8 FINAL SCRIPTS . JORDAN . SWEDEN . LEBANON GERMANY . ITALY . BULGARIA . MADAGASCAR S T
SCRIPT PITC H #4
14 NOV - 18 NOV 2016 INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL INTERFILM BERLIN
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What is real and what is fiction? How do the threads of fictional storytelling enmesh reality? When magic shields protect us from the brutality of everyday life in a war zone; or pure, masculine rage becomes food for the beast; and sheep-people dance choreographies – then reality has clearly kicked into hyper-reality mode. The screenwriters participating in this year‘s round of Script Pitch, envision new worlds and forge fresh realities. But the ever-closer relationship between digital and analogue life is also raised: Which occurrences do we actually experience? How long do I physically wait until something changes in my digital world? In subtle microcosms, the stories develop their own realities that frequently leave us feeling puzzled, surprised and provoked. The endless search for an absent father that leads from Sweden to Beirut in Lebanon; the mystical curse afflicting males on the banks of a solitary lake; the sterile transaction of human-life acquisitions in international organisations – by means of powerful atmosphere and compelling cinematic imagery the writers implement absurdity, provocation and inventiveness to merge their stories and the reality in which we live. But which reality, exactly?
Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write?
PATRICK ERIKSSON
I write very slowly. I try to write scenes, situations or images with no particular purpose, other than revolving around the theme or setting of the story. Later I organize things trying out different orders, giving the string of scenes a meaning as a whole. I write in my office or when I am completely bored of my own company, in cafés. I try to get writing done during the first half of the day, before taking care of mundane things. Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career? Storywise it‘s all a long build up, from different sources. The films of Ingmar Bergman and Bela Tarr have inspired me in later years. Bergman because of the clarity, Tarr because of the mystery.
Where do you live and how do you start your day? In Lodz, Poland and in Gothenburg, Sweden. I usually start the day by writing. If not stories I try to recall my dreams from last night.
If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about? A person coming home and finding that another person has taken over her life. Literally, starting by sleeping in her bed, wearing her clothes and so forth. What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin?
SWEDEN . THE FALSE KING OF PIKE
Watching the other films at the festival. And meeting the other participants in the workshop.
WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND HOW DO YOU START YOUR DAY?
R A N D BEIRUTY JORDAN. ENCOUNTERING SAMIR
TELL US ABOUT YOUR WRITING PROCESS! HOW, WHERE AND WHEN DO YOU WRITE?
WHICH PIECE OF ART, WHICH MOMENT OR STORY HAS MADE A SIGNIFICANT IMPRESSION ON YOUR WRITING CAREER?
IF YOU HAD 24H TO WRITE A SCRIPT, WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT?
WHAT WILL BE OR COULD BE AN INSPIRING MOMENT FOR YOU IN BERLIN?
Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write?
HUSSEN IBRAHEEM
I always start writing late at night because I get the whole day experiences in my head. And for me writing them down clears my mind for the next coming day, besides it is much calmer to write at night. My process of writing is directly starting with the script or the dialogues even before the story itself. I usually write twice or three times a week. Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career? Films Like Once upon a time in Anatolia, Eternity and a day, Books like Snow, My name is red. Some People I met, personal stories and situations I encounter, locations I’ve been to, all have a significant impression on my writing career.
Where do you live and how do you start your day? I live in Lebanon, Beirut. And I start my day on my balcony on the 7th floor drinking my cup of tea. Checking out the passing by busy minded or empty minded people down the street going to work, school, jogging …
If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about? I would definitely write about my superhero, my mother. She had to go through many obstacles to raise me and my brother and sister during the Lebanese civil war and she involved us in art scene at a very young age. . What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin?
LEBANON . SWEET DISCONNECTIONS
FRITZ LANG. DIRECTOR 1890 - 1976
JOHANNA ROTTENM E I E R Where do you live and how do you start your day? I live in Berlin and for Berlin standards I start my day definitely too early at 6:45 AM because of my two enchanting little daughters. Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write? As an artist I’m very disciplined and utilize every time slot I can grab, whenever and wherever it’s possible.
Maybe this doesn’t sound very artistic-romantic, but for me it’s very effective and satisfying. Most of the time. Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career? One of my favorites is from good old Hemingway, looking over the roofs of Paris while fighting with the ‚one true sentence‘: „Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast. If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about? First you give me the 24 hours – then I tell you what I will write. What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin? Berlin is so packed with inspiring moments that I’m overdosed sometimes. I realize that whenever I leave the city and see the whole sky again and no houses in front of me. GERMANY . LIFESCORE
Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career?
