BOOK OF
PROJECTS
2010
CONTENTS ABOUT NISI MASA 3 ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH 4 SCRIPTS Gaia Adduchio 5 Hanna Andersson 6 Jakob Beckman 7 Nina Belenistkaya 8 Andra Chirac 9 Pedro Collantes 10 Edina Csüllög 11 Koen De Jongh 12 Leonie De Rudder 13 Azed Kettani 14 Arne Kohlweyer 15 Matti Koskinen 16 Katrin Maimik 17 Guillaume Martin 18 Yiorgos Moustakis 19 Jerôme Nunes 20 Dena Popova 21 Daniel Remon 22 Mariana Sabeva 23 Sara Spinelli 24 Samuel Traber 25 Vappu Tuomisto 26 Vanessa Url 27 Hrvoje Zuparic 28
The Drop The Weather Forecast Thanks for last time Kangaroo Junk Best friends Butterflyman Rendez-vous Two ears and one mouth The Gisele Method A day like no other Gotta have it The Photo From the mouths of children The Island Next Stop The Cherry Edipus Koala Neon It’s not fair! All in white Diary of a city bunny Hermann Suppressed signals
TUTORS 29 Marie Dubas & Antoine Le Bos 29 François Pirot & Savina Neirotti 30 Razvan Radulescu 31 PARTNERS AND CONTACT INFO 32 European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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ABOUT NISI MASA OUR PROFILE
OUR MAIN AIMS
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.
- Discover and promote new film talents - Foster European awareness through cinema - Develop cross-cultural cinema projects - Create a platform of collaboration for young European filmmakers.
OUR MAIN ACTIVITIES NISI MASA holds an annual European Short Film Script Contest for people aged between 18 and 28, and assists the awarded scripts in developpment and production and distribution. On the 15th of April 2010 the 9th edition will be launched. All the year long, NISI MASA organizes various events all over Europe, involving hundreds of film buffs and talents: seminars, scriptwriting and directing workshops, film screenings, etc. NISI MASA publishes Nisimazine, a daily magazine during different European film festivals (Cannes, Helsinki, Turino) and also a monthly newsletter.
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court EuropĂŠen 2010
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ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH
E
uropean Short Pitch is a pilot project aimed at developing the European coproduction of short films. It combines a scriptwriting workshop in residency and a promotional event at a major film festival. Selected on the basis of their short film scripts, young European talents gather to discuss, rewrite, and learn to promote their ideas on a European level. They eventually pitch their project in front of a panel of producers/commissioning editors.
The pitching sessions will take place in Bucharest (Romania) on Saturday 17th of April 2010, at the National Centre of Dance, from 12.00 to 17.00, followed by a cocktail and one-to-one meetings.
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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. An 8-day project (5 days of workshops in Moulin d’Andé and 3 days of promotion at the NexT Film Festival in Bucarest, Romania) for 24 participants from 15 European countries, European Short Pitch follows the scriptwriting process. From collective brainstorming to working in groups or individually with professional tutors, participants discuss their projects in depth, receiving various feedbacks to nurture their scripts.
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gaia adducchioITALY
THE DROP
Tel.: +39 33 34 05 14 39 Email: info@gaiaadducchio.com
BIO
Synopsis
intention
Gaia Adducchio has trained as a director first in Italy (‘99/’01) at the NUCT “Nuova Università del Cinema e della Televisione” in Rome, then in the Czech Republic (‘03/’04) at FAMU, the National Film School in Prague, where she shot the short movie “Sunday Afternoon”, which was screened at some of the most important film festivals worldwide. Since moving back to Italy she has been working for Italian public television directing documentaries, while continuing to develop and shoot her own projects. In 2008 she successfully attended a Master in Scriptwriting for Film and TV at the UNIST, Università di Torino, in Italy.
It’s a special day for thirteen year old Anna, the most special of all, though she spends it like all her other days locked in a room without any windows. She’s particularly restless today, and the only thing that distracts her is the invention of an imaginary friend, a gentleman, who twirls her around her prison and offers her her first kiss.
The Drop is an attempt to represent through the description of the first day of the first period of a young girl who is kept in captivity, the violent nature of this frame of time between child- and adulthood in female sexuality.
Currently Gaia is finishing her first feature length government funded documentary La terra negli occhi, about a town in Southern Italy devastated by an earthquake, while working on the development of “Camera 3”, a second feature length governmentfunded documentary exploring alienation in modern society.
The prison falls away as Anna engages with the world of her deepest longings but things begin to spin out of her control just at the moment when her guardian, elegant and chilling, enters the room and demands her absolute attention. Nothing moves this woman or stops the playing out of her brutality - the appearance of Anna’s first period pushes her even further.
My intention is to show the confusion and anxiety of a particular moment in the life of womanhood both through the metaphorical representation given by a locked space you can’t break free from, and through the nature and evolution of the games Anna is playing during the story. The older woman and her coldness towards Anna’s situation and needs is to me an example of a specific form of violence women apply to themselves and to each other through sexuality. This lack of solidarity and the perpetration of abuses is something of the female relationship with sex and with the other members of her own gender that always captured my attention. With The Drop I want to tell this dark and unspoken side of female intimacy’s nature.
‘‘What price womanhood?’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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hanna anderssonSweden
THE WEATHER FORECAST Tel.: + 46 70 879 12 31 Email: hk.andersson@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
INTENTION
Writer-director Hanna Andersson studied film directing at the Dramatiska institutet in Stockholm and graduated in 2004 with the half-hour film The Imposter. She went on to direct The Postman’s Secret for Swedish Television and developed her feature screenplay Trust through Script&Pitch and the Nipkow-programm in Berlin.
While playing on the beach on a bright summer’s day, life changes unexpectedly for six year old Sara and her mother Jenny, as a nearby nuclear power plant suffers from a sudden meltdown.
The Weather forecast is a four minute short film shot in one single 360° take, beginning and ending on the beach, where the innocent games of a child are replaced by the notion of disaster, as a nearby power plant suffers from a nuclear meltdown.
Half narrative, half art installation, The Weather forecast is a meditation upon modern life in the shadow of anthropogenic disaster.
Unsettling sound and music create a premonition of danger, disturbing the peaceful atmosphere by the sea, and the behaviour of the panicking mother trying desperately to escape with her daughter, reinforces the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong.
Other works include the award-winning shorts The Staircase, The Bonfire and Memento Mori as well as the documentaries The King, Italian Images and most recently Natural lightening, about one of Sweden’s most prominent cinematographers Jörgen Persson. She lives and works in Stockholm.
The steady movement of the camera, slowly bringing the accident to light, cannot be stopped, just as the failure of the power plant cannot be undone. The whole world changes within the course of four minutes. Only the solemn voice-over of the weather forecast stays the same as it predicts rain in the evening – a rain that will bring radioactivity over a whole nation.
‘‘Paradise lost.’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Jakob beckman SWEDEN
THANKS FOR LAST TIME Tel.: +46 704 40 27 55 Email: jakob.beckman@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Jakob was born in 1981 in Stockholm and he started making films in high school; pretentious silent movies shot in black and white about love lost and misinterpreted genius. He’s always had the urge to express himself creatively and during the years he has tried many different types of creative expression. But the one thing he has always come back to is writing.
It’s Lovisa’s 30th birthday and she has invited the right people and made sure that everything’s perfect. All to impress her guests, and especially this really cute guy: Johan. But when this strange and awkward guy, Lars, shows up she gets concerned. He doesn’t talk much except asserting that they spent quite some time together at Midsummer’s Eve. Lovisa can’t remember him at all - she was so drunk - and gets worried.
Thanks For Last Time is a dark comedy about social awkwardness but with an element of thriller.
