Save our Scripts

The Bureau Film Company is launching a new MEDIA-funded development programme called SOS: Save Our Scripts.

The SOS development programme is currently searching Europe for emerging producers and screenwriters.

Writers will develop their selected one page idea to a full length script, which will then receive feedback from financiers and key industry figures. Alongside this the producers will build their development skills, and new relationships with the participating writers, producers, and industry contacts.

The training will run from May until December and is made up of 3 intensive workshops and a number of one to one virtual script meetings. The workshops will take place in the UK, France and Belgium, and will be composed of a range of writing exercises, master-classes, and peer to peer development.

Writers must be able to display the strength of their writing ability, but cannot have had more than one feature film produced.

More information on the application process is on the web site - note a new web site for the programme will be launched soon.

The deadline for entries is the February 26, 2010.

If selected, the Initial Development fee is £250, and the Final Development fee is £250.

European Commisson Tackles Digitisation and Copyright

The European Commission had adopted a Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy, which aims to tackle the issue of legal challenges of mass-scale digitisation and dissemination of books, particularly in relation to the European library collections.

The Communication was jointly drawn up by Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Viviane Reding. Digital libraries such as Europeana will provide researchers and consumers across Europe with new ways to gain access to knowledge. For this, however, the EU will need to find a solution for orphan works, whose uncertain copyright status means they often cannot be digitised. Improving the distribution and availability of works for persons with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, is another cornerstone of the Communication.

On adoption, Commissioners McCreevy and Reding stressed that the debate over the Google Books Settlement in the United States once again has shown that Europe could not afford to be left behind on the digital frontier.

"We must boost Europe as a centre of creativity and innovation. The vast heritage in Europe's libraries cannot be left to languish but must be made accessible to our citizens", Commissioner McCreevy, responsible for the Internal Market, stated.

Commissioner Reding, in charge of Information Society and Media, said: "Important digitisation efforts have already started all around the globe. Europe should seize this opportunity to take the lead, and to ensure that books digitisation takes place on the basis of European copyright law, and in full respect of Europe's cultural diversity. Europe, with its rich cultural heritage, has most to offer and most to win from books digitisation. If we act swiftly, pro-competitive European solutions on books digitisation may well be sooner operational than the solutions presently envisaged under the Google Books Settlement in the United States."

The Communication addresses the actions that the Commission intends to launch: digital preservation and dissemination of scholarly and cultural material and of orphan works, as well as access to knowledge for persons with disabilities. The challenges identified by the Commission today stem from last year's public consultation on a Green Paper ( IP/08/1156 ), the Commission's High Level Group on Digital Libraries and the experiences gained with Europe's Digital Library Europeana (IP/09/1257).

The recent information hearings held by the Commission on the Google Books Settlement Agreement highlighted the anomalous situation that would arise were the

Settlement to be approved, namely that the vast number of European works in U.S. libraries that have been digitised by Google would only be available to consumers and researchers in the U.S. but not in Europe itself. Ensuring that Europeans are given access to their own cultural heritage, while European authors are fairly remunerated, is therefore of immediate concern and will require European responses, as recently stressed jointly by Commissioners Reding and McCreevy (MEMO/09/376)

Digital Preservation and Dissemination

The Commission will now engage in a stakeholder dialogue to find viable solutions for simple and cost-efficient rights clearance covering mass-scale digitisation and the online dissemination of library collections still protected by copyright. This concerns both out-of-print works and orphan works, i.e. works whose owner cannot be identified or located.

