european short pitch: book of projects 2011
DESCRIPTION
Presentations of all the projects developed during the 2011 edition of European Short Pitch organised by NISI MASA.TRANSCRIPT
11EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH 2011
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ABOUT NISI MASA
ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH
PROJECTSAna AlmeidaSimon BaeleLucio BesanaDávid CsicskárMartin GuidoJulia HelmbrechtElif InceNikolay Kostov GeorgievMartin LazarovUlpu-Maria LehtinenAugustas LiivMartina MadejováAnca PandreaFabrizio ParisiMathieu RigotGiovanni RubinoTereza SemotamováMarija ŠkrlecEsmeralda StafaTomas Stark
TUTORSFabienne Aguado & Orsolya BenköMarie Dubas & Razvan Radulescu
PARTNERS AND CONTACT INFO
CONTENTS
Video StoreThe MermaidThe HollowDzsoniThe GarmentWindow to HeavenBirdsChange or the Price of ChildhoodMy Weekend Enemy Imagine Me and YouChameleonHow to Bury a DogBonyIn His EyesHimFinding a CowGood Night, ThenThe Swallows Will ReturnFlicker LifeSynthesis
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S H OEUROPEAN T I T C H
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OUR PROFILE
NISI MASA is a European Network of Young Cinema gathering hundreds of film enthusiasts and professionals from 23 countries. NISI MASA is composed of national organisations with different profiles, but all consisting of young Europeans sharing a common passion: cinema.
OUR MAIN ACTIVITIES
NISI MASA holds an annual call for short film projects for young European scriptwriters and filmmakers aged between 18 and 28, which results in the European Short Pitch short film development forum. All year long, NISI MASA organises various events all around Europe, involving hundreds of film buffs and talents: seminars, scriptwriting and filmmaking workshops, as well as film festivals and screenings.Moreover, NISI MASA publishes the daily magazine Nisimazine during different European and International films festivals (Cannes, IDFA, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, Helsinki...) as well as a monthly newsletter, Mas y Mas.
ABOUT NISI MASA
OUR MAIN AIMS
- Discovering and promoting new film talents- Fostering European awareness through cinema- Developing cross-cultural cinema projects- Creating a platform of collaboration for young European filmmakers
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European Short Pitch is an initiative aimed at pro-moting the European co-production of short films. It combines a scriptwriting workshop in residency and a co-production forum bringing together scriptwriters and industry professionals from all over Europe.
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 Eu-ropean producers, buyers and distributors.
Initiated by NISI MASA, European Short Pitch is now in its 5th edition and is the continuation of our Euro-pean Script Contest, held from 2001 to 2008.
European Short Pitch’s rewriting session was held at the Moulin d’Andé in Normandy in January, with 23 participants from 20 countries attending. From collective brainstorming to working in groups or individually with professional tutors, participants discussed their projects in depth, receiving various feedbacks to nurture their projects.
This year, European Short Pitch’s pitching session will take place on the 5th of March at the Museum of Modern Art in Strasbourg, France, followed by one-to-one meetings in the evening and on the following day.
ABOUT EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH
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BIO
Ana was born on a snowy night in Castelo Branco (Portu-gal) in 1982. Pursuing her dream of becoming a filmmaker, she studied ‘Sound and Image’ at the School of Arts of the Catholic University of Oporto. Since she graduated, she has been working as a television editor and producer. She recently created a film production company: Anexo 82.
Her debut as a director was the short fim A Noiva (The Bride), a tribute to horror cinema that haunted over 25 film festivals all over the world. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Short Film at the Pumelo Film Festival (India).
She worked on several other short films as a producer and editor: Temperar a Gosto (Season to Taste) made as a part of the Zon Script Lab Program, and the comedy O Risco (The Line) set to be screened at 4 festivals in 2011.
Ana has just finished shooting Relationship Status (a mod-ern gothic romantic drama).
SYNOPSIS
It’s 1999 and the digital era is dawning upon the world of cinema. Tiago is a 17-year-old sci-fi geek who works in a video store and is looking forward for to the so-called DVDs. But for his customer and schoolmate Margarida, nothing good will come out of the end of the VHS era.
Margarida discovers that all the VHS tapes in the store will be sold or thrown away. So, late at night, after the video store clos-es, she breaks into the storage room and tries to rescue the tape of Casablanca (which she is planning on giving to an old women who rented it weekly) but is caught by Tiago.
Driven by the feeling that no film – in any form – should be trashed or devalued, Tiago joins Margarida on a one-night adventure where they deliver the worn-down VHS tapes to the people who loved them the most.
INTENTION
Video Store is a coming-of-age story set in 1999 on the streets of Oporto.
Its characters suffer from teenage anxiety and fear of what lies ahead. Margarida is growing into an adult, but doesn’t yet feel ready to step into the future. She fears change and to protect herself she builds an unbreakable wall.
Margarida and Tiago share a big love for cinema and through this unexpected con-nection, Margarida opens up and finds her kindred spirit. Being a movie about people who love movies, Video Store is a film filled with references and the dreamy spirit of 90s cinematography.
It’s a warm farewell to the days when you couldn’t download a film with a mouse-click. People gathered in the cinematic cathedrals that were video stores.
“Analogical Dreaming...”
ANA ALMEIDAPORTUGAL
VIDEO STORETel: +351 914 323 909E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
I graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent with great merit as director in 2008.
During my studies and activities as collector and amateur historian, I decided to work with the subject “history”. My graduation project was an investigation on how local sto-ries became a part of history; located in Bastogne, the capital of the Battle of the Bulge. I got the chance to make the television documentary De Getuigen van De Keyser, a mid-length film about the generation that lived through the war. As it was broadcasted in prime time, I found it neces-sary to create a historical experience in order to under-stand some of the conditions of that time. For the moment I am writing a mid-length documentary about stories and people who once donated historical objects to the Royal Military Museum in Brussels.