He went to university and studied philosophy and literature, but he felt that the academic world wasn’t really for him - he needed to do things in a more hands-on way. So he applied to an advertising school and then continued with screenwriting where he finally found his place.
There is one guest who also attended the midsummer party and who could possibly confirm who Lars is, but he’s not coming until later and he’s not answering his phone. Lars is hitting on Lovisa and keeps getting in the way for her and Johan. As Lars’s actions become more and more embarrasing, Lovisa goes from worried to desperate. She decides to get rid of him by playing a little trick. She tells him that the party is over, everybody’s leaving, but as soon as Lars has left, all the others come back to continue the party.
He is currently writing his first feature film as an exam project at a scriptwriting school in Stockholm while freelancing as a film director for an ad agency and working weekends in a bookshop.
‘‘Appearance is everything‘‘
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
In spite of her polished appearance, Lovisa is a very insecure girl trying to act like a grown-up. She wants so desperately for people to like her and she’s so obsessed with wanting everything to be perfect that she can’t handle the Lars character who doesn’t fit into her ideal world. This provokes the element of her subjective reality. In her eyes, Lars is seen as a big threat; both socially and physically, when actually he could be just a slightly awkward guy - which is basically how the other guests view him. And this is how I want it to play, where both viewpoints and interpretations of Lars are equally plausible and true. I want you as a spectator to be with Lovisa all the way, to understand her actions and think that you could have done the same thing, given the situation. You should feel her awkwardness, her insecurity and eventually, her fear, which drives her towards her decision. And you should realize, only at the very end, when Lars reappears, that it was all in her head.
After a while, the late guest rings at the door and brings a surprise: Lars. He ran into Lars outside and, recognizing him from the midsummer party, invited him up. Lars just shows his face and goes away, leaving Lovisa mortified in front of Johan and the others.
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nina belenitskayaRUSSIA
KENGAROO
Tel.: + 7 926 582 45 99 Email: n.belenitskaya@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Nina was born in Moscow, USSR, in 1981. Soon the country collapsed and she never had the chance to become a pioneer. But they’ve got McDonald’s and oligarchs. So she’s decided to become a journalist in order to comprehend the changes.
The action takes place in a small Russian town. Kolya (12), a sweet homegrown boy has a birthday and no party. He is too shy to confess to his Mom that he has no one to invite. After his parents’ divorce he was moved from Moscow to his granny’s place. Local kids don’t accept him. And when he sees Tanya (11) and Seryi (12), the two disadvantaged children, at his doorway he is so happy. He has no idea they’ve come to “mock the wonk”.
I totally agree with Andrey Tarkovsy who in his speech to student-directors in 1989 said that the best for filmmaking is when a director writes a screenplay on his own. Or when a screenwriter directs his writing. Because it’s the only way to fulfill the very core of the artist’s intention.
As a TV-reporter she travelled throughout Russia, visited Ural, Siberia, the Volga-river and many other distant places. It became obvious that in this role she couldn’t describe what she really saw and felt about it (the free press was gone then). At the same time all these years she was writing theatre plays, got rewards in playwright contests and her pieces were staged in different Russian theatres. Sadly you can’t feed yourself with this profession. So she decided to become a screenwriter. She entered Russian film school VGIK and started to write soap operas. Her short screenplay “Kengaroo” brought her to NISI MASA and won two Russian screenplay contests. In the near future she wants to write a screenplay for independent cinema. And to direct.
His mother forbids Kolya to go out with the two little rascals but he manages to run away. The kids urge Kolya to surprise them. And he suggests going to the Zoo to see the newborn baby kangaroo. Seryi promises Kolya to arrange sex with Tanya if he obeys his orders. As Seryi makes Tanya snog Kolya he loses his head and fulfills all of Seryi’s commands. At last, when they approach the kangaroo’s cage Tanya decides to touch it and rushes inside. The boys run in after her. But the animal jumps away in fear and they start to throw bricks at it. They fly into rage and beat it to death. For Kolya the crime ends without punishment: his mother bribes the police officer and he lets them go. While Seryi and Tanya are taken to the reformatory.
“What taboo a teen could break in his urge to belong”
European Short Pitch 20010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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I must admit that I’m a screenwriter who has never directed before (apart from shooting as a news reporter). And still I’m sure I can do it because I really see my “Kengaroo”. It is a story of an urge to belong. Kolya, the outcast in his class, nice neat boy, and two ragamuffins, Tanya and Seryi, extremely attractive in their wildness. To be with them he is ready for everything, he’s kind of in love with them both. It is also a story of becoming mature through breaking the taboo of killing a living creature. The best would be to shoot the film in summer in a small Russian town like Pskov or Kostroma, in a documentary style, so that you can really feel yourself inside of the story. Many scenes will be shown through Kolya’s eyes. I want the film to be painful, passionate and intimate.
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Andra chiriac ROMANIA
JUNK
Tel.: +40 0752 098 758 Email: andradiana_chiriac@yahoo.fr
BIO
SYNOPSIS
INTENTION
Andra Chiriac was born in 1980 in Bacau, Romania. After obtaining a master degree in law, she turned to film studies at the ESRA (Ecole Superieure de Realisation Audiovisuelle), in Paris. In 2007, after graduation, she returned to Romania and worked as a post-production supervisor for a TV series produced by MediaPro Pictures.
GELU, 45, has to face a difficult decision when his wife asks him to throw away the only object in their household he is attached to: a wall carpet. Gelu grew up with it in the house of his parents, who would later give it to him as a wedding present. After 16 years of marriage, it has now become an out of fashion piece of old junk for his wife.
It probably happened to all of us to give up things we cared about because of the others, whether it be society - the absolute authority in matters of “good taste”, “fashion” ,“modernity” and “convenience” -, or our dear ones. It can concern a silly t-shirt, a rusty car or wanting to become a filmmaker when everybody else wants you to go to law school. Under the pressure of the moment, we seem to forget how important these things are to us. We give them up. Gelu’s carpet is commonly known in Romania as « The Abduction from the Seraglio ». During the 80s, to own this wall rug was a sign of well-being, an item of social prestige among the middle class population. It was hard to get and not everybody could afford one.
For the last 2 years, she has worked as an assistant director with different production companies from Bucharest. She has several short film projects, a documentary in development and has recently completed her first short film Doubt.
‘‘Home is where the rug is’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
STELA is ashamed to keep it in their house as it ruins her aspirations of modernity. Against his wish, Gelu takes it down from the wall and out on the streets in order to throw it into the garbage. Unable to do this, he wanders around, the carpet upon his shoulder, hoping to find someone he could give it to, someone who would care. In his journey, he comes across different people. But in the end, no one has room for it.
Nowadays, the social significance of the rug is long gone. But for Gelu, the carpet means “home”. All his childhood and family memories blend in its thick dusty texture. This is why, when his wife asks him to get rid of it, he feels that throwing it away would be like throwing away a part of himself.
Disappointed, Gelu takes it and heads back home. On his way, an intriguing idea crosses his mind and he passes his front door, going up the stairs of his building, one floor after the other, until he comes out on the rooftop. There, in this quiet place above the city, he spots a staircase wall where he nails the carpet. Some time later, we find Gelu on the same rooftop, sitting comfortably in a chair, while the rug dominates the background. Everything is peaceful. He feels at home.
Set in Rahova - a middle-class, extremely picturesque neighborhood of Bucharest, Junk tells a story about the refusal to give up something that might be old, cheap and ugly for everyone else, but has an invaluable importance for your heart.
