Friday 28 August was the last day of the 6th year of the MIDPOINT international script development programme that supports young talents and the development of screenplays. The three-month training programme was closed at the First Look − an all-day consultation platform.
After three months of hard work young European filmmakers are taking with them either developed or brand new versions of screenplays of their feature films or shorts − as well as great experience.
Apart from supporting creative work, MIDPOINT gave its participants a helping hand with entering the film industry. On the closing day of the workshop the programme invited three dozens of international experts. They watched the presentation of projects that took part in the script development workshop, which culminated with this official public pitching forum. In the second half of the First Look event the experts met with the workshop participants for individual consultations.
The FAMU building saw over 200 meetings concerning the total of 23 film projects. It was because MIDPOINT opened this unique consultation platform also to candidates outside of the main training programme. In collaboration with the Czech Film Center MIDPOINT invited three selected Czech professional projects to participate in First Look − producer Jan Macola, for instance, represented Petr Václav’s new project, Il Boemo.
The invitation to join the MIDPOINT event was accepted by a broad spectrum of filmmaking experts from across Europe, Israel, Russia and the United States. Young film talents were thus tutored by the representatives of institutions such as Sundance Institute (Gyula Gazdag), Connecting Cottbus (Rebekka Garrido), Berlinale Talents (Arne Kohlweyer), Baltic Event (Marge Liiske), HBO Europe (Tereza Polachová), Česká televize (Alena Müllerová), EAVE (Satu Elo), When East Meets West (Alessandro Gropplero), TorinoFilmLab (Matthieu Darras), The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Ifat Tubi) and a number of other film industry experts.
MIDPOINT awarded the workshop participants thanks to the programme’s partners − the When East Meets West coproduction market and the Trieste IFF. At First Look both the institutions were represented by Alessandro Gropplero, who awarded the Macedonian feature-film project Midnight Train a prize in the form of the accreditation and accommodation at the When East Meets West coproduction market. For screenwriter/director Ana Jakimska and producer Marija Dimitrova, who form a filmmaking duo, it opens the opportunity to meet future business partners among over 300 experts invited to this market.
Screenwriter/director Norika Sefa from Kosovo won a place at the Eastweek script development workshop for film schools held at the Trieste IFF where she will be able to develop her feature-length debut called I Am Looking for Venera.
The pitching forum was moderated by Gabriele Brunnenmeyer.
In cooperation with the Czech Film Center and the Creative Europe–MEDIA Desk CZ, the MIDPOINT script development centre has prepared another workshop for this year’s autumn, which is aimed at Czech professional projects. This workshop focusing on the analysis of feature- and animated-film screenplays is designed primarily for screenwriter-producer creative teams and it is called MIDPOINT Intensive. The tutors at this popular educational program are Martin Daniel and Milena Jelinek, who have worked on such films as The Little Man, Schmitke and the forthcoming project by Ondřej Provazník – a film adaptation of Jiří Hájíček’s novel Rybí krev (Fish Blood).
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More info about the project MIDPOINT: www.midpointcenter.euwww.famu.cz
MIDPOINT – Media Contact:
Kristýna Pleskotová, tel.: +420 731 842 532 email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