SYNOPSIS
In a village near the sea a family is torn up by the war. Lorraine is the youngest child. She has two brothers. François, the older brother, comes home heavily injured and somehow angry and confused by what he has lived through. One day, the fam-ily finds out that their younger son Pierre has died in the war. Lorraine starts to live in her own imaginairy world when she finds a mermaid that washed up ashore. Keeping it a secret she takes care of her not knowing that her toy is a wounded German sailor.
When her family finds out they decide to “help” Lorraine’s mermaid. They make her believe that they will bring the mermaid to the sea, but their intentions are not humanistic and rather inspired by venge-ance. Lorraine believes that her family means the best for her mermaid.
INTENTION
Daily struck by the scandals of priests abusing children here in Belgium, I somehow found a core to what makes this abuse so terrible. Often, the child first gets mentally abused, by adults who take advantage of the imaginative and naïve world that children often live in.
Children should be protected in this state of mind, as their own naïve perspective of the world comes very close to the ideal of humanity. The question dealt with in this short is: In what way do we as adults abuse the pure state of mind of a child? In extreme situations I believe that morals often don’t survive. And don’t we get cynical when we teach our kids morals which we often can’t live by as an adult?
“Don’t we all take abuse from humanity? “
SIMON BAELE BELGIUM
THE MERMAIDTel:: +32 477 557 250E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
28-year-old Lucio Besana grew up in the out-skirts of Milan then moved to the city when he was 19. The plan was to become a psycholo-gist, working in schools and helping teens.
But he’s always had a passion for movies, novels and comics, and he always had a good feeling with words and images. As life became harder and the political situation in his country turned darker, telling stories became a need.After a bachelor’s degree, he applied to the Civic School of Cinema, TV and New Media in Milan, and made it into the Directing Course. During three years, he wrote and directed many documentaries and short movies, mentored by, amongst others, Michelangelo Frammartino and Marina Spada.
In 2009 he started working as a documentary director, script editor and scriptwriter.
SYNOPSIS
Two young filmmakers are watching the videotapes they’ve just recorded and notice that in the back-ground of a long shot there’s a village heavily dam-aged by some sort of huge calamity. The problem is that both of them are seeing the village for the first time, and they’re positive they hadn’t noticed it while they were shooting, but their recorded voices, swearing with surprise at the sight of the village, are clearly audible from the footage.
Back at the place with a camcorder, they certify the incredible: the village can’t be remembered. The people who see it just forget it as soon as they pass by. Only the footage of their camcorder proves its existence. Consumed by the ambition to make the movie of their lives, they enter the village to explore it. They get out of it quickly, one of them seriously wounded. Both of them can’t remember what just happened. Only the camcorder tapes can tell. But the same curse that dooms the village has already moved upon the two young men...
INTENTION
I love sci-fi and horror genres. I believe that such rough, childish, brutal and sometimes naive imaginings can become powerful metaphors of human nature and a sharp snap shot of our times.
This is an horror movie about the fear of being forgotten. Being forgotten means ceasing to ex-ist for others, it means being alone and helpless. I took my inspiration from what happened to L’Aquila. After the earthquake destroyed the city, the army evacuated and surrounded the town centre, confined the survivors in a fenced tent city and stopped every attempt to communi-cate information outside of the military perimeter. L’Aquila and its citizens were actually forgotten, until some brave filmmakers made a movie about the aftermaths of the tragedy.
No sci-fi there, that was a matter of political rot and property speculation. What I really found scary in the story is that, today, the only way for the tragedy to exist for others was to be filmed. The footage has become our memory, a memory that can be edited: this is the core idea of my story.
“Record to exist.”
LUCIO BESANA ITALY
THE HOLLOWTel: +39 333 852 3468E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Dávid Csicskár was born in Pécs, in 1987. He admired poor, ugly and “invisible” people very early. After graduating in film studies at the University of Pécs he is now doing his second degree in filmmaking at the Eötvös Lóránd Uni-versity, Budapest. He is involved in scriptwriting and directing and is writing his first feature film script in a workshop. Dzsoni is his ninth short script. He has directed four short fiction films (The Last Stop, Own Goal, Laura Was Killed by Me, Somebody Is Having a Shower) and made about thirty video works, from music videos and topical short films for competitions to video installations in theatres.
Dávid worked as a director’s assistant on short films and participated in filmmaking and script-writing workshops.
SYNOPSIS
Zoli (14) is a gypsy boy, who is NOBODY in his village. He lives in Ormánság, the poorest and most isolated area of Hungary. At the annual ball, he wins a DVD player and a kung-fu film. After watching the film he decides to become a kung-fu warrior and therefore become SOME-BODY in the village. He starts to practice and mimic the moves of the warrior in the kung-fu film, with his friend Csabi (15). One day Zoli’s family steals and sells the DVD player and the film to Szántics (18), the crack jack of the village. Zoli mainly wants his film back because this is his kung-fu “MASTER”. He cannot buy the film back from Szántics, so Zoli’s dream is broken. He has to take it back, so he challenges Szántics to a duel. He begins to train with the help of Csabi. Along the hard trainings Zoli is trying to make the 360 degree jump kick, which is the most killer and dangerous move. Zoli is ready for the fight, so with a tattoo he renames himself to DZSONI. Dzsoni is excited, but con-fident. People are assembling at the place of the duel. Dzsoni and Szántics are standing face to face. The duel starts. Dzsoni jumps to make the killer kick, the audience is impressed, Dzsoni is in the air...
INTENTION
Spending half of my childhood in Ormánság, I feel it’s very important to tell something about it and the people living there.
Here some kids’ dreams differ from the average kids’ dreams. I think their story is very brutal and sad, but I find something very beautiful in it. They are loveable, they are honest and very brave. I want to show their fight, and to convey respect for them. I think that no matter what your dream is, if you believe in it, you can be a Michael Jackson impersonator or a kung-fu warrior. If you work hard for it and believe in it, you are already what you want to be. No matter what the others think.
I would like to show that we can feel not only pity for Dzsoni, but also respect him as well. He believes in his dream, and with this childish belief – that I think we all have too – he is very happy. I want to portray him in a realistic yet lyrical way to make people feel that it is a brutal story, told with great love.“You are your dreams.”
