tel: + 39 347 471 6857

Production Company CRISTALDI PICTURES

Antonio Piazza E-mail: anto.piazza@yahoo.it Tel (Italy): + 39 347 573 7478 Tel (Netherlands): +31 657696433

Via Parigi, 11 - 00185 Roma - Italy Tel: + 39 06 4782 3432 Fax: + 39 06 4898 7639 Mobile: + 39 337 637867 E-mail: cristaldipictures@itaca.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

Antonio PIAZZA (left) and Fabio GRASSADONIA (right) are Sicilian authors.

In 2004 they wrote the film Ogni volta che te ne vai, a romantic musical comedy set among the Night clubs of the Romagna coast, produced by Fandango. Between 2004 and 2007 they worked for Aurelio De Laurentiis and his Filmauro production company as development and acquisition consultants.

Rita (8), blind since birth, lives in a seaside neighbourhood of Palermo. She is stubborn, curious and feels thwarted by an overprotective mother.

The claustrophobic world of her home is suddenly breached by a foreign presence: a small time crook (17) on the run, wounded, terrified. The meeting between the two of them is highly enigmatic. The child, home alone, manages to stave off the young lad’s pursuers.

How does one stage the point of view of a blind girl? How can one get a spectator to experience blindness to any degree as well as showing how it can be overcome?

They have recently attended the Binger Filmlab Writers Program in Amsterdam with their current feature film project Salvo which they will also direct. Salvo was also selected for the 2007 Script&Pitch Workshop and the 2008 Berlinale Talent Campus. Last November the script was awarded a special mention by the Jury of the Solinas Prize, the most important Italian Script-award.

Salvo will be produced in 2010 by Cristaldi Pictures and Acaba Productions.

The same production companies will produce Rita, the short which will be directed

by Fabio and Antonio in June of 2009.

European Short Pitch 2009

In exchange, she asks to be led to the beach. She herself guides the young boy to the sea, down side streets away from the inquisitive gaze of others. The boy is the first human being that manages to gain her trust and thanks to him Rita learns to swim, and experiences a moment of freedom which ends when she finds herself alone in the sea.

Her mother manages to pluck her out of the water and carry her home, a home that is now crowded with police.

They are carrying out the body of the young boy, who in fact died shortly after entering the house from the wounds suffered at the hands of his pursuers.

At night in her room the child can still feel the presence of her mysterious new friend…

“Try closing your eyes.’’

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To do this we intend to train the camera permanently on Rita, with no reverse angle. The spectator will not be able to see anything within Rita’s field of vision, because she herself can’t. We will find ourselves begging to see Rita’s own point of view, a perspective that is impossible, and for most of the film, our desires will be frustrated.

For Rita, hearing is the fundamental sense: the story, from her “point of view” is told through sound, through noises. A form of “sound metaphysics that reveals what we can’t see, evoking and conjuring the presence of the visible.

Then, once Rita touches the young boy’s face and for the entire duration of their encounter – a short miraculous and enigmatic moment of grace – the staging changes. The meeting in some way enables her to see and we, for the first time, will be gifted with her perspective, and “see”.

Book of Projects

EVa poirierFRANCE

THE DAY MUMMY DIED Address: 89, rue des Maraîchers 75020 Paris, France Tel: + 33 6 03 11 62 74 E-mail: poirier.eva@orange.fr

BIO

SYNOPSIS

intention

After visual arts, Eva Poirier turned to cinema (audiovisual master). She works as a direction assistant, scriptwriter or camera operator.

She directed De Nina emporte le souvenir (short fiction film) and institutional and artistic films. She shares her time between Paris, where she set up a short- movie production company, and the South of France, for pluridisciplinary shows (circus and video) with the Cie Les Images In air.

Puce, an extremely grumpy six yearold little girl, likes hiding ‟beanz” on her neighbour’s balcony.

This story started on the ninth floor of a building at Epinay-Sur-Seine, a night, over a space.