Orphan Works

The digitisation and dissemination of orphan works pose a particular cultural and economic challenge – the absence of a known rightholder means that users are unable to obtain the required authorisation, e.g. a book cannot be digitised. Orphan works represent a substantial part of the collections of Europe's cultural institutions (e.g., the British Library estimates that 40 percent of its copyrighted collections are orphan 1 ). The Commission will now examine this phenomenon more in detail via an impact assessment. The aim is for an EU-wide solution to facilitate the digitisation and dissemination of orphan works and the establishment of common 'due diligence' standards to recognise orphan status across the EU. First progress in this respect has already been made by the ARROW (Accessible Registries of Rights information and Orphan works) project which gathers national libraries, collective management organisations and publishers and is co-funded by the European Commission under the eContent plus programme (€ 2.5 million). This project (launched in November 2008 ) is aimed at identifying rights holders and clarifying the rights status of a work, including whether it is out of print or orphan: "The EU-funded ARROW project is a first step to link Europe's different rights registries and make it easier to identify rights holders," said Commissioners Reding and McCreevy today: " We call on national libraries, collective management organisations and publishers to build on this good start and work with the Commission to develop a pro-competitive and pan-European system of book registries that will allow for cross-border licensing under a transparent and affordable pricing system, while ensuring a fair remuneration of authors."

Access for Persons with Disabilities

Persons with disabilities experience obstacles in accessing information. In particular, visually impaired people experience a "book famine" – only 5% of European publications are available in accessible formats, a situation compounded by restrictions on cross-border distribution, even between countries sharing a language. A stakeholder forum on the needs of disabled persons, in particular visually impaired persons, will examine policy responses, including ways to encourage the unencumbered EU trade of works in accessible formats.

Irish eQuinoxe

Irish screenwriters Brian Ó Tiomáin and Shane Grealy Perez have been chosen as part of a group of nine European writers to attend the latest Equinoxe screenwriting workshop currently being held in Elmau, Bavaria in Germany.

The residential workshop sees experienced industry advisors work intensively with screenwriters on selected scripts. Advisors include James V Hart, writer of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and renowned script supervisor An gela Allen, who started her career on The Third Man and went on to work with countless luminaries and thirteen of John Huston's films.

Brian Ó Tiomáin is from Dublin and writes in Irish and English and has won prizes in the Oireachtas Irish language literary awards over the last five consecutive years. He has been selected for Equinoxe with Dublin Stories, a coming-of-age story about two inner city boys growing up on the periphery of a gang war.

Transplanted New Yorker Shane Perez resides in Galway and comes to Equinoxe with his screenplay Blood & Sand, about a soldier serving in Iraq who discovers he fathered a son during the first Gulf War 14 years earlier. Blood & Sand won Best Screenplay at the London Independent Film Festival in March 2009.

The Equinoxe Screenwriting Workshop runs twice a year and the next workshop will be taking place in the West of Ireland in April 2010. The deadline for applications for the workshop is 3 November 2009.

MEDIA New Talent Info

Filmbase, in association with MEDIA Desk Ireland and FÁS Screen Training Ireland, is hosting an information session for audiovisual professionals. The session is aimed at emerging talent within the film and digital media sectors (particularly emerging producers, directors, writers and writer/directors).

The session intends to give those unfamiliar with the full range of supports for Irish audiovisual professionals available under the EU MEDIA Funding Programme a better understanding of relevant opportunities. This will be a strong focus on the variety of Training opportunities provided under the MEDIA Programme as these have been particularly successful for Irish talent in the past.

The session will take place at Filmbase, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin on Wednesday 14th October from 1.30 - 3.00 pm.

Places are free but must be reserved in advance. To register your interest in attending please RSVP to info1@mediadesk.ie.

10 Arguments for the Arts

Those of us looking to construct an argument about the relevancy of the Arts to society would be well advised to notice that the Council of Europe recognises this vital connection, and funds an organisation, Culture Watch Europe (CWE), whose remit is "the presentation and exchange of information and good practice in the broad sectors of culture and cultural and natural heritage. Based on the Organisation's fundamental principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, CWE offers an innovative and evidence-based understanding of cultural and heritage developments in Europe."

It offers a document called "Culture: A Tool For Reversing Recession: Ten Arguments For Use By Ministers".