GIOVANNI RU B I N O ITALY . WAITING
Where do you live and how do you start your day? I‘ve spent most of the last couple of years in London, starting my day with a nice cup of porridge and hours of procrastination. Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write? Wherever, whenever and however the piece at hand requires me to approach it. As long as lots of planning is involved. My last project, for example, was outlined on a door and written in an airport.
Anyone‘s creative identity is shaped by the unique combination of countless of those moments. Quite hard to choose a single one. Might go for my first contact with Dostoyevsky or Doctorow, the time I went in tachycardia at Billy Elliot the Musical or bordered panic during Belinsky‘s monologue in The Coast of Utopia, or when I gave up on film-making after watching The Tree of Life, because I couldn‘t see a way anybody could top that off. If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about? God, hopefully I‘ll never have to. I‘d have to ditch the whole research process and focus on what I have direct experience with. Which would make for a terrifyingly personal piece. Waiting is probably the closer I‘ve ever been to it, having written the first draft on a plane in a couple of hours, but loads of ‚perspiration‘ went into it since. What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin? I hope to completely immerse head first in the festival atmosphere. There are few things as inspiring as a festival atmosphere, pouring with wonderful people expressing their passion for the medium and everything borderlining it, with all their experiences and skills.
ANNETTE S E I P P
Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write? I write whenever I have got time to write, but I work as a professional script reader, script consultant and I give lessons, too. So I have not as much time for writing as I would like to. But during my writing process I am very disciplined and I usually work for several hours to get into the flow of writing. Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career? The Nouvelle Vague (Godards Außer Atem), Billy Wilder, Lubitsch, Jarmusch, Das Leben ist schön… the art of the medieval, The Tree of Life, recently, Bill Viola und Doug Aitken.
Where do you live and how do you start your day?
If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about?
I live in Berlin. I get up at 6:30, I wake up my children and the first two hours of my day are occupied with „family-work“.
I would write a trilogy – reflections on life – or about sharks or about destruction of nature. What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin?
GERMANY . POLAR NIGHT
Berlin is nearly everywhere inspiring – but most inspiring is meeting different or interesting people and the constant change.
K L A R A S T O Y A N O V A BULGARIA . DANS
Where do you live and how do you start your day? I live in Hamburg, near the harbour. I start my day by concentrating on the particular ideas I have to clear in my mind and then I have way too much coffee.
Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write? Writing is for me a process of observation. This is why I would say I capture moments and I collect them. Afterwards comes the actual work – putting everything in order. Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career? As awfully pretentious as it sounds – Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. I come from a very small town in Bulgaria and as a teenager in high school I had created my own little rituals that made my everyday more interesting. One of them was that after school I would search for a new place and sit there to read and smoke, thank God I finally managed to quit now after all the years. But anyway, I was reading novels and smoking 2-3 cigarettes and that was my secret and it seemed very groovy to me, I went to very far away places, almost out of town or I went in the entrances of stranger’s apartment blocks and I would stay there and afterwards I would rub my fingers so my mother wouldn’t notice the yellowish colour, which she of course did. So there was I, exactly in an entrance like that, I remember having the cigarette butts next to my feet, I was sitting on the stairs and crying, I had just finished reading Crime and Punishment. And then this
old lady came in and looked at me very strangely, I knew she thought I were a junkie or something like that. Afterwards I went to church and lit a candle just because I had the urge without understanding why but I really went through a transformation on that day. If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about? I would write about common people. What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin? Seeing someone showing human behavior in the Berlin metro could really inspire me.
Tell us about your writing process! How, where and when do you write?
Z A H I R HOUSSEN F I R O Z A Where do you live and how do you start your day?
CEREAL MUESLI. MUSIC.
ALWAYS ON A PAPER. SOMETIMES IN MY BED. SOMETIMES IN THE BATHROOM. SOMETIMES AT THE WINDOW. MOSTLY WHEN I‘M SAD.
MADAGASCAR . BUTTERFLIES
Which piece of art, which moment or story has made a significant impression on your writing career?
THESE PIECES OF GREAT ART INSPIRED ME TO WRITE MY OWN STORIES: SON OF SAUL (LAZLO NIMES), IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (WONG KAR-WAI), THE LOBSTER (GIORGOS LANTHIMOS), ETER-
NAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND (MICHEL GONDRY). If you had 24h to write a script, what would you write about?
What will be or could be an inspiring moment for you in Berlin?
MEETING PEOPLE FROM EVERYWHERE AND BERLIN AT NIGHT WILL BE THE INSPIRING MOMENTS.