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©Photo by Lasse Hoile (edited by Pedro Collantes)
©Photo by Elisabeth Lund
pedro collantesNorway
BEST FRIENDS
Tel.: +47 40 341 486 Email: collantespedro@gmail.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Pedro was born in Madrid, where he studied TV direction, film history and editing. In Spain he has worked as an editor for a wide variety of projects, from TV shows to documentaries and feature films. He has participated in workshops with Spanish filmmakers Achero Mañas and Chema de la Peña and has also directed several music videos and promotionals.
In a small residential town by the Trondheim fjord Anna and Anton are starting to enter into adolescence.They live in a place where nature is as spectacular as it is isolating; a microcosmos that forced them to build a strong bond during their childhood years. They are now trying to find out what it will evolve into. They deal with boredom in different ways. Anton is eager to explore the world beyond the bubble-like universe he lives in, and he looks for clues around him. Anna spends most of her time with Bamse, her big fluffy dog.
The story in BEST FRIENDS focuses on that stage of life in which we’re impatiently keen to grow up and expand the boundaries of the controlled lives that our families build for us when we are children. In that phase we’re divided between leaving behind the fantasy-packed universe of our childhood and embracing a more realistic attitude towards a world that, on the other hand, we have barely experienced directly.
Since he moved to Norway in the fall of 2008 he has worked as an editor for several productions, among which the documentary Exhaling Music, directed by Trond Eliassen, which has been recently awarded the jury prize at the Tromsø International Film Festival. He has also written and directed the short film Life In a Minute, which was screened within the Minimalen short film festival in Trondheim this year.
One day Bamse finds a mysterious wooden box on a beach. Inside of it Anna discovers an object that she’ll use to offer Anton an opportunity to look back into the fantastic magic of their childhood.
This film intends to form a tale that startles and entertains at the same time, while inviting the viewer to decide whether the quirky events unfold at random, or as a result of the kids’ outlook. In the end it is how you view the world that will determine the answer to that question.
‘‘As we grow up, friendships often fade away. Or do they?‘‘
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
The story is set in the magnificent scenery of the Norwegian fjords, where small communities are scattered alongshore. For many people trains become the only way in and out of their villages. The railroad crosses the overwhelming landscape. These two elements are woven together in the journey of the film, visually helping to connect with the deeper themes of the story.
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edina csüllög / urmas reisberg BUTTERFLYMAN ESTONIA Tel: +372 52 447 05 Email: sara.kisari@gmail.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Edina Csüllög (30) and Urmas Nimetu Reisberg (26) are film students from the Baltic Film and Media School. Edina finished several MA studies (ELTE University, philology, literature, pedagogy) before she found her true passion – filmmaking. She is founder of different organizations like HEEMP and Nisi Masa Estonia. At the moment she is living in Istanbul as an exchange student at the Beyekent University.
Anselm is a young magician who hopes to get hired to Mr. Boruslawsky’s famous Circus. It’s a big circus with a tradition of the best illusionists. Anselm attends the job interview and performs his tricks. Unfortunately, the director, Mr Boruslawsky sees nothing special in him and asks Anselm to leave. When doing so, there is a butterfly coming out of Anselm.
The Butterfly-Man is a comedy, full of the magic of circus told by almost mythological characters. Our idea is to shoot it in a real circus, using real locations and as much as possible real circus artists. We hope to get permission from a circus to spend some time there and get to know the artists and life backstage to improve the script.
It turns out that the young magician has a serious physical defect – butterflies emerge from him if he experiences emotional extremes. Anselm is very ashamed of these insects, but the people in the circus find it a real talent. Director Boruslawsky gives Anselm a chance to perform one night. He hopes Anselm will create butterflies in front of audience.
The butterflies written in the script should be clearly separate from the rest of the film-world and therefore our idea is to use hand-drawn butterflies. It means, we need to put cartoon-layers on film-footage. The film concentrates on a man who seeks recognition for his skills, but who is always blamed for the way he physically is. In this film he learns how a defect can also be seen as a talent, depending how you approach it.
Urmas’s pashion is writing short stories and scripts which deal with magic stu searching for the edges of believability. Edina and Urmas have both directed many short fiction and documentary films in different countries. Their script Butterfly-Man is based on a short story by Estonian writer Mehis Heinsaar. Urmas has already adapted one of his stories into a successful short film – Snatcher of Old Men (2005).
If this doesn’t seem to happen, the director sends on other artists to interrupt Anselm’s performance – a knife thrower to scare him, a monkey to confuse him, clowns and acrobats to cheer him. It ends in complete chaos on the stage, where, anyhow, Anselm gets recognition from his colleagues.
‘‘Prepare for butterflies to jump out from you.”
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Koen de jonghBelgium
RENDEZ-VOUS Tel.: +32 49 48 43 24 Email: fotonerio@yahoo.com
BIO
Synopsis
intention
Koen de Jongh studied film in Brussels and New York. After writing and directing more than 15 short films, he still can’t get enough of experimenting, discovering and playing with this magic medium. The different writing and directing awards above his bed are just the beginning, Koen is still learning a lot and looking for his own ‘story’.
After a failed attempt to commit suicide, nobody knows how to deal with LARS (15). People are overprotective, scared, overbearing, angry, overly sympathetic, but no one is honest with him. Nobody confronts him with what he did / or tried to do.
Suicide is thin ice as a theme for a short film. It has been used over and over again by starting filmmakers and its issues are hardly ever dealt with. That’s why my film starts after the dramatic attempt, in a seemingly normal world, where people have to move on with day to day life. The suicide is more like an off-screen shadow that hangs above the characters but is never named out loud.
He is currently developing his first feature projects with the support of the Flemish Film Fund (VAF), but he also likes to look beyond the borders of his little country. Koen loves scriptdoctoring and talking about himself in the 3rd person singular.
“It’s about the violence of silence“
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
It is af if Lars is living in a bubble and everybody tries their best to avoid him for fear of bursting it. While their intentions may be good, his parents, the neighbours, the psychiatrist, the people at his new school, all push him away, alienating him, further and further into his bubble. So much so, that Lars finds himself going back to the place where this all started… the railroad bridge from where he jumped. The loneliness, isolation and lack of communication, drive Lars back up the steel bridge… but there he meets a strange girl KIRSTEN (15), with whom he connects immediately. Maybe it’s because she is in a similar situation, maybe it’s because she’s so direct and open, or maybe it’s just because she’s the first person in weeks to ask him why he keeps walking around with his granddad’s old military helmet !
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I’m more interested in the small impacts of such a big drama like the uneasiness and the impossibility of to communicating. The problems Lars faces after his attempt may mirror the reasons why he did it in the first place, but it’s really more about how we face life and all the treacherous twists and turns along the way. To hide his scars, Lars wears an old helmet. Nobody acknowledges the helmet, nobody ‘faces’ the helmet, they just pretend it’s not there. Only when Lars can find a way to make other people see his helmet (ie: his problems), to confront them, will he be able to start his healing process
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©Photo by Cecilia Conan
Leonie de rudder FRANCE
TWO EARS ONE MOUTH Tel.: +33 6 20 72 18 96 Email: leoderudder@hotmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Born in Paris in 1981, Léonie used to move approximately every two years. She grew up in the north of France in a small village that counts more cows than inhabitants, but also lived in other small and big towns. She obtained a Masters degree in Literature and a research Masters Degree in Film studies.
The movie opens in the famous School of interpretation of the Great Union, which counts now nearly a hundred countries. A new student, Irene, arrives during a lesson. She comes from a little country, a former dictatorship which is about to join the Great Union. She gradually realizes that this school teaches the students to give up their own identity and emotions, to offer their mind and body to serve the Great Union. Independent thought is quite forbidden and all the students are taking drugs to increase their abilities and to hold on.
I wanted to explore characters such as interpreters because they are a type of medium; we listen and talk to these people without actually communicating with them. They speak to express somebody else’s thoughts and to them, body parts are work tools, instruments. The tongue, for instance, is so significant in human relationships!