DáVID CSICSkáR HUNGARY
DZSONITel: +36 203 923 254E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Martin Guido was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He finished his studies at the Film Academy and worked as a first assistant director in films and advertising between 2001 and 2006. In 2007 he moved to Barcelona (Spain) where he participated with his first short film Tough Audi-ence as a director at different short film festivals, winning several prizes. In 2008, with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Spain, he directed his second short film Ninety-Two, filmed at the beginning of 2009 and broadcasted on national TV in January 2011. Since 2008 he has worked at Magoproduction - an animation studio based in Barcelona - as a scriptwriter developing animated TV series Dr. W released in Spain (TV3), France (Arte), Germany (Arte), Finland (YLE), Portugal and Argentina. Currently he works developing the scripts of the animated TV series Flying Squirrels, co-produced by Catalan Television.
SYNOPSIS
On his graduation day Bob wakes up and performs his usual morning hab-its, just like every day. Bob is a very promising ophthalmologist, science focused, perfect tidiness enthusiast with a strict adherence to routine. Everything goes as expected until he starts to get ready for the graduation ceremony. When he’s trying on the pants of his rented suit, something very odd happens. Something almost paranormal and completely beyond the expected that he won’t be able to explain using logical reasoning.
INTENTION
The film is about madness, both on an individual and social level. More specifically, how we try to find logical explanations for everything in order to feel like we are in control and mentally sane; even when that would make us act as perfect lunatics in society.The main aim is to create a short story with one character, one location and no dialogues. All this, working in a two-genre register: totally realistic at first, until the fantasy element steps in. And after this, the style of the story turns into slapstick comedy reaching its peak of madness and absurdity at the end.
“Observe, theorize, predict, test, don’t go crazy.”
MARTIN GUIDO SPAIN
THE GARMENTTel: +34 661 266 730E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Julia Helmbrecht, born in 1982, currently lives in Munich. After a two-year stay in Paris she returned to Germany and began her studies in cultural sciences. Additionally, she started to work as a director’s assistant for professional theatre companies.Becoming more and more interested in audiovisual techniques which also had an important impact on theatre work she was excited by the possibilities of visual writing.
As a consequence she took lessons in scriptwriting and creative writing at the Munich Film Academy (MFA) and as a guest student at the HFF Munich. Besides this, she worked for a daily magazine of Bavarian television (BR). Currently she is respon-sible for the coordination of KALIBER 35 - Munich International Short Film Festival which takes place annually at the end of June.
SYNOPSIS
It has been quite a frustrating day as Chiara enters her friend’s apartment where a party is already in full swing. She has plans to get wasted there in order to escape and forget about her artistic crisis. But with her eyes catching paintings showing madonna icons on the corridor wall her mood gets suddenly absorbed by this magical moment which creates an exceptional mix of energetic sensations inside her.
The cumulation of her emotions reaches yet another level as Chiara gets introduced to her friend’s sister Magdalena for the first time. Chiara develops a certain fascination built up with confused feelings of attraction towards Magdalena which leads to a final state of ten-sion between them: the two women kiss each other. Later on, both of them take their very own way home...
The story shows a moment of an uncon-scious process of realization which grows from a certain situation and has an inevitable impact on the main character’s further life.
INTENTION
What first came into my mind before writing this script was the Church reflected in its paradoxical meaning: on the one hand there is this institution with its controlling, strict and dogmatic character, on the other hand there is this free and very private approach to-wards belief where everyone can find his or her individual source of liberty and inspiration.This contrast results in inner confusions which are symbolically reflected in my main characters throughout the development of the story.
In my script sacred art serves as a medium, a window through which spirit is able to reach our soul, where visions can lead us to another form of reality, evoke a presence of releasing sensations, a moment of truth. Therefore sacred art is not seen in terms of passive admiration and worship. It’s more about be-coming absorbed by a special moment that brings us closer to a far reaching process of transformation.This enables us to discover and develop new territories of creation and activity within ourselves and to become more aware of the inner voice we should follow.
“Art, religion and love might be the only ways to get to a certain intuition ...”
JULIA HELMBRECHTGERMANY
WINDOW TO HEAVENTel: +49 176 962 902 99E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Elif was born and raised in Istanbul until she was 18. She lived in Providence and New York for six years while com-pleting her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Art History and Journalism, respectively. While in New York, she worked at New York, Esquire and Time Out NY maga-zines and paid a hell of a lot of money for rent. After that, she moved back to Istanbul and still pays a lot of rent to be honest, but at least works as a reporter at her favourite newspaper now (true story).
SYNOPSIS
Two good friends are preparing for an important architecture project pitch, una-ware of the fire that is about to burn every-thing they own.The fire starts when they’re not home, on the night before the presentation. When they come back, everything is already gone. With a sudden urge, they climb the roof of the building through the fire escape. They stand, staring at the sprawling streets of Istanbul with the sun going down over the crooked rooftops.
“You know I can never find jeans that fit”, Agah says. ”These were perfect. I only got to wear them once.” Windows are starting to light up in the apartments. “We didn’t own anything”, Ferat says. “Now we own absolutely nothing. Nothing but the clothes on us.”
INTENTION
My script was inspired by a friend whose apartment burnt down in a random fire last winter. He comes from a poor city in southeastern Turkey and is Kurdish, a minority that has long been denied rights in Turkey. Throughout his child-hood, my friend lived in a small town, working as a shoeshiner and doing odd jobs on the street to support his parents and six younger siblings.
Today, at 24, his life is a different story. He lives in the United States and attends one of the most prestigious universities on a full scholarship. He says his mother still doesn’t know where his school is, but she knows it’s a good one.
When my friend told me the story of the fire he was still in a lot of pain. His cameras, laptop and external hard drive with all his writing and photographs and films, even his running shoes were all burnt. Still, hope was always a part of his story. That’s the only way I can explain what he did on the roof moments after the fire. Deep inside, he trusted himself. He knew he had stuff a fire isn’t able to reach and burn.