This paper sets out ten arguments that Ministers of Culture can use in discussions with their colleagues – especially Finance and Prime ministers – when annual budgets come under scrutiny. It suggests reasons why cultural investment can be an important tool in combating the effects of recession and – perhaps more importantly – leading the way back to prosperity. The arguments also help Ministers of Culture make common cause with those responsible for employment generation, social cohesion, security and education. Every country will have its own examples and statistics to back up the arguments. Similarly each can develop new proposals based on them for restructuring and regeneration. The arguments are as useful at the intergovernmental, regional and local levels as they are at the national. Indeed they can be part of any municipality’saction plan.

I think it's wonderful for the EU to offer us this coherent strategy for combating budget cuts in relation to culture. If European ministers can use these arguments, so can you!

Europeans Still Like Cinema

Last week the European Audiovisual Observatory released a report that summarises cinema attendance across Europe for the first half of 2009.

With an estimated 348 million tickets sold between January and June 2009, cinema admissions in the big 5 European Union markets increased by 3.8% year-on-year. Cumulative growth was primarily driven by an impressive 14.5% rise in the UK, representing the strongest result in seven years, as well as increasing cinema attendance in Germany (+6.5%) and in Spain (+7.9%). Among the most successful films during the first six months of 2009 was Angels and Demons making it into the top 10 in all five major markets and topping the charts in Germany, Italy and Spain. Other films appearing in multiple top 10s included Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well as Gran Torino and Fast & Furious. The 4.4% year-on-year decline France is due to the exceptional success of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis in the first half of 2008, though strong results in July and August may reverse the full year trend.

The European Audiovisual Observatory estimates that the cumulative results for France, the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain account for about 76% of total admissions in the European Union. The development of these five markets generally serves as good indicator for the overall European trend. The growth in the big 5 markets as well as strong half-year results in many other European countries such as Sweden (+27%), Poland (+16%), the Netherlands (+12.3%), Norway (+8.1%), Denmark (+7%), the Czech Republic (+6.8%), Hungary (+6.2%), Ireland (+1.8%) or Portugal (+1.3%), suggest that despite the difficult economic environment cinema admissions across Europe increased in the first six months of 2009.

EU People's Choice

Voting is open in the People's Choice Award, which allows film fans across Europe to elect their favourite film.

Every year, when the European Film Academy invites its members, Europe's greatest film stars, directors, producers, cinematographers, screenwriters, designers, but also industry representatives and the international media, to attend the European Film Awards, the People's Choice Award sheds a spotlight on the people films are made for: the audience.

Those who vote could win a chance to attend the 22nd European Film Awards on Saturday the 12th of December in Germany’s Ruhr Metropolis, the European Capital of Culture 2010.

The nominees are:

THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX
Director: Uli Edel
Screenwriter & Producer: Bernd Eichinger

BROKEN EMBRACES
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

COCO BEFORE CHANEL
Director: Anne Fontaine
Screenwriters: Anne & Camille Fontaine

THE DUCHESS
Director: Saul Dibb
Screenwriters: Jeffrey Hatcher, Anders Thomas Jensen & Saul Dibb

FLY ME TO THE MOON
Director: Ben Stassen
Screenwriter: Domonic Paris

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Screenwriters: Rasmus Heisterberg & Nikolaj Arcel

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Screenwriter: John Ajvide Lindqvist

MID-AUGUST LUNCH
Director: Gianni di Gregorio
Screenwriter: Gianni di Gregorio

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Director: Danny Boyle
Screenwriter: Simon Beaufoy

TRANSPORTER 3
Director: Olivier Megaton
Screenwriters: Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen

Sources 2 Workshops

SOURCES 2 is an advanced training programme for European film professionals working in the field of script and story development, and offers workshops all over Europe for international participants, who are guided by international advisers.

The following two workshops are currently available:

SOURCES 2 Script Development Workshop

A workshop for screenwriters and teams of writers, producers or directors with feature film projects and creative documentaries in development.

A seven-day session, with coached development period, and follow-up session.

The application deadline is the 1st July 2009 for the workshop in Graz/Austria, 10th – 18th November 2009, with the support of Cinestyria, the Province of Styria/Cultural Department, the Austrian Film Institute and in cooperation with uniT Graz.