Parallel to her theoretical studies, she joined an international filmmakers network called Kino which promotes self-produced filmmaking. It was a really rich experience for her because it taught her editing, image treatment and above all filmmaking within a 48hour time constraint. She also coordinated video lessons for children. Passionate about writing, she wrote theatre plays and short novels. She now works as a scriptwriter and reader for television and the Centre National de la Cinématographie, writing animated cartoons, sitcoms for teenagers, and rewriting documentaries about novelists and music.
These ideas led me to this school of super interpreters where students end up taking drugs to develop their eardrums, or feel encouraged to invest in surgical ear grafts. I picture the lessons as mechanical exercises, meaningless choreographies such as sitting down while remaining expressionless. I’d like the short film to be rather realistic with a slow descent into strangeness.
A student, Abel, shows Irene that detaching oneself from his or her emotions is also a way to gain power. He is so skillful at it that he can now not only translate but also anticipate what his interlocutor will say next. But his good intentions and flirting kindness could be the cruelest threat to Irene’s rebellion.
Another important device is the use of different languages. As they speak something like 15 languages, all the characters have nearly forgotten where they came from. I’d like to use different colour subtitles (that are not quick enough to translate) to play with this complex situation of communication and misunderstanding.
“You’re but two ears and one mouth, and they don’t belong to you anymore.”
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Azed kettani France
THE GISÈLE METHOD Tel.: +33 6 60 25 91 36 Email: azed.kettani@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Azed was born in France in 1977 to French and Moroccan parents. He grew up mostly in Canada and went on to study communications and film directing at Concordia University in Montreal. In 1999 he moved to Paris, France to continue his studies in film theory and scriptwriting.
The Gisèle Method is a famous programme helping uppermanagement types from the world of finance recover from the stress and distress in their line of work and the self-destructive lifestyle they come to lead. Celebrity guru Gisèle Langlois teaches twelve-day group seminars at her center located in secluded, beautiful natural surroundings. The facilities, a gentle but firm staff, Gisèle’s unique brand of new age exercises and therapy, a healthy vegetarian diet and a merciless cold-turkey break from internet and phone enable the participants to go through their difficult detoxification and a complete attitude turnaround in a Zen atmosphere.
It started with this funny picture in my mind about a hungry werewolf whimpering in front of a plate of steamed carrots. The fun in The Gisèle Method comes mainly from placing a monster like this one in a genre and in situations that were not meant for it: doing Yoga, inside a sauna, eating vegetarian, sleeping in a dorm, trying to make friends… and everybody trying to act normally around it. The creature’s distress is very real to the other characters but humorous to us.
Since then, he has worked in various crew positions on the sets of films, music videos, television programmes and commercials, and as a technical coordinator for film distribution and sales companies. He now makes a living in Paris translating scripts and editing corporate videos, television programs and short films. He’s also been active in NISI MASA, the European Network for Young Cinema since 2005, becoming a member of its board from 2007 to 2009 and taking part in some of the network’s video and filmmaking projects. He’s written and directed several self-produced short films and video projects in both France and Canada.
Until, on the first day of a new seminar, a distraught werewolf shows up. This is the center’s first real challenge and Gisèle welcomes it, firmly believing the Method can restore anyone’s humanity, even a werewolf’s. But can the creature endure and benefit from the exercises and the vegetarian diet? How will the other participants fare living 12 days in close quarters with the beast? And how does one even turn into a werewolf in this day and age?
In a light way, The Gisèle Method handles serious themes: stress and alienation stemming from individualism and modern life, the repercussions of greed, dependence on technology, the need for balanced living and well-being, people turning to (sometimes extreme) new age methods and gurus for solutions, feeling unequipped to deal with life… For a better contrast, the action (spanning 12 days) would be shot in an overall realistic style, but outdoors we always sense the majesty and peacefulness of the surrounding nature.
“It will change you (Just relax!)’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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arne kohlweyerGERMANY
A DAY LIKE NO OTHER Tel.: +49 17 81 98 12 38 Email: arnekohlweyer@gmx.de
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Arne Kohlweyer was born in 1981 in Wolgast (Island of Usedom) in the former GDR and grew up in Berlin. In 2008 he finished his post-graduate studies in film direction at the FAMU in Prague. Prior to that, he studied photography in Graz, Austria, literature in Frankfurt/Oder (Bachelor of Arts) and film theory at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Over the years he has published papers on Fellini, Swedish Film at the Millennium and Hollywood’s Screwball Comedy of the 1930s and 40s.
An ordinary day in autumn 1989 at a new concrete tower block estate in northeast Berlin. Seven-year-old Marko is collecting money for his class-trip with his best friend Ecki. His older siblings are fighting over the family’s only sex education book and grandfather is talking shop about the pros and cons of West German beer. And even though Marko’s parents are on holiday, he still has to go to bed much too early.
A Day Like No Other describes the events of 9th November 1989 from the perspective of a seven-yearold boy.
Arne has made various short films and was nominated for the German Newcomer Film Award for his film Untergehen mit Picasso in 2007. Last year he was selected as director for the 7th Berlinale Talent Campus, while his feature-length screenplay Out of Time Man was chosen for the Berlinale Script Station in 2009 and the Talent Project Market 2010. Arne now lives and works as an independent filmmaker in Berlin
Most of what I know about the state into which I was born in 1981 comes from history books, fictional adaptations, documentaries and personal stories from adults whose pure polemic, nostalgia, ideological blindness and prejudice made it very difficult to discover the real truth (if indeed such a thing even exists). So I always had difficulties with the general perception of these chapters of German history.
But the very next morning, something seems different. A sort of wall has fallen over. What’s the big deal? Can’t it just get rebuilt? And all this is why sports class got cancelled? But there’s more: Marko’s teacher has run off to a country called “over there” with the class kitty, his older sister is severely depressed, the middle brother couldn’t be happier – and all because of “over there”. What is it, this “over there”? As his parents aren’t actually around, Marko has to find out by himself.
I can, however, identify very well with the perspective of a growing child who is exploring the world around him, but is one day confronted by changes that are very difficult to classify. On top of this, children are surrounded by purely abstract terms that they can hardly grasp, such as “over there” (drüben), “topple” (Sturz) and “Fall of the Wall” (Mauerfall), and are eventually obliged to make sense of it on their own. This is precisely what A Day Like No Other deals with.
“Imagine the world changed overnight… and you had to go to bed at 7p.m.!“
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Matti koskinenFINLAND
GOTTA HAVE IT Tel.: +35 85 03 42 86 15 Email: matti785@wippies.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
intention
Matti Koskinen (b. 1986) lives in Helsinki. After high school and 13 years of an intensive ice hockey career he had sudden enlightenment after reading Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. He quit hockey and went travelling around the world, and during those journeys he found literature and cinema.
Jouko, 32, works as a dinnerware bagger in a work unit for mentally disabled adults. Joukos life seems to be in order: he has friends, his own apartment in a nursing home and an occupation. All of his basic needs are fulfilled, except one thing. Jouko has never had sex or any kind of romantic relationship with a woman. His whole world turns around this sexual obsession and no one seems to take his frustration seriously.
After two years of working with mentally disabled people, I have noticed how the notion of sexuality dominates their lives. The channeling of those feelings is for them often difficult, or even impossible and leads to misunderstandings and problems when it occurs among the majority. Typically it is not taken seriously, it’s either seen as funny or disgusting.
One day Jouko finds out that in Tallinn (Estonia) there is a special place for erotic services for retarded people. He decides to escape from Finland and find it with Sampo, 47, his co-worker. Sampo is in a wheelchair and his lower body has been paralyzed but that doesn’t stop him from being Joukos sexual coach along the way.