“Close your eyes and imagine everything you own burning to ashes.”
ELIF INCE TURkEY
BIRDSTel:: +90 533 923 6092E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Nikolay Georgiev was born on the 26th of March 1983 in Burgas, a town on the Black Sea coast in southeastern Bulgaria. He got a bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology and is now trying to get a Master’s degree in European Studies and Social Sciences, the thesis being about the perspectives for Turkey to become a member of the European Union in the near future.
Prior to writing the script for NISI MASA’s call for scripts he had almost no experience in scriptwriting, so it came as a big surprise when he was selected as Bulgaria’s representative. Therefore, in order to prove that this was not just a happy accident, he is willing to do what-ever is needed to give this script a life, mean-ing to turn it somehow into a short film.
SYNOPSIS
The action takes place during a hot summer day in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. A nameless bank employee leaves home on his day off with the intention of buying a present for the birthday party of a close friend’s daughter. He leaves his wallet at home, taking only a single banknote in his pocket. On his way he stops at a café to buy a bottle of mineral water and thus breaks the banknote into smaller ones.
Later, he meets a beggar holding her little child and she asks him to go with her to a drugstore so that he can purchase medicine for the child, which costs a particular amount. He excuses himself that he does not have that amount with him, although we know that he has it, and gives the beggar only a few coins. He finally gets to a toy store to buy the present. He selects a teddy bear and when he goes to the cashier he finds out that the price of the toy is the same as the amount the beggar had asked him to give her for her child’s medicine. He runs away from the store with the teddy bear in his hand and his guilty conscience leads him to the place where he met the beggar. However, she is not there anymore.
INTENTION
My intention when writing the script was to show how the guilty conscience of a random man living in relative material comfort is awak-en after meeting a person whose material life is basically non-existent. This contrast is rep-resented throughout the film with the image of childhood. First, a bank employee in his bach-elor flat has a rather passive phone conversa-tion with his mother, so in a way this 30-year-old man is still a child. He is on his way to buy a birthday present for the daughter of a friend of his which serves as a kind of contrast – the man who is still a child is buying a present for the child of his friend, who must be an adult as he is having his own child. On his way to the toy store, however, the bank employee meets a beggar with a child, the extreme case of soci-ety outcasts, whose material comfort depends on the occasional kindness of strangers. The bank employee makes the decision not to fill in some temporary material comfort where it is lacking entirely but rather to add material com-fort where there is already some – he prefers to buy a present for his friend’s daughter rather than medicine for the beggar’s child. The price of that decision is his guilty conscience.
“One person’s fancy is another ’s necessity.”
NIkOLAY kOSTOV GEORGIEVBULGARIA
CHANGE OR THE PRICE OF CHILDHOODTel: +359 897 554 696E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Martin Lazarov was born in 1982 in Skopje, Macedonia. Even though he has always been orally gifted & verbally blessed, he went to medical school. Currently he is in his 3rd year of residency in internal medicine at the University Clinical Centre in Skopje.
His timeless wish has always been to make money by making up and telling stories, so since he didn’t become a lawyer or a priest, he started to write. He began to write columns for a newspaper, mostly about everyday issues.
Actually, he adapted his first column later in this script. Since then he has written several more scripts. Some of them got filmed, some are planned to be filmed and some are already filmed in his head.
SYNOPSIS
My Weekend Enemy is a story about a man, a woman and their domestic dust. The man identifies the dust as the obstacle which stands in between him and his favourite weekend activities - watching football and having good old weekend sex with the beloved. Having already identified his enemy, he continues to make sarcas-tic comments about it, making a scientific and sociological analysis of the dust and the inter-gender differences of its subjective perception. But in the end, after he realises that he has reached her bullshit-tolerance limit, he quits the smart ass talk and de-cides to do what he was asked in the first place, help his beloved with some of the domestic chores. He spices this up with romantic writing in the dust and by wash-ing the dishes naked. He makes a point that you should never let the small things stand between the love of two people, and that in life you must make compromises in order to achieve a balanced relationship.
INTENTION
There are two levels of reality in this story. The first one is in the man’s head, where he is the superior being, with his wise, sarcastic comments about the dust, making arguments in favor of his position - watching football and having weekend sex instead of helping with the house cleaning. The second one is the actual reality where the woman dominates and gets what she wants, where obviously he is neither having sex nor watching football – because of the woman constantly moving in front of the TV. This story, through a healthy dose of sarcasm, emphasises that you should never let the small things (symbolically presented by domestic dust, as something which is barely visible or invisible) to stand in between two people in love, and that in life you must always make compromises in order to achieve relation-ship equilibrium. She doesn’t get angry being aware of the man’s sarcastic potentials, and he eventually decides to do the things, which he may consider as petty and trivial, but are important to his loved one. The point is that you always have to make compromises, and you never compromise yourself by making compromises.
“You don’t compromise yourself by making compromises”
MARTIN LAZAROVMACEDONIA
MY WEEkEND ENEMYTel: +389 717 317 15E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Ulpu-Maria was born in 1984. She lived for most of her childhood in a small northern Finnish town, Ylivieska.
When she left there she studied for one year at Liminka Art School. Then she studied Journalism and History at Tampere University. After graduating and working alongside her studies as a journalist, museum guide and teacher, she had to admit that the magic of storytelling was too strong to be resisted.
She had always loved books but over the years had also fallen in love with films. This led her to study Film and Television Screenwriting at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences.
Now she is writing a feature film in order to graduate with an MA in Film Screenwriting from the British Sal-ford University. She has also worked as a co-writer on Näsilinna 1918, a drama-documentary about the Finnish civil war.
SYNOPSIS
Hanna, an introverted 14-year-old girl, lives in her boring home town in Northern Finland. To her classmates she is an outsider and to her protective father she is still a little girl. This makes it difficult for Hanna to face growing up, like the embarrassing fact that she has her first period.