Giant suburb buildings, with overflowing tips of human life.

She is presently working on her short-movie project Loin de nous la sagesse, selected by the French American Cultural Fund and the Label 04 of Maison du Film Court. She just finished the script of her first feature Polish Wedding.

As for Jacky, the new neighbour, who’s from a country where it’s always dark, wonders what’s wrong with this weird little girl who keeps on coming on his balcony with no invitation.

Then, in the bedroom, there’s Liéna, Puce’s mum, who doesn’t wake up. Thus, Puce ends up all alone with her ‟beanz” and Jacky... Perhaps her new daddy.

’’Understanding the world at six years old .’’ ‘‘

European Short Pitch 2009

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Our life, unstable and chaotic, contained in this square universe, without qualms. Human disorder as a reassuring idea. This visual paradox, is what I wanted to film.

Then, Puce appeared in this mess, this little six year old girl, left alone with her kid challenges.

And that’s the way this film began, the first frame, a child, pots of beans, and satellite antennas, in the too geometrical space of a building.

Filmed with static and symmetrical shots, Puce brings dissymmetry and exuberant movements in the frame.

I wanted a binary rhythm in the story and the editing: a sharp light and some repetitions; because Puce is very binary. Between two faces of the same world, she’s looking for her own place.

Book of Projects

OANA RasuceanuROMANIA STUCK ON CHRISTMAS Address: 10 Lavandei Street, Bl. O12, Sc.C, Etj. 1, Ap 118, Bucharest, Romania Tel: + 40 722 678 496 E-mail: oanarasuceanu@gmail.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Oana Rasuceanu graduated from the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest - Screenwriting and Film Critics and the National University of Political and Administrative Science Bucharest, Faculty of Comunications and Public Relations David Ogilvy.

On Christmas Eve, in a small mountain train station, four people are waiting for a train stuck in snow hundreds of kilometers away.

They don’t know each other and every one of them needs to be somewhere else as soon as possible. Madalina needs her job, Alex needs his time off, Oxana needs her home, Cristi needs his Christmas dream. As the hours go by and the train doesn’t seem to appear, Madalina, Cristi, Oxana and Alex share their thoughts, their opinions, their truth and their lies, all wrapped up in a setting of absurd, hope, anger and despair. Because they are accidentally stuck here. Because no one knows when it will end. And because it’s Christmas. Stuck on Christmas is a script about small gestures. Big stories. And people.

Now she is a scriptwriter, whose work includes two awarded short films – Hi Cristina! Bye Cristina! and Friday around 11. She is a co-writer of a feature film script, Breaking News, winner of the Romanian National Centre of Cinematography Script Contest for Project in Development and the Sources 2 – Script Development Workshop.

With a strong experience in management and public relations, Oana is the PR Manager of Transilvania Intl. Film Festival, NexT Intl. Short and Medium Film Festival and the Gopo Awards Gala – Romanian Cinema Awards. She has also been a movie editor for two Romanian magazines since 2001.

‘‘What do you do when all you can hope for is that Christmas wishes come true?”

European Short Pitch 2009

Intention Christmas is the time when people who love each other stay together. For these four people, this Christmas Eve is starting out bad. Each is stuck in this small train station, with three other strangers, when what they want most is to be anywhere else but here.

This story is about communication in its purest form – no past, no future, no common background, just the simple human essence.

Stuck on Christmas is a story about all of us.

About the hopes, the dreams, the obstacles in front and the power to go beyond them. It is a story about those small, fleeting moments of life that go by unnoticed but leave great marks and great memories.

These four people get closer. No matter where they come from or where they are heading, what they wish for and what they fear. Or it could be because it’s Christmas. It could be because we are all essentially beautiful.