In my script I wanted to bring out how natural the need for sexual experiences is for everybody and how controlling it can eventually be. I would also like to touch the subject of buying sex: can prostitution be ethically justified, if it would be legal and controlled?
How can these partners manage in a foreign country, by themselves with their obsessions and special way of thinking?
Firstly I’ll bring out the environment in which the character lives and how the outside world differs from the limited and routine-filled everyday life. Without a personal assistant even the simplest tasks prove to be complicated to people who perceive the world in a completely abnormal way. I would also like to show how great (and difficult) personalities the mentally disabled can be.
He has worked as a warehouse worker, postman (is it as terrible as Charles Bukowski wrote? Yes, it is), cargo box constructor, line installer, librarian etc. and lately as a social worker with mentally disabled adults and children. He is also a film enthusiast and has written and directed low budget short films.
“No one needs to hide because they’re different.“
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
16
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katrin maimikEstonia
THE PHOTO
Tel.: +37 2 56 50 27 21 Email: ruusenator@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Katrin Maimik (formerly Ruus) was born in 1982 and spent her childhood in a little town called Lihula. She graduated from high school in Tartu where she also attended a university and got her bachelor’s degree in theatre studies. Since fall 2009 she has been studying screenwriting in the Baltic Film and Media School at Tallinn University. In the past Kartin has written a few short stories and plays for the theatre. Her youth comedy With What Formula? (in collaboration with Triinu Ojalo) has been brought to the stage.
The main character of this film is 30-year old Maarit who lives with her cruel 70-year old father. The old man is chained to a wheelchair and has terrorized his daughter for many years. Since Maarit has promised to take care of her father, she has been forced to give up a fulfilling life as a young woman. She has not had any real relationships with men and she does not have children.
This story is delicate. What is it exactly that raises sympathy? How far can the relationship between a child and an adult go? It is not always possible to explain where and why people get close. I am interested in the dark side of this bond, where the concepts of right and wrong no longer apply. Where does the attraction begin? And how little it may have to do with social and behavioural norms sometimes.
In 2007 she was awarded third prize in the Estonian playwriting competition for her play Sweet Nuthin. Screenwriting and thinking in the language of film is a new challenge for Maimik. In addition to a script for a short film The Photo, she has written a story called Bare Yourself that has already been transformed into a movie in the film school. She has also organized several art exhibitions and brought performers of avant-garde culture and modern dance from all over the world to Estonia.
One day Maarit meets a 10-year old boy. They form a bizarre friendship. The woman is in a situation, where instead of relating to men of her own age, she is faced with one too old and one too young man. As a result of the little boy´s attention and his slightly brutal nature, maternal feelings awake inside Maarit but she also discovers her femininity. She is like a late teenage girl. Of course the father feels left out because of this special connection. A strange triangle of human relations unfolds in front of our eyes in the foreground of jealousy, anger, loneliness, closeness, intimacy and love.
And why The Photo? In one of the central scenes of the script the woman and the boy are in a hospital, because the boy has had an accident. An X-ray photo is made of the boy’s body. At the end of film, when the boy moves away, he leaves the X-ray photo to Maarit. As if for remembrance. On the photo, the boy’s arm bone, broken collarbone, ribs and Maarit’s hands that held the boy while taking the x-ray, are visible. This is the image of very special closeness.
“Different love story’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
17
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guillaume martinFRANCE
FROM THE MOUTHS OF CHILDREN Tel.: + 33 6 89 67 13 06 Email: unautreguillaumemartin@hotmail.fr
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Guillaume Martin was born in Brest, France, in 1983, also the year of Garrincha’s death. Equipped with a scientific baccalaureate after years of schooling, Guillaume hoped to better understand the world he lived in by studying biology. In the end this endeavour was sort of a flop (if you don’t count the fact that he learned the Latin names of all his favourite seafood dishes), and only served to complicate his questions. So, leaving science and his summer career in valet parking behind, he moved to Paris in 2004 to study audiovisual arts at the ESRA.
Manon (7 years old) and her father (Michel) are on their way home from the hospital. Manon has a broken arm after falling from a swing. Accidents happen, Michel assumes. But Manon knows it wasn’t an accident. She never would have fallen if her mother hadn’t pushed her so violently.
From the mouths of children, in this case that of Manon. This is the story of how she tries, with her small mouth that should know no greater challenge than crunching candy, to form words that will slice through denial like a knife.
In 2007 he took a job working in a funeral home. Eventually the distance from the ocean drove him back to Brittany. Since returning to Brest in 2008, he has spend his time working in a crematorium, drawing simple sketches, and making amateur short films with his Super 8 cameras.
‘‘She made her Mum so worried, this little girl.”
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
In about twenty minutes time they’ll be back home, where mum is anxiously waiting. And it’s now or never, while it’s just her and her dad, if Manon is going to describe what really happened. She’d better tell him before they pass the boulangerie. No, she’ll wait until they’re in the car. No, not there either. But she has to find a way to tell him – even if Michel, under the influence of his oppressive wife, doesn’t seem to want to hear it.
I believe childhood could be defined as an ephemeral blend of naivety and curiosity focused on the small world that surrounds us. My aim is to examine the capacity of children to understand certain adult behaviours. Specifically, the story emphasizes a little girl’s need and attempt to describe a grown-up situation (with implications she cannot fully grasp) to her unreceptive father. Just seven years old, Manon isn’t yet a “big girl.” At 33, Michel isn’t a little boy. But she is serious and he is playful. In focusing on the rapport between Manon and her father, I hope to show the revelation of the secret as an event that proves pivotal not only to their respective lives but also (and especially) to their relationship. Though technically left unsaid, the secret that Manon makes Michel understand will jolt him out of complacency, compelling him to take responsibility for the burden that has been weighing down his daughter, and giving Manon the freedom to go back to being just a little girl.
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Yiorgos MOustakisGReece
THE ISLAND
Tel.: +30 69 43 73 16 01 Email: ym@yiorgosmoustakis.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Born in Athens, Yiorgos Moustakis received school education in Greece and in Russia. At the age of thirteen he got involved in photography and later on took part in several exhibitions with the Photography Circle of Athens University. Parallel to photography he studied film directing in Athens, from where he graduated with his first film shot on S16mm, Halcyon Days, a short film drama. Few years later he shot, mostly as a stlylistic excersise,The Corridor, a stylised, atmospheric thriller. He studied at a postgraduate level at the International Film School Wales and graduated with the film Mari, a minimalistic, sci-fi drama, which was awarded several times.
Orp (30), a writer, and Eri (28) arrive at a cottage house so that Orp can find inspiration for his new novel and Eri can cure her sea phobia. Eri gradually overcomes her fear but Orp is unable to write. He discovers a mysterious island, a source of vast inspiration and promises to wait for Eri’s cure in order to move to the island with her.
What happens when our desires cast their shadows on life? Can the psychological “death” of a beloved person in one’s mind become a reality in a metaphysical sense? I was inspired to write The Island by the myth of Orpheus and specifically by how far one could go in order to find the object of his love and also by questioning love and the sacrifices one has to make in order to keep it alive. My intention is to create a very cinematic film, shot on black and white, with a very visual and stylized approach focusing on the elements of the metaphysical and the divine, following the writer’s inspiration and his search for it, but also with a more realistic approach when the two characters are together and while following the woman’s phobia.
Haunted, though, by his experience and impatient to return to the island, Orp pushes Eri to go on the boat with him. Exhausted with Eri’s failed attempts, that have become their main concern, they decide to return to the city. Just before their departure, Eri will face her fear once more. Alone.