The only person that Hanna can really trust is her imaginary friend Aurora, a wild and talkative girl who helps her to cope with her loneliness.
But then one day a new boy, Joonatan, comes to Hanna’s school. Hanna wants to know him better but does not dare to talk to him, even though she sees him alone in a movie theatre.Suddenly there is a new situation ahead of Hanna, and this time Aurora can’t help her. On the contrary, now Aurora prevents Hanna from doing things she wanted to do.
Hanna has to fight against her own fears and insecurities, and even against Aurora, before she finds the courage to go to Joonatan. But when she does that, she is finally able to face the reality without her imaginary friend.
INTENTION
For most of us growing up is a difficult task. We have never been lonelier, more insecure or more bored than back in those golden days somewhere between ten and twenty years of age. It’s a strange, confusing time when childhood is gone but nothing cool has replaced it yet.
This is why I wanted to write about the issues of growing up, without forgetting that the complexes we face always have their funny side.
The power of imagination can surely help us through difficult times, but at some point we have to return to reality and start living. In my story Hanna makes this important decision. Her imaginary friend Aurora represents her childhood and to move on Hanna must let her go and find a real friend.
In the middle of the struggles of growing up it is not easy to open up and make friends. Letting other people get close to you is either scary or makes you feel stupid. But it is worth it. Even one real connection can change our lives.
“Growing up is a strange business.”
ULPU - MARIA LEHTINEN FINLAND
IMAGINE ME AND YOUTel: +358 503 738 201E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Augustas Liiv was born in Vilnius in 1982. While growing up in Estonia he developed an interest for films and after completing his first short film Bird Karma he went to study filmmaking at the London Film School and graduated with an MA in Filmmaking in 2009.
As a writer-director so far he has made 4 short films. His last short film Bibendum was a co-produced between Estonia and UK. Bibendum has participated in several international short film festivals and has won an award as the Best Short Film in Fourth River Film Festival, Padova (Italy), in 2010.
After graduating from film school he started out as an intern in film distribution company Content Film in London analyzing feature scripts, and later worked for Sony Pictures Television where he gained a lot of experience in editing TV promos.
Now he is continuing to pursue his career as a writer-director.
SYNOPSIS
Sam is a busy surgeon who has lost con-fidence in his job, because he dreams that there is more to life than just work.
As a result, he gets caught up in the medical system, when a series of strange events start to take over that eventually lead him to wake up in a prison cell, not knowing what he is there for. His only way out is an old prisoner, Chameleon, who is about to get himself out and offers him an option to change identities.
INTENTION
My intention with this short social satire is to find out what it takes for a person to manipulate a bureaucratic society where government controlled organizations are nothing but a smiling power that works very slowly but can determine who you are or who you want to be.
“Behind every mask there is another mask.”
AUGUSTAS LIIVESTONIA
CHAMELEONTel: +372 250 588 81E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Martina Madejová was born in 1988 and lives in Bratislava, Slovakia. As a child she fell in love with writing stories, mainly influenced by Roald Dahl. Later she discovered the art of film and decided to study film and TV screenwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She is now in her 3rd year and after finishing a BA degree she plans to continue studying for an MA. During her short yet rich scriptwriting career she has written many screenplays of short films, including a 30-minute long student film Barefoot Waltz which was produced in summer 2010. In October 2010 she participated in the workshop “Puglia Experience 2010“, an international workshop of writing for cinema restricted to 16 professional scriptwriters. At the moment she is working on her first feature film screen-play called Timo.
SYNOPSIS
For Marco (35) this is an ordinary night at work. He got perfectly used to the daily routine – waiting in his car, listening to the radio, reading his favourite science-fiction book and from time to time driving around, checking the surroundings. He works as a night guard in a container terminal, a cheerless part of a huge industrial port.
Around midnight Marco finds a dead dog lying in the middle of the road. Convinced that the dog was killed he starts to in-vestigate and the mystery leads him to a different part of the port. In the middle of never-ending rows and columns of metal containers he meets another night guard – Joseph (53). However, the meeting is by no means ordinary. Joseph is standing at the high column of containers, just a few steps from attempting suicide.
Now it is up to Marco to persuade this man (who he hardly even knows) that the world is actually a nice place to live.
INTENTION
How to Bury a Dog is about those small, unexpected moments which give us an opportunity to change our lives and to see the world in a different way. It is a story about loneliness, but also about simple and sincere understanding between two human beings.
The main characters are Marco and Joseph, two men who are not able to cope with their problems. For different reasons they both feel lonely, unsuccessful and unloved. Even though Joseph is the one who wants to attempt suicide, they both probably need this night to move forward. The strength of this script is in the humanity of the situation and in a gentle sense of humour.
My intention was not only to make a story with brilliant dialogues and characters, but also a visually interesting piece. The dark of night and the landscape of a huge, impersonal port contrasts with the two lost human be-ings and their strong, pure emotions.
“To be honest, I sometimes feel like killing myself, too.”
MARTINA MADEJOVASLOVAkIA
HOW TO BURY A DOGTel: +421 904 683931E-mail: [email protected]
BIO
Anca Pandrea was born in 1983, in Romania. After majoring in Sociology (Faculty of Political Sciences) and Human Resources (Faculty of Communication and Public Relations), she pursued a Masters Course in Marketing and Consumer Insight and worked as a marketing specialist in a multi-national company.
At the age of 25, she decided to change gears, so she quit her day job and started a coffee shop and a small technical translations agency. She is flirting with writing, both in the form of narrative journalism and scriptwriting, with Bony as her first attempt.
SYNOPSIS
Bony is the story of a cat finding its way into the life of an old man who does not want or cannot miss anybody anymore.Vasile is a grumpy old man, hard to please. Ilie, his grandson, know this best, as he has a hard time visiting the frowning, ill-tempered grandpa. Vasile is not in the mood to let anybody close, he knows what happens when dear ones are no longer around. And so, those who do care and want to get close become collateral victims.
Bony is the neighbour’s cat, slowly getting closer to the old man and under his skin. It found a welcoming home and couldn’t care less that the grumpy old man doesn’t want it around.
