Script Pitch
INTERFILM Festival
5/11/24 - 10/11/24
5/11/24 - 10/11/24
Script Pitch
At the heart of the interforum, the fringe program for professional visitors and film enthusiasts at interfilm Berlin lies the International Script Pitch. Since 2013, with the Script Pitch, interfilm has been inviting the authors of innovative short films to Berlin to work on their screenplays and pitch them in a competition in front of an international jury after an intensive week of workshops and coaching.
We are currently reading the submissions - there were over 250 this time! Therefore, we ask for a little patience until we communicate the results. The 2023 selection team consists of Marie Wilz, Tavo Ruiz and Rebecca Heiler.
This year we received an unbelievable variety of scripts once again, sent in from all over the world. After an intense period of reading, the selection committee, consisting of Rebecca Heiler, Tavo Ruiz and Marie Wilz, has chosen eight special screenplays to be presented on the big stage this year from the over 250 submitted scripts.
Our finalists:
Christina-Kallirroi Garbi (Griechenland) with KAMIKAZE
Alejandra Gómez de la Torre Guerrero (Peru/Spanien) with SUMMER SALE
Patricia Geula (Kenia/Portugal) with ZÊZERE
Zsuzsanna Kreif (Ungarn) with WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS
Frédérique de Montblanc (Belgien) with RUNWAY 01
Trishtan Perez (Philippinen) with UNREMARKABLE
Nitzan Rozen (Israel) with SUMMER 23
Kyrylo Zemlyanyi (Ukraine) with UNAVAILABLE
studied Acting at the Drama School of the Athens Conservatory and Law at the Athens Law School. Since 2012 she has been working as an actress and director in theatre. In 2020, she wrote and directed her first short film NOW THAT SPRING IS HERE (VIENNA SHORTS 2021, Audience Award at Feel the Reel International Film Festival). Her second short film POPPIES AND DUCKS premiered at Trieste Film Festival 2023, won the Grand Prize at Jeonju International Short Film Festival and continues its festival run receiving warm acceptance worldwide. KAMIKAZI will be her third short film. Her book of poetry called South Argentina is about to be published.
a Peruvian writer-director based in Barcelona, has mastered the art of collecting embarrassing stories since 1992. Her creative focus revolves around women, vulvas, and her grandmother. She recently finished a Master's in directing at ESCAC. Her debut animated short film, THE VULVALAXY has won two awards and received 10 festival selections.
a filmmaker navigating between Kenya and Portugal, centers her work on the intricate balance between the harsh and beautiful complexities of human existence and its ephemeral nature. Through the use of moving images and text, she delves into the realms of ecstatic truths, ancestral wounds, mental health, sexuality, and the transcendent power of music. Notably, her forthcoming feature film THE WATER CALLS TO YOU garnered recognition by winning the Nairobi Film Festival Writer’s Prize 2022 and was chosen to participate in the Durban Film Mart 2022. Patricia's script for the short film WHISPERS FROM MY MOTHER was selected for the Durban Talent 2021 program.
is a freelance animation filmmaker based in Budapest, graduated from MOME. Her first film, co-directed with Bori Zétényi was LIMBO-LIMBO TRAVEL a french-hungarian co-production, selected to over 100 festivals, including Sundance, Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand. She directed the animated comedy series Candide with Balázs Turai and Nándor Bera. She is currently developing a feature sci-fi animation, DINO DOOM ON DESERT PLANET with Balázs Turai.
Both film director and visual artist, Frédérique de Montblanc studied at Concordia University in Montreal (BFA) then at CalArts in Los Angeles (MFA). She is currently touring her feature length documentary DRAGON WOMEN, while developing ADRIA SUPERNOVA, a feature length comedy produced by Wrong Men (BE). In the past, she has produced a number of interdisciplinary projects with visual artists such as: Various Artists (BE), Madaleine Trigg (NZ), Janne Larsen (US) and Mihail Onea (RO). Frederique lives in Brussels.