Yiorgos has worked in many film productions in various posts from pre-production to post-production, in short films, TV and feature films and got insight into distribution while working on an internship at the acquisitions department of a London based Film Production & Sales company at their office in Prague.
There are two sequences with overlapping scenes in which the characters are alone, each trying to solve their own problem and this is done in order to stay with their point of view, unobstructed, in order to create a bigger impact when I bring them together in the moments where these problems and the characters’ needs conflict with each other. Using a minimalistic approach in the plot, little dialogue, stylized imagery and a slow, very atmospheric pacing that will accelerate tremendously in the climax, I can envision a film that will carry and show its mythical origin.
“How far would a writer go in order to find endless inspiration?“
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Jerôme nunesFRANCE
NEXT STOP
Tel.: : +33 6 10 50 30 52 Email: jeromenunes@yahoo.fr
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Born in France in 1980, Jerome NUNES spent 6 years in Great Britain where he studied for a PhD in French cinema after completing a Master’s Degree in American cinema. He also taught French literature and cinema at the universities of Galway and Nottingham. He moved to Marseille in 2006 where he has been working as a literary translator and decided to write and direct his own films. In 2009 he directed the short film Alter ego (15’) funded by the French Ministry of Youth and Sports, a European coproduction between la Compagnie d’Avril (F), Minotaurus Film (LUX) and Green House (F).
Pierre, a 30-year-old ill-adapted unemployed man who lives at his father’s, suffers from serious insomnia. Confronted with general indifference, he meets his doctor who encourages him to reactivate his memory to find out what happened the day he stopped sleeping.
Next Stop allows me to address the angst of a character entering adulthood as a misfit in conflict with society. The film is pervaded with the codes of genre movies (horror and thriller) which are directly in keeping with Pierre’s fears. Pierre’s mental health is at stake if he cannot overcome his sleeplessness. This vicious circle keeps the story and character going — the more Pierre is scared, the less he can sleep, the more he grows anxious.
While hallucinations and recurring nightmares keep haunting him, he takes on a journey across town that will lead him down into a metro station where he will experience again a traumatic event.
Nevertheless, the film will not be a chock-full tribute to genre movies. Here, genre never prevails over well-rounded characters or a consistent plot. On the contrary, the realistic backdrop anchors the story in a social context making the tension even more powerful. The film is mostly set in daylight and alternates between suspense and light-hearted scenes to counterbalance Pierre’s phobias.
Next Stop, which he intends to direct in 2011, was awarded a scriptwriting grant by the Provence Alps Cote d’Azur Region and was selected for the 2010 professional meetings between producers and scriptwriters (Espace Kiosque) as part of the Aubagne International Film Festival.
The uncanny will originate from his everyday life. Suspense will be achieved through a classical film grammar: out-of-shot/reverse shot, editing and sound. Thus it will be hard to tell dreams from reality, flashbacks from present time. The viewer will adopt Pierre’s point of view — possibly ending up like him with a feeling of guilt.
“He may not be guilty, if only he could remember.“
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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dena popova BULGARIA
CHERRY ON THE BALCONY Tel.: + 35 98 87 98 84 59 Email: denadep@yahoo.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Dena Popova was born in 1987 in Sofia, Bulgaria. This year she is graduating from Whitman College near Seattle, where she studies Film Studies and Politics. She is working on a documentary film about the traditional birth practices in indigenous communities in Ecuador and on a project about the state of the immigrant Latino population in Washington State.
Cherry on the balcony is a visual poem, the frame is static, and the narrative (the verse) is following The blinking of an eye. A sad-looking mother and her little son who has the posture of a grown-up are having lunch on a hot summer day in the living room in an old apartment building with an interior backyard. The father is missing. Finishing the hot chicken soup seems like an eternity for both of them. A zoom-out through the window peeks around the other balconies and windows facing the backyard to hear and see what the other residents are doing in the hot afternoon.
The image of a red stain on white bed sheets tells the story of the film. The cherry stain on the drying white is innocent but becomes cruel at the same time. In the past the blood on the wedding sheets was a confirmation of the sacrifice between the two families. The only way to fulfill this sacrifice was by making it public to the whole community.
Last year she studied for a semester in the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, for a semester in Paris, and then spent the summer in the house of a traditional healer in the highlands of Ecuador. She is part of the poetry selection staff of the Blue Moon literary magazine at Whitman College. Her first book with short stories and poems written during her travels, “Girls from Good Families”, was published in Bulgaria in December.
I was curious to build up an extreme case of the inevitable intimacy and sense of suffocation that the space of such a backyard creates. I am interested to experiment with the stylization of the format of such a film-poem.
This collage puts together love-groans and the sound of summer diarrhea, while an old woman is dying her long hair on a balcony. The boy is now playing in the backyard, while his mother is spreading washed clothes on the washing-rope. His innocent game of shooting ripe cherries with a slingshot gets dangerous when he stains his mother’s white sheets with cherry red.
‘‘Shooting the last summer cherry on white sheets.’’
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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Daniel RemonSPAIN
KOALA
Tel.: + 44 75 75 58 15 78 Email: danielremonm@hotmail.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Daniel Remón was born in Madrid in 1983. He studied Journalism and Communication in Complutense University and graduated in scriptwriting at the ECAM (Madrid Film School). He co-wrote the feature film Casual day, directed by Max Lemcke, selected for the San Sebastián International Film Festival and voted Best original screenplay by the CEC (Spanish Film Critics Association). His second feature as a scriptwriter, Cinco metros cuadrados, is currently in production, set to begin shooting in the summer of 2010. After co-writing the screenplays for the feature lengths Bremen and Rapaces, sponsored by the Comunidad de Madrid, he is now developing a feature documentary about an old “X” theatre called “Paradiso”.
Mercedes (35) works for an insurance company. She is good at her job. She might even get promoted. Everything seems to change when the company hires a new assistant for her: Juan Francisco, a young disabled man selected by means of an agreement with a Down’s Syndrome Foundation. She has nothing against him, but the guy simply can’t work properly. During an informal meeting at the office, Juan Francisco drops some soup on Mercedes’s laptop. Although everyone is staring at her at that moment, she loses control and calls him “a fucking retard”.
As a screenwriter I have always been interested in language. Not only is our own communication an instrument but it also determines how we behave with each other, modelling the picture of ourselves that we want to be shown in a social environment. Political correctness makes an undeniable influence on language. As simple as that: some things cannot be said in society. But how can a single word be so harmful? And even if it isn’t, why does Mercedes use that specific word and not another one? Should she change her opinion of herself now? Should she be asking for forgiveness?
Daniel lives between London and Madrid, where he is working in a TV serial. Koala will be his first experience as a director.
The incident is handled like the source of a virus. Mercedes is immediately isolated from the group. In order to prevent that kind of behaviour, the company hires a psychologist. He starts making interviews around the office. One by one, the members of the staff answer his questions, revealing the ins and outs of the system. A perfect surface under which a deep intolerance is kept hidden.
What interests me the most is the relationship between the staff and these questions, involving a whole social group and the meaning of a single word. So I thought about interviews as the perfect narrative tool for this story. They help me to take some distance from the problem. Since what is important here is not the problem, but what everyone (even the audience) has to say about it.
‘“Why did you use that word?”
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mariana sabeva BULGARIA
NEON
Tel.: + 35 98 83 30 60 31 Email: virgineliza@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Mariana was born in Sofia in 1986. She spent her adolescence wandering between writing, drawing and acting, and it was just several years ago that she chose cinema as her future. She graduated from Sofia University, at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication. During the first years in the University she worked as an art critic in the most renowned Bulgarian newspaper for art and culture. It’s been three years now that she has worked as a copywriter in the Bulgarian branch of the international advertising agency McCann Erickson. In 2009 she started working as an assistant director for TV ads. Except for a few experimental shorts, Neon is her first significant film project.