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Book of Projects

ARIEL shabanKOSOVO © Photo by Gilbert Garcin

THE WEDDING TAPE Address: Dardania SU 4/11 No.7 Pristina 10000, Kosovo Tel: + 386 49 321 361 E-mail: arielshaban@gmail.com

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Ariel Shaban was born in Skopje, Macedonia in 1981 and now lives in Kosovo. Shaban studied journalism and mass communication in the American University in Bulgaria, with a minor in fine arts, with an emphasis on film production and theatre. Since 2007, he is pursuing a master degree in broadcast journalism in the Kosovo Institute for Journalism and Communication.

Milaim’s ticket to a better life in Europe is a marriage and a visa. Everything goes perfectly until the embassy instructs him to bring a video recording of his wedding.

Together with his best friend Xhevat, they set the stage for a fake wedding, gathering their friends, innocent bystanders and Milaim’s ex-girlfriend.

The Wedding Tape aims to denunciate the absurdities of bureaucracy in the visa delivering system for people living at Europe’s borders in a satirical form, through the experience film’s protagonist, Milaim.

Shaban is working in the public relations field, and is also involved in TV production work. He is now producing his first documentary on the life of the Dervish religious community in Kosovo, writing his first feature film script The Trip, as well as assisting in the finalisation of an Ethiopian feature film script Ambassel.

While preparing the “wedding”, Milaim remembers his past, childhood, wondering if the visa business is really worth the trouble, and if he should really abandon his friends and life in Kosovo. The fake wedding becomes such an irrational and comic show to the extent that Milaim realizes that he is ridiculing what he holds most cherished, namely his friends and family.

It investigates his personal decisions and moral dilemmas, the division between marriage, friendship and patriotism on one hand and idealised life somewhere in the West on the other hand. The occurring message of this film seems to be that bureaucratic nonsense and blockade create ironic situations and ghettoize places bordering Europe, forcing people into an extreme cultural shock, a nostalgic process of leaving behind cherished memories and experiences, and replacing them with something unknown. Thus, persons like Milaim are really in a philosophical no man’s land, stuck between the memories of the past and a better future, sometime, somewhere.

“Don’t ask what your visa can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your visa.’’

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

melissa suarez del realSPAIN FURNITURE

Address: Calle Camarena 68, 4°D, 28047 Madrid, Spain Tel: + 34 649 330 566 E-mail: ojos_de_pajaro@hotmail.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

Melissa SUAREZ DEL REAL was born in Mexico City 27 years ago, but she lives, studies and works in Madrid. She adores writing in any way. She studied Audiovisual Communication and then specialized in scriptwriting.

Jose and Yolanda’s appartment is small, incredibly small. Every day they try to make the most of the scarce inches of space they have left. They actually try it so hard that it becomes an obsession and a reason to argue.

While hearing the word “escape”, we normally think of chains, prisons, physical achievements or imposed captivity.

She has worked as a cultural journalist, advertising copywriter and currently works for Ali&Cia food artists. She has also been beneficiary of the Young Creators grant given by the National Fund for the Art and Culture in Mexico, in order to write her first feature film script.

Fiction radio continues to be the field where she has worked the most, since she hast written over a hundred hours of scripts for The International Radio of Pocaju; a radio show about an imaginary island.

This show has been broadcast in three cities and two languages for over four years. Melissa now tells everyone that she was born in Pocaju.

This is not a heroic story where people fight for justice of freedom. Neither is it a story about exceptional people. There’s not even a “bad guy”.

There’s just a young couple, an apartment, a self assembly piece of furniture, and a distressing lack-of-space problem.

One morning, while they’re having an argument about the number of bottles each one of them has placed in the shower, they discover –accidentally- what seems to be the perfect solution to their problem.

With this script I tried to create a situation to escape from what was so absurd, and in the end would be close enough to make us believe that it could actually happen to anyone.

But –as everyone knows- perfect solutions are always suspicious...

‘‘Let's make room for chaos.”

