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Script Pitch 2020 - interfilm's International Competition for Short Scripts

Every film starts with a screenplay! For the eighth time the international Script Pitch is focusing on international authors and their powerful ideas. Nine finalists have been selected from a pool of over 360 applications from more than 70 countries to present their project in front of industry guests during the festival. After a four-day Script Lab, the finalists have to present their script to a jury in only five minutes!

Due to global pandemic and health regulations this year, we have to find digital solutions for the Script Pitch and the Lab in order to maintain the internationality of the competition and make the program open and accessible to authors from all over the world.

On 14th November 2020 the nine finalists will have 5 minutes to present their projects and convince the international jury, consisting of Milena Hemmer (Development Tobis Film) and writer and director Michael Fetter Nathansky (Contando Films) an writer and director Sven Taddicken of their idea. The screenplay competition will take place from 1pm to 3pm online via Zoom.

The event will be held in English and is aimed at industry guests. Please register via interforum@interfilm.de.

The Selected Finalists

We are happy to present this year's selected finalists of interfilm's Script Lab and Script Pitch:

Nikol Cibulya / Hungary / MARIA THERESIA GIVES BIRTH

Behnaz Eskandarnejad / Iran / THINGS YOU CAN’T SEE

Imran Hamdulay / South Africa / THE WAIT

Reuben Henry-Fellows & Adam Devine / Great Britain / POST IT

Eva Kamchevska / North Macedonia / BABY IN THE CLOSET

Viv Li / China / ACROSS THE WATERS

Marion Lomboy / Philippines / ROSARY

Mario Orias / Venezuela / PERMUTATION

Zhanna Ozirna / Ukraine / ANNA AND GRAVITY

This years shortlist was selected by Heinz Hermanns, Rebecca Heiler, Carlos Morelli, Celia Ruppert and Lina Mareike Zopfs.

MORE ABOUT THE FINALISTS HERE

The Selected Screenplays

Despite different cultures and narrative styles, all scripts of the eighth Script Pitch deal with inequalities, whether social or personal. The stories focus on women, socially disadvantaged and outsiders who fight for their rights each in their special and unique way. Discrimination and racism become more and more apparant, but sometimes borders and fears have been overcome.

In ACROSS THE WATERS pop music liberates a young woman from her violent environment in the Chinese province. Spencer also tries to start anew in ROSARY with his autistic brother. In THINGS YOU CAN'T SEE, little Sahar, instrumentalized by her parents for their stressful divorce and custody proceedings, can only process the world through her drawings. At the same time, in THE WAIT Mzo gets a sense of how deeply South African society is still divided by the shadows of apartheid. In MARIA THERESIA GIVES BIRTH the young queen must publicly give birth to her male heir to the throne and at the same time decide on war and peace. BABY IN THE CLOSET is about birth as well. A couple in Macedonia is confronted with their internalized norms when they learn that their baby is gay during birth. ANNA AND GRAVITY is a wild story about Anna, the bear, who, between lust and hunting instinct, almost eats her lover, Alex, the deer, during sex. Isaac has to be equally cautious in POST IT: How will the mysterious sticky notes in his AirBnB change his life? And in PERMUTATION, Marina also embarks on new paths in life by breaking out of her conservative world as a guerrilla fighter.

All scripts reflect how unequally privileges and rights are still distributed in this world and how absurd these extreme inequalities are. But hidden in the stories there is also always hope for change and a fairer world.

Program

From November 10th to 14th, 2020, the nine selected finalists will be able to work on their screenplay ideas together with experts in the four-day Script Lab and pitch training. The dramaturgical basics in Script Development and Script Consulting will be examined in a seminar with author and filmmaker Marijana Verhoef (SRB) and author Sandra Stöckmann (DE). Rhetorical finesse is trained in the pitching seminar with dramaturgist and script consultant Gabriele Brunnenmeyer (DE) before the pitch competition on Saturday. Actress and trainer Andrea Schwemmer (DE) coaches the participants in their public appearance, body awareness and explores breath techniques on stage.

10.11. / Script Consulting (non-public)

11.11. / Script Development & Coaching session Voice & Body Awareness (non-public)

12.11. / Script Development (non-public)

13.11. / Pitch Training (non-public)

14.11. / 1pm-3pm / Script Pitch (public)

Script Pitch participants will be given the opportunity to meet international filmmakers, writers and industry experts at exclusive networking events at the International Short Film Festival interfilm Berlin.