A bald hotel manager with a sagging belly, the grin of an old woman in a sex shop, cold and distant neon signs – these are the faces of the town, in which the skinny 20-year-old Yoni has just arrived. But among all the faces, he meets two that make a difference for him. They are brother and sister, they are outgoing, they have everything and they just want to have fun. Yonni wants to have fun too, he wants to take his clothes off, jump into the pool and play in the water, just like them. But he just can’t.
Alienation, self-inflicted solitude, the frustration of not being able to fit in – these are the problems that incited me to write Neon. They are typical for somebody coming of age yet could also be tormenting for anyone. Dealing with loneliness is sometimes for life. Much like in a contemporary fairytale, Yonni walks the path to his true self. His transformation is catalyzed by a meeting with a boy and a girl, whose alluring image transcends the romantic halo of Yonni’s ideal. Through the people Yonni wants to be like, he will come to realize that he doesn’t have to be somebody else when he can be himself.
The strange relationship triangle between them gives him the opportunity to reach something he has always craved for – warmth, friendship, even love. But in order to grab this opportunity and overcome his loneliness, he has to confront his biggest fear. So he ventures to accept the siblings’ invitation and goes to the pool party they organized in their parents’ absence. There, on the edge of the pool, Yonni will do the one thing left for him – he will finally reveal himself…
I chose neon imagery as the background against which the transformation of the protagonist is set. Besides having ample visual potential, it is a clear symbol of urbanism and alienation. Throughout the story, plot lines thin as neon strands intertwine – the illusive eroticism between the three, the subliminal threat of the city, and the implied mystery of Yonni’s physical problem. They construct a subtle surrealism of the action serving as grounds for the unfolding of this story about self-acceptance.
‘‘The ultimate mystery is one’s own self”
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Sara spinelliItaly
IT’S NOT FAIR!
Tel.: +39 34 03 84 40 83 Email: sarasyd@gmail.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Sara Spinelli was born in 1983 in Bologna, Italy. She graduated in languages and foreign literature with a particular interest in Australia, where she spent a year of studies and shot her first short film. She’s been attending theatre courses since she was 15, first on acting and then on musicals, writing and directing.
What if an 8-year-old girl wants to become the Pope? That’s what Gaia wants and she’s very determined. While discovering more and preparing herself for this role, she will find out that it is quite impossible, and she will try to understand why through a confrontation with her parents.
Limits are part of our lives. We are aware of this and we deal with them in different ways. Children don’t, they live in their own world where everything’s possible, even for a girl to become the Pope. This is what I was interested to explore: the first approach and reaction of a child to restrictions, in this case gender related.
At the same time she’s being cultivating her passion for cinema through different aspects: photography she got some of her photos published -, video editing, reviews, scriptwriting and website making: in 2001 she created the website of Stefano Accorsi, a very well known Italian actor. She is currently working in the organisation of classical music concerts.
Through her first approach to limits she will find, at the end, her own solution and personal victory.
The matter is serious, but the kid’s perception makes it become cheerful and funny. Gaia is not naive, on the contrary she is very smart and just wants to know how things work, why and who decided how they would be. But adults’ answers are not always satisfactory...
‘‘Why can’t I be the Pope, mum?”
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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ALL IN WHITE
Tel.: +43 66 42 37 95 05 Email: Samuel@3tapes.com
©Drawings by Jarek Krawczyk
samuel traberAUSTRIA
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Samuel Traber was born in 1986 in a small village in Austria, son of an old hippy blues guitar player and a psychologist. He graduated with his degree in Graphics and Communication design in Graz and moved afterwards to Vienna.
The story is about Robert and Mathias and what happens to their friendship when a girl enters their lives. Robert is the stronger one who always wants to push it further, while Mathias follows him quietly but one thing they share equally is the hobby of alcohol and speed. After one destructive Saturday night they are fucked up enough to steal a hearse.
In this short film I want to picture the problem of connecting with the opposite sex and the role of alcohol. I did three shorts, on the topic of “Love and Aid” and their unusual aspects. I think everyone who is involved in a relationship of love or a friendship think and feel differently about it than their partner, even though it’s referred as a shared emotion. It could be that they never really understood each other. It looks like they are sharing the same feelings but in fact the emotions stay in one and could be absolutely different to their partner’s.
Samuel along with a friend started up the independent company 3tapes to represent their works. 3tapes covers corporate design, video journalism, live screening, art projects and of course film. Screenwriting and making movies are his major passions.
One thing leads to another and finally they open a body bag. To their surprise it’s a breathtakingly beautiful girl and their reactions are absolutely different. Robert is turned on and possessive, while Mathias thinks of the corpse as an untouchable angel. A fight of desire and defense erupts till both of them are able to think about the character behind the body and decide on a respectful sepulture.
What fascinates me about it is that this social system works on a higher level and often it’s the best thing that happens to many people. I call it one-way love and it’s the funniest, saddest but most beautiful thing I know.
“yes she is cold, just as you are.”
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
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vappu tuomistoFINLAND
DIARY OF A CITY BUNNY Tel.: +35 85 05 45 83 93 Email: vappu.tuomisto@gmail.com
BIO
Synopsis
Intention
Vappu Tuomisto was born in 1985 in Helsinki. After gratuating from the Helsinki High School of Visual Arts, she studied art history, political sciences and film and television studies at the University of Helsinki. In the spring of 2009 she finished her four-year film studies at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences. During the exchange study period at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina she got into animation filmmaking.
High school boy Eero has a habit of falling into an imaginary world to compensate for his grey and dreary reality. Eeros conception on women is mostly based on porn, movies and the stories told by his older brother.
I have always been strangely interested in people who can’t find somehow their place in society. Could I understand people acting in wrong and strange ways? Is it possible for me, a young woman who grew up in a safe family, to take up a the position of a completely different kind of person, a boy with a harsh background feeling revulsion against women? Could we have surprisingly much in common?
Since graduating from film school she has studied physical theatre. She has taken part in projects mixing different art forms from puppet theatre to fashion design and performance, in Finland and abroad. Her short animation films have been screened at film festivals in Finland.
When Eero’s brother’s new girlfriend Mia comes into sight, Eero gets a chance to explore a real woman. When Mia then leaves Eero’s brother, she again strengthens Eero’s judgement that women are nothing but bitches. In Eero’s mind all the girls turn into a plague as stupid and unwanted as city bunnies.
I’m interested in fantasies going around peoples minds. How many people in reality have improper thoughts and feelings that they just manage to hide inside? I want to explore ways to bring out these peculiar feelings in a film. In this script I’m fascinated by a very subjective way of storytelling, where I can utilize a diary-like structure. It is not the realism or the logic of the plot that is essential, but the experience of one person. I believe that alienated people also have the right to choose their way of life, or at least tell us something about our society.
”Chick or rabbit, I’ ll shoot you anyway”
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VANESSA URL GERMANY
HERMANN
Tel.: +49 157 74 63 27 16 Email: vanessa_url@yahoo.de
BIO
SYNOPSIS
INTENTION
Vanessa Url studied Film and Video Art at the University of Art and industrial Design in Linz (Austria) and at the Mimar Sinan fine arts University in Istanbul (Turkey). The participation at several film workshops and campuses advanced her in scriptwriting and making short films.
The hot summer sun shines bright and beautiful in a small mountain village somewhere in Bavaria. However Hermann has closed all the window shutters in his house. Just little lamps fill the rooms with light. Hermann is an 85 year old man who looks weak and tired. He cares fondly for his terminally ill wife who lies in a sickbed in their living room. The way he cares for her looks like a ritual. Every movement of his hand seems to have be done for a long period.