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

PAOLO TADDEIITALY BETTING AGENCY

Address: L.no B da Padule 10 56122 Pisa, Italy Tel: + 39 3355274934 E-mail: paotad@tin.it Production company: SEBANDNICsas + 39 050 555 312

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

After a degree in “Foreign Literature” and a School of Cinema held by P. Benvenuti, Paolo TADDEI began a career as a television cameraman, director of photography and photographer. During the years he wrote and directed some short movies and one documentary. A few years ago he attended a master in Turin at VRMMP as a scriptwriter and after having worked as a story editor at Verdecchi film in 2007, Paolo participated at Script and Pitch as a story editor in 2008.

A BLONDE MAN walks around a betting agency where some motionless people seem frozen in time and space. A beautiful young cashier, ANNINA, sits behind her counter. A small fat man, BRUNO, who spends his days in the hope of finding a good ticket among the discarded ones on the floor and feeds on a forbidden sordid vice, kneels on the floor. A thin slovenly woman, ANNAMARIA, who lives with her mother and cashes her pension check to gamble, is oppressed by debts and sits on a bench. A tall man, GINO, married to a woman who betrays him and makes shift by palming off counterfeit money for the local organised crime is on the floor pins down another man, LUCA, who is overwhelmed by gambling debts and blackmailed by loan sharks; near them, a cutter and a gun, all of them stare at the large storm-door glass entrance.

A few years ago I happened to visit a betting agency for a few months in order to take some photographs; I was deeply struck by the environment and people hanging out there. Strong individualism and an unquenchable thirst for money were the main psychological traits of the regular betters.

What happened there, a robbery?

From a visual point of view, I envision this story in classic black and white, using the technique of subjective sequence shots to tell the different stories following the moment of the robbery, seen and dreamed of by their respective protagonists.

He directed L’Occhio della Moto (1995), Untitled (53° FilmVideo Montecatini Terme in 2002) and the documentary The Colours of abandonment, Special Grand Prix of the Jury, 2nd Film Festival of Calabria in 2008. He wrote Agenzia Ippica, Premio del pubblico V Mitreo Film Festival in 2005.

‘‘Each photograph knows very well its own past but not its future , which can only be interpreted .”

European Short Pitch 2009

The blonde man begins to review the scene through the different points of view of the various characters: each story portrays the illusion of a fortuitous solution to the problems of each character, made possible through the robbery.

But who is the blonde man?

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The idea to set a short in this world also entailed a desire to express the desperation and loneliness of its protagonists, always willing to go to extremes to follow their path to self-destruction. Never aware of their real condition, dreaming is their only means of escaping a wretched existence.

From this notion came the idea to let the characters live their own stories, making them protagonists and winners in their dreams.

Book of Projects

MISTRE TESFAYESWEDEN THE GREAT ESCAPE Address: Svandammsvägen 7 126 32 Hägersten, Sweden Tel: + 46 739 943 768 E-mail: mistre@accordionfilm.se

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Mistre Tesfaye is a writer/director from Sweden and has been working with film for the last 8 years. Her has studied at film schools in Sweden and England and has made more than a dozen short films which have won a couple of prizes.

It’s one of those bright, shiny summer days, when everyone seems to have woken up on their best side. Tourists whom are strolling along the shimmering blue sea, keep asking themselves if Stockholm might just be the most beautiful city of them all?

I spent a couple of weeks in Malta this summer and found out that the hottest political topic was the vast influx of illegal immigrants to the tiny island.

Although aiming for Spain or Italy, they end up in Malta after their boat breaks down in the stormy waters north of Libya. After being rescued by the Maltese armed forces, they’re imprisonated in harsh conditions in overpopulated refugee camps, before beeing released for deportation. But since nobody wants them back, deportation is a long and complicated process which leaves them roaming the streets of Malta, like black cats looking just to survive.

He just started working on his first feature film that hopefully will go into production in 2010. Mistre likes writing drama with a comical twist and he is attracted to things he doesn’t understand.

‘‘A black cat in a white world .”

