Eight screenwriters from around the world and their producers will spend a week exchanging creative ideas with seven internationally renowned writers, directors and producers serving as advisors.
Following a thorough preliminary selection from the many scripts submitted, the following eight writers will participate in the third éQuinoxe Screenwriters Workshop.
From Germany: Nikola Bock with Foreign Assignment, Markus Busch with The Sweet Scent and Baran Bo Odar with Plus 6 Hours; Balázs Lovas from Hungary with Rundown; Aliki Danezi Knutsen from Greece with Chinatown; Sin Senje from Norway with Days of Winter; Fin Edquist from Australia with The Sleeper; and Tim Worrall from New Zealand with Piki Whara.
For years, the commitment of high-profile advisors from Germany and abroad has made the éQuinoxe workshops possible. This year, Sandra Nettelbeck, director of Mostly Martha, and Susanne Schneider, writer of In einer Nacht wie dieser, will contribute their expertise from Germany. Claire Dobbin, whose credits include Rabbit-Proof Fence, Mallboy and Japanese Story, will travel from Australia, and Anthony McCarten, whose credits include The English Harem, Death of a Superhero and Show of Hands, from New Zealand. Participants from the United States are James V. Hart, writer of Hook, Contact and Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Laurie H. Hutzler, writer of Chicken Soup for the Soul and script advisor on Paul Haggis’s In the Valley of Elah; and David Magee, writer of Finding Neverland and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
During the workshop, participating writers’ scripts will be examined for their dramatic potential and international accessibility in individual discussions with the advisors, within a unique atmosphere of concentrated creativity. “What makes éQuinoxe special is that the advisors are filmmakers themselves and therefore understand the creative process from their own experience,” said Ellen Winn Wendl, chair of éQuinoxe Germany e.V. “Their differing cultural and cinematic backgrounds give the writers a wide variety of perspectives on their material.”
Alongside script work, the writers will receive advice on authors’ rights, and there will be screenings of several films developed with éQuinoxe support.
The Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), German Federal Film Board (FFA), Bavarian State Chancellery, Screen Australia and New Zealand Film Commission support the workshop as partners. Sponsors include The Wright Foundation, Berlin law firm Heller & Partner, press and public-relations agency Just Publicity, ARRI Film & TV, the Autorenstiftung of Verlag der Autoren, and fitness, beauty and health company Just Pure. We extend our sincere thanks for their support.
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éQuinoxe Germany e.V. was founded in Berlin in 2001 by filmmakers Ellen Winn-Wendl, Susan Schulte and Susanne Schneider to enable more thorough development of cinema screenplays and expand networks between filmmakers in Germany and abroad.
Recent examples of the successful work of the éQuinoxe Screenwriters Workshops include the films For My Father, working title Shabbat Shalom Maradona, directed by Dror Zahavi, and Helen, directed by Sandra Nettelbeck, both of which will be presented to German cinema audiences in 2009.
Three German screenwriters and their producers will participate in the third éQuinoxe Germany Screenwriters Workshop, now taking place in Upper Bavaria with a focus on Germany. International guests will receive information about the legal and financial framework for co-productions with Germany and an insight into filmmaking in the host country. “Focusing workshops on the film scene in the respective host country proved enormously productive at the first workshop in Germany in autumn 2004. It was educational for all participants,” said Ellen Winn Wendl, chair of éQuinoxe Germany e.V.
The next éQuinoxe Germany Screenwriters Workshop is planned for spring 2009 in Balestrand, Norway, in close cooperation with the Norwegian Film Commission.
Submission deadlines for the éQuinoxe Germany Screenwriters Workshops fall at the beginning of May and the beginning of November.
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