Hermann is a very sensitive story. It’s about an old man who loses his wife, and needs his own time to accept her death.
After graduation she moved to Berlin where she attends a masterclass in Film studies. In addition to her own projects she works for film festivals and film productions and teaches unemployed youngsters in making films.
I am very interested in the minds of elderly people. I always try to imagine how someone feels in an old body, how your mind works and how you feel life when you have already experienced a lot. Additionally I was very into dealing with the topic of losing a loved one. It’s very different and special how people deal with death. It includes a lot of rituals, some are well known by a lot of people and some are very private. My protagonist Hermann takes for example a very personal leave of his wife. I want to show Hermann’s world in exaggerated colourful pictures. They function as surreal sequences because Hermann is living in a kind of a daydream. The scenes with the other characters will be different in colour and sound. They will be cold and more realistic. I want to show the distance of Hermann’s inner life to the others.
On a very sad day Hermann picks up the phone and calls the doctor to announce his wife’s death. But when the undertaker arrives, a terrible surprise waits for them. While they try to deal with this unusual situation, Hermann starts his new phase of life with his own ritual.
‘‘Everything takes his time, the most specific one is love.”
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SUPPRESSED SIGNALS
©Photos by Outi Palonen
Hrvoje zuparic / Igor drljaca Croatia
Tel.: +385 95 906 44 76 Email: hzuparic@yahoo.com
BIO
SYNOPSIS
Intention
Hrvoje ZUPARIC was born in 1981 in Zadar, Croatia. He has a Master’s degree in Architecture. In 2008 he started an MA program of film dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Hrvoje wrote several long and short feature screenplays. The way it is got selected in the Balkan Film Fund at the Thessaloniki FF in 2007. He was co-writer of a short called Woman in Purple directed by Igor Drljaca.
Ivan is father of a newborn baby boy. The family celebrates the newborn, except for the mother, Ana, who stands distant and isolated. Ivan notices the change, but doesn’t react because he sympathizes with her first time motherhood.
Living in an apartment between my brother’s and sister’s families, accidentally gets me involved in their lives. Basically it is a joyful experience. I watch over these little creatures that the past years just keep on popping into this world. All together - love is in the air.
Igor DRLJACA was born in 1983 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1993 his family moved to Canada. He completed his Bachelor’s at York University’s Film and Video Program in 2007. Igor has directed a number of shorts. Mobile Dreams, screened in Montreal, Santiago de Chile, and Leeds (UK) in 2008. Woman in Purple, produced as part of the Sarajevo City of Film Project, premiered at the Sarajevo FF in 2009. On a Lonely Drive, premiered at the Toronto Intl FF in 2009.
The routines of their daily reality repeat from one day to the next, but at a certain point Ivan notices that the boy is losing weight and confronts Ana about it. She tells him that it is normal for babies. Even though not completely convinced, Ivan decides to listen to her reasons.
But watching over a child is one thing, and looking after a child so his mother doesn’t hurt him or herself is another. In certain moments that was my role. But, furthermore, my brother was a husband to this woman and a father to this child.
As time passes, not much changes except that one day the crying of the child reaches an alarming level. The baby’s entire body convulses. While Ivan frantically seeks to take the baby to the hospital, Ana remains paralyzed and detached.
Is she really going to hurt the child? Can I trust a woman I always have, or has this horrible thing taken away all her senses? I don’t actually question all this too much – my brother would mutely say.
Ivan realizes that his family needs him more then he could have imagined.
Being a father means taking care of my family. If it means keeping my mind normal while stopping my delusioned wife from hurting our child, herself or me (and still continuing to love her at the same time) - I simply do it.
“And as for you men - take care of your women“
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TUTORS MARIE DUBAS
ANTOINE LE BOS
mariedubas@lesfilmsdurequin.com
antlebos@aol.com
Marie Dubas was born in 1983 in Paris. She obtained a masters degree in literature and philosophy at La Sorbonne in 2007, after having written a thesis about the relationship between picture and thought. She then started working as a short film producer for Les films du requin.
After a first life as a sailor and an (interrupted) PhD in philosophy, Antoine Le Bos graduated in 1996 from the French Conservatory for film writing. Since, he has been collaborating on more than 20 feature scripts for cinema, working for directors such as the Afghani Atiq Rahimi. He directed Ex-Voto, Parties and Compulsion, short films selected in more than 50 international festivals.
She has produced more than 10 short films so far, all broadcasted on national TV channels, screened in prestigious festivals and repeatedly awarded. In 2009, she attended the Script&Pitch Workshop as a script-editor trainee, tutored by Dutch script-editor Anita Voorham. She now works as a script-editor on French or International feature length scripts, and keeps on producing up to 4 short films a year.
European Short Pitch 2010 Pitch Court Européen 2010
Among his latest feature scripts delivered, The Black Wave received the “Gan Foundation Prize”. For the last ten years, he’s been working as a scriptconsultant or script-doctor for Script&Pitch and Torino Film Lab, co-creating the “Ciné-écriture” workshops in Paris. More recently, he has become Artistic Director of “le Groupe Ouest”, European Center for Film Creation in Britanny.
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TUTORS SAVINA NEIROTTI
FRANçOIS PIROT
savina.neirotti@scuolaholden.it
pirotfrancois@yahoo.fr
Savina Neirotti graduated in Philosophy and completed the first year of a Masters in Aesthetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Then she became Head of the Press and Communication Office of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI (Italy).
Born in 1977, François Pirot studied filmmaking at the Institute des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium. He directed three short films: Nature morte, an experimental fiction, Retraite (Best first European short film, festival Premiers Plans d’Angers, France) and Deux, a documentary. He co-wrote two feature films with Belgian director Joachim Lafosse: Nue Propriété (selected for the 63th Venice International Film Festival) and Elève libre (shooting in 2007).
In the same years she founded Scuola Holden in Torino together with 4 other friends. She is Director of Scuola Holden’s Master in Narration Techniques, and she supervises all the school activities, focusing on international contacts. She has written articles on narration and classical music for Italian and international newspapers. She has originated and directed the Script&Pitch Workshop since 2005, an advanced script-writing and development course. She’s also the director of the Torino Film Lab.
He is currently completing the co-writing of Nicolas Provost’s first feature film The Invader. He is also currently preparing his first feature film as a director, Mobil-Home, and another one with American film director Alison Chernick.
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TUTORS RAZVAN RADULESCU razvan.radulescu@gmail.com
this book of projectS is a nisi masa publication :
Born in Romania in 1969, Razvan Radulescu studied Literature and Opera Directing in Bucharest. He wrote two novels and worked as an art director for magazines. In 1999 he started to write for films, among which the award-winning Stuff and Dough (Cristi Puiu), Niki and Flo (Lucian Pintilie), The Paper will be Blue and Boogie (Radu Muntean) and the internationally acclaimed The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu). He also worked as a script consultant for Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. In 2009 he co-wrote and co-directed, with Melissa de Raaf, his debut movie First of all, Felicia.
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Editor-in-chief: Joanna Gallardo joanna@nisimasa.com
English reviser: Jude Lister jude@nisimasa.com
Design/Layout: Marion Perrin marion@nisimasa.com
Thank you to all the scriptwriters and tutors for their kind contribution to this publication.
Book of Projects Livre des Projets
PARTNERS & CONTACT INFORMATION With the support of
CONTACT
MEDIA+ Programme 99 rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010 Paris Tel.: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 Email: europe@nisimasa.com Website: www.nisimasa.com With the partnership of The Moulin d Andé~Céci NexT Film Festival Control N
President: Simone Fenoil Director: Matthieu Darras In charge of European Short Pitch: Joanna Gallardo
© NISI MASA # European Short Pitch # April 2010