INTENTION
Bony is a life story anyone could relate to. Losing someone dear is something anyone could understand. No matter what one’s resources to deal with this situation are, the empty space is always difficult to fill.With the help of the little cat, Bony, the story brings a delicate touch to a situation that could be even darker. Sometimes, the empty space can never be filled. But sometimes, you might just be that lucky and get another shot.
The story takes place during springtime, a season full of the significance of rebirth and new beginnings. The characters I envision are natural and unforced, and the story de-velops itself freely, just like life. I hope to be able to find actors that feel the story just like I did, and so facilitate the director’s job and minimize the need to teach the role.
The lesson is that, while the beautiful past should never be forgotten, nor should we try to replace it. The future should be invited in, with all its little smile-bringing things.
“Love is to be there .”
ANCA PANDREAROMANIA
BONYTel: +407 226 594 54E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Born in a small town near Venice in 1983, Fabrizio studied Communication Sciences in Bologna. During his Erasmus in Spain he developed his love for photography, making some reportages. Back in Italy he started making short films.
In 2008 he moved to Rome where he attended the seminar for directing at the Centro Sperimen-tale di Cinematografia; he worked as an assistant director in several short films and a feature movie and still collaborates with Blue Suede Shoots as a film festival promoter and production assistant.
In 2010 he was working with the Civil National Service in a daycare centre in the periphery of Rome. He made a short documentary about young people from the periphery. Also he has done some theatre laboratories and a laboratory of cinematographic improvisation in a high school.
SYNOPSIS
Cristiano is an angry 16-year-old boy who struggles against the figure of his father, who is a former big-time criminal and a present-time small crook. His father – known in his neigh-bourhood as the Colossus (er Colosso) – is constantly in and out of home making Cristiano’s mother suffer.
Cristiano - like his father - is a small drug dealer who is just trying to make a profitable deal with his school friends. He wishes to make this deal in order to pay his mother’s debt with the hair-dresser and get the hair dye that she asked him to buy for her.
One of his friends betrays him. Cristiano gets still the hair dye for his mum, but on his way back home he sees his father getting arrested.Soon after that, Cristiano catch his comrades deceiving him, but instead of reacting against them he finds an alternative spectacular and tragic way to unleash his rage and reunite with his father.
INTENTION
We would like to understand and describe the rage of a young boy who lives in the outskirts of a me-tropolis. Investigating a local problem, we found out we were telling a universal story about a father and a son, adolescence and violence.The peculiarity of our story is in the way the young boy finds how to get free of his built-up rage and to achieve his inner desires. In Italian and Euro-pean peripheries the problem of violence against immigrants its quite topical nowadays, but besides that, I think that the peripheral background helps us showing the rage at an almost primeval and pure level.With our story we would like to point out that aggressions against immigrants are not simply a matter of racism. Violence comes from multiple causes. It is predictable but surprises everytime it manifests itself. We would like to trace the dynamic that makes our character a casual young murder-er. We chose to use the realistic background as a means to go deep inside our character and under-stand his rage, looking “with his eyes”.We would like our character to be played by non-actors, except for the role of the father (Colossus) for whom we would like a famous actor who will allow us to build, with just a few shots, a strong, archetypal father figure.
“In his blind rage a light still shines.”
FABRIZIO PARISI ITALY
IN HIS EYESTel: +39 380 359 1645E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Mathieu was born in 1982 in France. During his studies in environment, he practiced painting and had a passion for music.
In 2003 he fulfilled his dream and pursued his artistic needs by joining an international school of cinema in Par-is, where he graduated as a director. After having worked on about forty short films in different positions, he turned to fiction and directed his first short films: Semblants, Cette Nuit Là..., Quelque Part and Alycia, which all obtained many selections in international films festivals.
In 2006, he created Imagina Prod which enabled him to produce Ella & Louis, a film by Laurence Moine with Marie-Christine Barrault and Francois Marthouret.
Last year, he collaborated with the American photographer Aaron Hobson with whom he shot Alfred (or The Story of a Wonder Fish) in New York.
SYNOPSIS
Following her break-up, a young woman is fighting the emptiness that has taken hold of her life.
Gradually, she suffers from anxiety, OCD and visions. She will have to tap into them to try to overcome this test ...
INTENTION
Through a separation, Him looks at the theme of emotional loneliness and suffering.
What prompted me to write this screenplay is neither the cause of the rupture, or how the young woman will successfully rebuild her life. What I’m interested in why this story is changing the feelings that live in my character: this time so disturbing that the absence of the other consumes us, thus underscoring the fragile link that connects love and hate. The words of the film tend to take their meaning in silence and the unspoken. Therefore, the development of the story is to purify the dia-logues and dilate time to capture an emo-tion, a truth. It is not meant as an illustration of a slice of life but a crucial transition after which nothing will ever be like before.
I especially want to make an atmospheric film, where the audience is not holding their breath through a tight plot, but is little by little won over by a sort of hypnosis induced by a stream of images that will leave a largely symbolic impression.
“Only the cowards deviate from combat.”
MATHIEU RIGOTFRANCE
HIMTel: +33 682 192 887E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Giovanni Rubino was born in 1991 in Italy. He watched every kind of movie and read every kind of story, studied a couple of cinema and scriptwriting books and, in 2009, wrote, with other people, the script for a short movie. It won, curiously enough, always the second prize in a couple of national festivals. The next year was a little bit busier. He wrote and directed another short in April, volunteered for a TV movie by Ricky Tognazzi in May, obtained his high school diploma in June, wrote a couple of un-produced scripts in the summer, and wrote, directed and produced a low budget short road movie (still in post-production) in August and September.
He is now attending the first year of a three-year degree course in DAMS (Disciplines of Arts, Music and Perform-ing Arts).
SYNOPSIS
In the middle of the Middle Age, a miser-able, poor farmer loses his indispensable cow. Luckily enough, a party of caricatural and characteristic medieval characters is willing to help him - or are they?