European Short Pitch 2009

Most of them don’t seem to notice Tsegaye, a 34-year old illegal alien from Ethiopia, relaxing at the waterside with a fishing rod in his hand. But those who do usually give him a strange look like they were irritated that he is ruining their postcard picture of this beautiful city.Tsegaye couldn’t care less. He leans back on the concrete steps and closes his eyes, listening to the distant screams of seagulls fighting over fish. Just as he’s about to fall asleep, he feels a sudden pull on his fishing line: It’s biting!

Roger and Thomas are two cops sitting in a dark, fairly new Saab car and watching Tsegaye. Thomas has his binoculars up. He watches the lucky Tsegaye catching a big piece of cod. Thomas puts down his binoculars. They both step out the car and correct their weapons. Convinced that Tsegaye finally has run out of luck...

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This is a very depressing view (especially for me being of ethipoian descent) but at the same time I can understand the difficulties of the Maltese people and authorites. Malta is a small country with a strained economy and they alone cannot solve the problems of the thirld world.

My intention with this film is not to promote easy solutions to a complex problem, but to ask questions and create understanding.

Book of Projects

LAURA TONINIItaly © Photo by Ralph Bijker

SLED DOGS

Address: Via De Amicis 67, 65100 Pescara, Italy Tel: + 39 349 626 76 40 E-mail: theclashouse@gmail.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Intention

Laura Tonini was born in Italy in 1983.

After a degree in law she attended the New York Film Academy screenwriting course in New York. She had an essays anthology published in 2008 and wrote several short movies screenplays, some of them awarded in European competitions.

Michele, a young and smart guy freshly graduated from college finds his first job at a mall owned by a big international company. He thought he would work as a manager but when he faces endless shifts of physical, tiring hard work Michele is confused and upset.

The well known problem of “precari” ( young underpaid workers, without a long term contract) is particulary strong inside the multinational companies that own mall franchisings spread all over the European Union and the States. Too often hirings aren’t regulated in valid legal terms and minimum standards granted by international workers rights aren’t respected. This story is based on true stories collected on line and all around Italy, and tries, with irony, to keep a light on a serious problem common to young people all over Europe.

Now she’s working on the screenplay of her first feature film and she’s been selected for the advanced course for writers RAI-Audino.

Seduced by the illusory perspective of a great career and pushed by his own pride he tries to resist and to accept this new situation until his exasperation is too great and he goes too far..

‘‘How long can you survive living your dreams?”

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

EDwARD WINDUSUK BLOOD

Address: 51A Emu Road, Battersea, London SW8 3PQ, UK Tel: + 44 794 132 81 54 E-mail: edwardwindus@mac.com

BIO

SYNOPSIS

Edward Windus was born in Brighton, England.

He worked as a film critic in Argentina and as an environmentalist in Latin America. He has worked in feature film development for government funds and independent production throughout Europe (including British Screen, Irish Film Board and Heyday Films).

Something is not quite right with Guy (20s).

His mother has recently died and he seems to be lying to everyone he meets. He breaks into a large town house where the dog recognizes him and visits a boy’s bedroom; the room he grew up in. That night he sleeps in the cellar and discovers blood on a discarded kitchen towel. Guy tells his sister, Trish, that he thinks their dad, a committed vegetarian, has turned carnivore. Guy’s old bedroom is mysteriously decorated red, more rotting meat is found and the dog found dead; Guy is convinced the animal didn’t die of natural causes. He thinks the house is haunted by a succubus.

He participated as a screenwriter in the Mediterranean Film Institute’s Script Workshops with the London-based feature film Doll which went to be one of the twenty finalists in the Script P.I.M.P. 2007 screenplay competition and a semi-finalist in the Blazing Quills 2008. His Spanishset screenplay Franco: The Movie, produced by Out of the Box Features, was a quarter-finalist in the 2008 Writers on the Storm and Gotham Screen screenwriting competitions and was selected for the 32nd éQuinoxe screenwriters’ workshop. Edward is currently working on a feature-length horror, Babyface.