Filipino screenwriter and director Trishtan Perez carves a niche in queer cinema. His 2021 short film I GET SO SAD SOMETIMES was selected in global film festivals, including Toronto’s Inside Out, and won Best Film at QCinema IFF. He was listed by CNN Philippines as one of the “Eight emerging Filipino directors to look out for”. He studied Film at the University of the Philippines Film Institute and trained as story editor at Full Circle Lab. He is currently the development lead of Screen Asia.
Nitzan graduated with honors from the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem, 2017. She directed four shorts that were screened around the world. Her debut feature film (in development) was selected to the international film lab LIM in 2022, and to the BerlinAir Residence of the Israeli Film Fund and Medienboard Brandenburg Berlin Film Fund. In 2023, it was selected to the Jerusalem Film Lab. Nitzan worked as a documentary directress for, the Israeli national channel for two years. She now works as a script consultant and teaches directing and editing at Minshar School of Art, Tel Aviv
is a director, born in Tokmak, Ukraine. His latest film, RE-RECORD had its national premiere at the Kyiv International Short Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. And was also presented at: Palm Springs ShortFest, FEST New Directors/New Films, etc. Kyrylo's new project UNAVAILABLE was presented as part of the Euro Connection at the Festival du court métrage de Cle mont-Ferrand and CoProduction Forum as part of the Brussels Short Film Festival.
The selected scripts:
In ZÊZERE, 14-year-old Beatriz questions her Portuguese-Kenyan origins during a melancholy bike-ride down to the river. In the animated film WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS... a glamorous former porn starlet reflects during an interview, looking back on a turbulent life in which she repeatedly found herself confronted with the societal gaze directed at her body. The interrogation of the relationship between women and their bodies is also central in SUMMER SALE, wherein 16-year-old Marta travels to Málaga with her mother to undergo cosmetic surgery on her vulva. In UNREMARKABLE, a teenage girl is confronted with her desire for attention, when she receives a dubious offer to participate in a photo shoot via Instagram. In SUMMER 23, the relationship between a dancer and her body is in flux, as endometriosis and her desire to have children get in the way of her dance career. RUNWAY 01 tells the absurdist tale of a woman working from home whose family life and job routine are determined by the background noise of a nearby airport. Then, a radical change of setting, as a young man in Chernivtsi attempts to call his mother in Southern Ukraine: UNAVAILABLE depicts the impotence and helplessness that families separated by war feel when they unable to reach one another. Finally, in KAMIKAZE Artemis, a cleaning woman, experiences another kind of loneliness, as she struggles with class differences, hoping that love is indeed capable of transcending all obstacles.
See what happend at our Script Pitch 2022
Curious about the participants of the past Script Pitch editions? At shorts+connect we present our alumni and their projects.
Program
In preparation for the Script Pitch competition all participants take part in a six-day Script Lab. Within the practical and stimulating workshop program there will be both a seminar on script development to sharpen the participants’ creative skills, which will take place online in October as well as on-site workshops during the festival week in November such as a pitch training to evaluate the live performance of each contestant by industry experts.
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.
In the competition eight finalists will have 5 minutes each to pitch their projects and convince the international jury of their idea.
To maximize the interlinking of creative and industry professionals in an open forum – and to celebrate their pitches - the competitors, the jury and the audience are invited for our interforum Drinks on the afternoon of the competition.
The entire competition will be held in English.
Award:
Best Script Pitch, sponsored by CineSud
2.000,- €
Further Training in Writers Rooms and in the development-program CineSud ShortLab worth 5000,- €
The winner will follow tailored coaching sessions throughout the year and will be guided through every step of production from scriptwriting to distribution. Specifically, the CineSud Short Lab consists of two writing sessions, two directing sessions, one editing session and also a distribution session at the end of the trajectory.
Contact:
General inquiries
interforum@interfilm.de
Rebecca Heiler
rebecca.h@interfilm.de
Artistic Director Script Pitch & Script Lab