It all starts with an eccentric couple of monks who, in order to help the poor farmer, seek help in a nearby inn. Along the road they eventually find a particu-larly enthusiast merchant and, at the inn, the party grows visibly with a bunch of rude men, a not-so-attractive woman and a drunk guard. Of course, at this point, eve-ryone has forgotten the miserable poor farmer. And, when the last character (a broke but proud noblemen with his lazy en-tourage) joins the group, everyone wants to find the certainly-in-great-peril cow, even though no one actually remembers why.
INTENTION
The main purpose of this comedy is, of course, to make people laugh. In order to do so, the first scene will be a particularly serious and slow one, but as soon as the monks en-ter the story the film will gradually become more funny and absurd. In the ending, the absurdity of the situation, the characters and everything will reach a climax.
The serious scene will be, in fact, only the first one, and will be just enough to make the audience understand and identify with the story. The rest of the film will focus on the burlesque representation of the characters and their attempts to find the cow. Lastly, a few anachronistic elements and references to modern times, will cap it all.
“You have my sword, and my axe, and our prayers, and my horn , and my rolling pin .”
GIOVANNI RUBINOITALY
FINDING A COWTel: +39 333 952 7467E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Writer Tereza Semotamová studied scriptwriting and radio and TV dramaturgy at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno and also German language and literature at Masaryk University. Now she is writing her PhD.-thesis.
She translates from German language non-fiction and fiction books, writes radio plays, radio features and novels. She has had working experiences with Czech Radio and Deut-schlandradio Kultur. She now wants to focus more on scriptwriting.
SYNOPSIS
Simona and Honza are having a small relationship crisis. Honza doesn’t want to make love with Simona anymore and that’s making her crazy. Simona is influ-enced by the media and friends’ tips on how to deal with this kind of situation.
Then Simona gets drunk at a party and goes to the toilet where she finally makes love. We as an audience know it’s Honza but she doesn’t. Then Simona has to find out who this mysterious lover was.
INTENTION
This short film concerns the prejudice and media pressure we have to deal with when it comes to sex and intimacy in a relationship. But there are no ultimate solutions for everybody, there are no “shoulds”. Every relationship is unique and the solutions of their problems too.
Good Night, Then is a comedy about intimacy in a relationship, female erotic fantasies and everything which can go wrong when a woman builds up too much pressure for a delicate problem.
I want you to feel Simona’s anxiety, doubts and fight for her fatal love. I want you to have fears for this big moralist cheating on her boyfriend, I want you be with her when she looks for the perfect lover from the toilet. I want you to live, suffer and especially laugh with her all the time.“I think it was you saying we speak too
much and don’t kiss enough ...”
TEREZA SEMOTAMOVáCZECH REPUBLIC
GOOD NIGHT, THENTel: +49 157 865 270 56E-mail: [email protected]
picture by Martin Vrbka
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BIO
Marija Škrlec was born in 1982 in Vinkovci, Croatia. She graduated in philosophy, Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. Writing short stories, theatre plays and cultural journalism has always been her passion and a love for cinematography has evolved into scriptwriting.
SYNOPSIS
In a small village in beautiful natural sur-roundings with lots of birds, two 8-year-olds have a cruel hobby: shooting birds with a slingshot. They have heard a magnificent story about swallows and their beautiful tails but haven’t seen them yet. However, Ivan and Dinka are eager to find one, to admire it, observe it, have fun, have some more fun and then just shoot it and let it die.
But Dinka has to deal with the death of her grandmother. She doesn’t understand adult rituals at the graveyard, black mourning clothes, tears in her mother’s eyes. Nobody explained to her where her grandmother has gone, should she be sad or angry because she cannot visit her anymore? In her confusion and fear, Dinka tries to save a deadly wounded pigeon. But that attempt fails. The lack of clarification for her leads to blindness but the appearance of a swallow enlightens that her grandmother is on the way to heaven.
INTENTION
I was intrigued with the symbolic meanings of a swallow – a bird whose tail is deeply forked. Swallows represent the arrival of spring, happiness, freedom and they carry souls to heaven. Moreover, I haven’t seen any swallows in the area of my hometown since my childhood and the end of the war in Croatia.
It is hard to accept death as the natural process as it actually is. It is even harder to explain that mystery to a child. As a teacher I know that children have a strong need to make sense of the world around them.
Death can be seen as a good or bad thing, sad or joyful, relief or punishment. Maybe there is no death, only transformation and a step into a new perspective – the swallow’s broader view and the awareness that we are not limited only to this physical experience. To have a capacity to deal with that is a part of growing up.
“When you understand death , you can begin to live .”
MARIJA ŠkRLECCROATIA
THE SWALLOWS WILL RETURNTel: +385 981 600 300E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Esmeralda was born in Albania in 1983. She completed studies in elementary and secondary education at the Academy of Dance. She finished her studies at the Academy of Arts in Tirana, where she graduated as a Theatre Director. By this time she had staged several performances, later working as an actor and as assistant director for sev-eral short and feature films.
SYNOPSIS
Axel and Brisi are arguing because she suspects that he has a relationship with someone else. Later, at 3 in the morning, Axel is in a casino playing poker. On his table there is a dealer who distributes poker cards and two other men are playing with him.
Axel gets drunk and loses all his money. He gets into a quarrel with other guys who are playing and then he is thrown out by two body guards.
As Axel is walking down the street he notices a girl on the other side of the pavement who looks like Brisi. She is with another man. Axel follows them and at some point he screams like a madman. We get an image of their bed and Brisi is trying to wake him up. When he is finally awake he realizes it was just a dream. As he holds Brisi tight in his arms he never mentions his nightmare.
INTENTION
This is a fictional story coloured by realis-tic surrealism. The story brings an internal and external conflict to a man’s world. The human world is inclined to become addicted to something and this could be the cause for losing the most precious things. Sometime we have to lose someone in order to understand how important they are. The goal in this story is to shock the audience with an unexpected ending, which goes against the flow.
“Life is a short fraction .”