‘‘Going back can be dangerous.’’

European Short Pitch 2009

One night when he finally witnesses the figure of woman, he plucks up the courage to burst into his father’s bedroom to find a female figure in bed: his newly-married stepmother. Guy’s stepmother reacts quickly and efficiently to the squatter, blocking the door to the cellar and pumping exhaust fumes inside. He is rescued by his sister just in time.

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Intention Blood is a mystery, horror film and family drama drawing on Edward Munch’s Frieze of Life and the English Gothic. It is a screenplay about grieving and centres on a man who has yet to grow up and a stepmother who wants to erase the past and a father who is willing to do anything she wants. A personal film that also aims to deliver some visceral pleasures. Stylistically it will combine carefully-framed images with handheld point-of-view camerawork. Colours will start washed-out and become brighter and more intense as the story reaches its climax.

Book of Projects

JUDITH ZdesarAUSTRIA BREAK

Address: Hagenmüllergasse 28/10 A 1030 Vienna, Austria Tel: +43 650 4066804 E-mail: piroska@gmx.net

BIO

Synopsis

Intention

Judith Zdesar was born in Austria in 1980. After a degree in Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, she now is studying screenwriting and directing in the class of Michael Haneke at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

An ordinary working day on the assembly line in the neon lit factory hall of a big company. The loud, rhythmically monotonous sound of the machines is filling the air. Kastner, an assembly line worker, leaves his workstation and walks into the men’s restroom.

I wrote this story as a distraction exercise during a severe writer’s block trying to bend my thoughts from the screenplay I was actually working on. What I came up with is this story of a man, who shuts himself in, because he does not want to be part of a never ending production flow anymore.

She did Scriptwriting Studies at the HFF Konrad Wolf Potsdam/ Germany as an exchange student in 2005 and was a participant of IDFAcademy during the Int. Doc. Festival Amsterdam 2007.

She won the “Best short film 2007” Diagonale award of the Austrian Film Festival Graz with the documenary Diary of Someone Waiting.

Judith Zdesar did several short films as a director and writer and publications of experimental literature and dramatic texts.

What seems to be nothing but a break from work turns out to be an escape from the monotony of the mechanical wheelwork of his life: He shuts himself into a toilet stall and refuses to leave it.

“The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to.”

(A.Camus) European Short Pitch 2009

After I had finished BREAK I was shocked how much I found myself in this absurd metaphor of an assembly line worker locking himself up in a toilet stall. I myself had experienced the terrible pressure of success, the painful urge to be better, faster, more interesting, and more innovative than everybody else. More than one time I wanted to capitulate and end my crises by shrinking into my shell like the protagonist in my story.

Therefore Kastner’s bitter fate is somehow the reflection of a battle against imposed expectations which everybody in modern society is condemned to fight; and for me he is the creative and inspirational rescue I was looking for so long.

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TUTORS Atso Pärnänen

ANTOINE LE BOS

aparnanen@hotmail.com

antlebos@aol.com

BIO

BIO

After a first life as a sailor and an (interrupted) Phd in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Antoine LE BOS graduated from the CEEA in Paris (the French Conservatoire for Filmwriting) in 1996.

Since, he’s been working on more than 20 feature scripts for cinema as a writer or co-writer, working for directors like Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Bernard Dumont or the afghani director Atiq Rahimi.

Atso Pärnänen is a producer and director. He has written, directed and/or produced various short films which have been screened in over 20 countries and been involved in feature film projects and film festivals especially in the United Kingdom and Finland having for the past few years divided his time between the two countries and now also Paris, France.

He currently has in development and Among his last feature screenplays story edits projects among others from delivered as a writer: The Black Wave, a the USA, Canada, Ireland and the script that received the “Gan Foundation United Kingdom.