ESMERALDA STAFAALBANIA
FLICkER LIFETel: + 355 693 404 425E-mail: [email protected]
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BIO
Tomas Stark was born in 1982 in Stockholm, Sweden. He is currently studying video at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He has previously studied TV-production at MITV, art at Gerlesborgsskolan and film and literature at Stockholm University.
Tomas has directed three narrative short films as well as many video art works, and has worked in various positions in different film projects, as an editor for cor-porate films, television, etc. He has a deep interest in surrealism, psychology and dreamy stuff. He tries to make film that can combine a view on the inside and out-side worlds.
SYNOPSIS
Helena, a 35-year-old woman working in the cultural sphere is feeling bad. She has a stomach ache and has just broken up with her boyfriend. She thinks she might be pregnant. She is jealous of her friend Caro-line who is an artist and very socially competent.
Helena goes to the opening of Caroline’s art exhibition, but her sickness escalates. She starts vomiting and when she gets home she collapses.
When she wakes up she is in a hospital. She has had an operation where they have found a roll of film in her stomach. Everyone is puzzled by where it might come from and Helena has no recollec-tions of how it could have gotten there.
Caroline helps her develop the pictures. The photographs are mostly destroyed by stomach acid, but on some of them you can make out a mans face and an apartment.
While Helena is still in hospital the two of them start to investigate where the pictures might come from. They get some more clues from Helena’s dreams and they find the apartment, but it’s empty. They decide to exhibit the pictures at a gallery. During the opening of the show the man of the photos shows up. Caroline follows him back to the apartment and calls Helena. She hurries there but finds Caroline on the floor with an empty camera beside her.
INTENTION
The film is both a dreamy drama and a nightmarish thriller. It’s an attempt to make a movie where the story is told on several different levels.
At a realist level it might be the story of anguish following a miscarriage and jealousy of a socially fulfilled friend. While on a symbolic level it’s a mystery thriller following it’s own logic, where we get clues partly through dreams and partly through the destroyed photographs. It has a theme of doubleness and psychological division, as displayed for example in the contrast of Helena in the whiteness of the hospital room and Caroline in the darkness of the developing room. The film revolves around questions about the borders of identity, representation, reproduction and memory. It should leave the viewer both intrigued and a bit puzzled.
“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”
TOMAS STARkSWEDEN
SYNTHESISTel:: +46 736 8076E-mail: [email protected]
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TUTORS
Fabienne Aguado holds a BA in Film Studies (thesis about Jacques Tati) and a Master’s Degree in Sociology. Her early professional life was spent on film sets and on writing film reviews. Her experience includes managing a film production company, running evenings for film clubs, reading scripts and being a regular member of juries attributing development grants.
In 1998, she helped found the Centre for Cinematographic Scripts (CÉCI) and has been managing it for the past six years. The CÉCI holds its offices at the
Moulin d’Andé, a cultural associ-ation of international reputation located in Normandy (France) where artists have found support and inspiration over the last fifty years. It provides a permanent program for film screenwriting which supports innovative and personal projects and includes: accommodation, training, profes-sional meetings and colloquiums; it is open to individuals as well as groups (all professions of the film industry are welcome).
Orsolya Benkö was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1980. Af-ter graduating from the Faculty of Cinema Aesthetics and English Studies at the Eötvös Loránd Uni-versity of Sciences in Budapest, she was the author of a research work on Cinema and Audiovisual at the Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. During her studies in Cultural Mediation at Paris 3, she did a traineeship as a production and distribution assistant to Philip Bober for The Coproduction Of-fice in Paris. Returning to Hunga-ry, she contributed to the organi-zation of several film festivals
and joined MEDIA Desk Hungary. She started collaborating as a script consultant in 2007 with the production company Merkelfilm in Budapest.
From 2008 on she cooperated on more and more various projects as a script consultant with young filmmakers, such as Czech director and screenwriter Marek Dobes, and Hungarian director Csaba Bollók, among others. In 2010 she participated as a story editor in the Script&Pitch Work-shop organised by Torino Film-Lab.
FABIENNE [email protected]
ORSOLYA BENKÖ[email protected]
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TUTORS
Based in Paris, Marie Dubas graduated in literature and phi-losophy from La Sorbonne after having written a thesis about the relationship between picture and thought. She then started working as a short film producer for the Paris-based company Les Films du Requin, where she produced a dozen short films, all broadcasted on national and international TV channels, screened in prestigious festi-vals (Cannes, Sundance, Rotter-dam, Locarno…) and repeatedly awarded. In 2010, she founded
the Paris-based production company Petit Film with Jean des Forêts, where she develops feature length scripts in close collaboration with scriptwriters and writer-directors and keeps on producing up to 4 short films a year. She also works as a free-lance script-editor on French and International feature length scripts and as a tutor script-editor for the rewriting residency of NISI MASA’s European Short Pitch project.
MARIE [email protected]
RAZVAN [email protected]
Born in Romania in 1969, Razvan Radulescu studied Literature and Opera directing in Bucha-rest. 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, Boogie, the inter-nationally acclaimed The Death of Mr. Lazrescu (Cristi Puiu) and Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean).
He also worked as a script con-sultant 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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PARTNERS & CONTACT INFORMATION
CONTACT
99 rue du Faubourg Saint Denis75010 ParisTel.: +33 (0) 9 60 39 63 38Email: [email protected]: www.nisimasa.com
PresidentSimone FenoilDirectorMatthieu DarrasIn charge of European Short PitchMaximilien Van Aertryck
THIS BOOK OF PROJECTS ISA NISI MASA PUBLICATION
Editor-in-chief / LayoutMaximilien Van [email protected]
We wish to thank all scriptwriters and tutors for their kind contribution.
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
MEDIA+ Programme
WITH THE PARTNERSHIP OF
Moulin d'Andé-Céci
Communauté urbaine de Strasbourg
Ville de Strasbourg, Antenne MEDIA Strasbourg
EAVE
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NISI MASA # European Short Pitch # March 2011