Prize”, and Pagan, an epic adventure movie for Lazennec Films (Paris). More recently, he co-wrote with Atiq Rahimi the script of E.T. and the Taliban. For TV, he co-created the 3D animation series Ratz, shown in more than 15 In 2008 he participated in the Script&Pitch workshops part of the Torino Film Lab as a story editor trainee. Already during his studies in England focusing on countries. all aspects of production and after a grant for scriptwriting he has felt that when Since 2001, he’s also been intensely involved in script-consulting and script- it comes to the development steps in the creative process of achieving a good doctoring (working for around 60 projects under contract), co-creating the story, whether art house or mainstream, at best developing a screenplay is like “Ciné-écriture” workshops in Paris, and working also for the CECI (Moulin a good scene with great dialogue. d’Andé, France), tutoring their rewriting sessions, as well as Script & Pitch and European Short Pitch 2007 and 2008. Since two years, he’s become Artistic As he wrote in the Torino Film Lab project book: “I hear pages 25-27 are Director of “Le Groupe Ouest”, European Center for Film Creation in Britanny important, like page 60. So I’ll edit just those for 2.800 Euros”.

(France).

European Short Pitch 2009

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Book of Projects

TUTORS FRANçOIS PIROT

JULIE PEYR

pirotfrancois@yahoo.fr

juliepeyr1@hotmail.com

BIO

BIO

Julie PEYR grew up in the suburb of Paris. After studying philosophy and writing a master on F. W. Murnau’s work, she decided to devote herself to fiction writing.

Born in 1977, François PIROT studied filmmaking at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium. He directed three short films: Nature morte (experimental fiction), Retraite (Best first European short film, festival Premiers Plans d’Angers 2006, France), Dimanche soir (currently in post-production), and also a documentary Deux, six variations à quatre mains.

With the French director Antony Cordier, she co-wrote Cold Showers, that premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2005 edition of the Cannes Film Festival and that was rewarded with the Louis Delluc prize. She’s now finishing Antony Cordier’s second script called Happy Few (Why Not Productions- Paris, shooting in May 2009), and also A White Bird in a Blizzard with the French director Emmanuel Finkiel, adapted from Laura Kasischke’s novel (shooting in winter 2009-2010, USA).

As a novelist, Julie Peyr wrote Le Corset, published in september 2005 (Editions Denoël – Paris) and is currently working on her second novel.

For the last ten years, Julie Peyr has also worked as script reader and consultant for many production companies and French TV channels (including ARTE, Why Not Productions, Warner Bros.) and supervised the reading committee in Warner Bros. France from April 2005 to September 2008.

European Short Pitch 2009

He co-wroted two feature films with Belgian director Joachim Lafosse: Nue-Propriété (official competition 63th Venice International Film Festival) and Elève libre (Cannes film festival 2008, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs), and one with Nicolas Provost: The Invader (in pre-production).

He recently completed the script for his first feature as a director, Mobil-Home, to be shot in September 2009.

Besides that, he also works as a script doctor for various projects and as an actor in several productions (Ca rend heureux, Première nuit, Dimanche soir).

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PARTNERS & CONTACT INFORMATION

With the support of

With the partnership of

MEDIA+ Programme

The Moulin d’Andé-Céci

this book of projectS is a nisi masa publication Editor-in-chief : Joanna Gallardo joanna@nisimasa.com English reviser: Maximilien Van Aertryck max@nisimasa.com

CONTACT

Design/Layout: Nina Henke nina@nisimasa.com Thank you to all the scriptwriters and tutors for their kind contribution to this publication.

10 rue de l’Echiquier 75010 Paris Tel. : +33 1 53 34 62 78 / +33 6 32 61 70 26 Email : europe@nisimasa.com Website : www.nisimasa.com President: Esra Demirkiran Director: Matthieu Darras In charge of European Short Pitch : Joanna Gallardo European Short Pitch 2009

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© NISI MASA # European Short Pitch # February 2009