Requested: Feature film projects and creative documentaries

Application fee: €100. Participation fee: €1,800 per project/writer and €900 per second/third person committed to the project. Includes the seven-day session (accommodation and meals included, travel costs excluded), coaching during the re-writing period, and the second session of one day per project (accommodation, meals, travel costs excluded).


SOURCES 2 Projects & Process

Training Mentors for European Scriptwriters

A Workshop for professionals working in the field of script and story development (scriptwriters, editors, tutors, developers, commissioning editors, producers).

This is a three-day session, with coached development period, and round-off by e-mail.

The application deadline is the 1st August 2009 for the workshop in Prague/Czech Republic, 14th – 18th October 2009, with the support of the Ministry of Culture/Department of Media and Audiovision.

Participation fee: €750. Includes the three-day session (accommodation and meals included, travel costs excluded), three-month coaching period, round-off by e-mail.

Further details about the application process is available from the web site

Film Story Competition

The Brussels Film Festival, in association with the Flemish Writers Guild, is running a Film Story Competition to promote excellent film story ideas, and to assist writers in the development of their scripts.

Two winners will be chosen by a jury of professionals, and will be invited to the Brussels Film Festival's Awards Ceremony - held on July 5, 2009 - to collect their prize: a place on a Script Factory course of their choice in London.

Participants in the competition should send their movie story (3 pages maximum, written in English, French or Dutch) by email to: competition@fffb.be

The deadline for entries is June 5th, 2009.

Europe Theatre Prize 09

The Stage reports that Polish director and teacher Krystian Lupa was awarded the 13th Europe Theatre Prize -- worth €60,000 -- at a ceremony this weekend in Wroclaw, Poland.

The Europe Theatre Prize was created in 1986 by the European Commission, and has been recognised by the European Parliament and Council as a "European cultural interest organisation".

The awards ceremony occurred at the end of a week of shows, previews, work in progress, meetings, and symposia, which featured performances of Lupa's work, as well as work by the five winners of the €30,000 Europe Prize for New Theatrical Realities, which is designed to mark innovation in theatre from a younger generation, and went to the following: Guy Cassiers (Belgium), Pippo Delbono (Italy), Rodrigo Garcia (Spain/Argentine), Arpad Schilling (Hungary), François Tanguy and the Théâtre du Radeau (France).

Lupa is known both for his long career as a director and for the large number of bright young Polish directors who have emerged from his tutelage at the theatre academy in Krakow. Among his productions seen in Wroclaw was an eight-hour dramatisation of the exotic lifestyle of Andy Warhol and his circle, Factory 2. It is a mark of Lupa's stature that several hundred of the world's critics and leading theatre industry figures sat through this demanding performance to its very end, many of them joining in a standing ovation.

There was a more divided reaction to the works shown by the winners of the New Realities prize. Argentinian-born Rodrigo Garcia, who works in Spain with a company whose title translates as The Butcher's Shop, aroused much controversy with productions involving maltreatment of a variety of animals.

Italy's Pippo del Bono offered two contrasting productions covering either end of a career lasting more than 20 years, but also staged a short piece featuring the actress Marisa Berenson which he had prepared the night before.

Guy Cassiers, from Belgium, was represented by a harrowing solo performance, Sunken Red, played in perfect English by the actor Dirk Roofthooft.

From France, François Tanguy brought his Théâtre du Radeau with an abstract collage of prose, verse, music and movement.

The fifth winner, Hungarian director Arpad Schilling, who broke up his world renowned Kretakor company last year, spoke of his new work bringing theatre to disadvantaged communities in France and his native Hungary.

New Joint Initiative

Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board has reported on a Danish-Irish-Scottish initiative to develop eight new films.

Scotland's Sigma Films, Denmark's Zentropa and Ireland's Subotica Entertainment are forming a partnership under the banner of Advance Party II to develop eight new films from some of the most exciting filmmaking talent emerging from the UK and Ireland.

The writer/directors taking part in Advance Party II which is backed by Scottish Screen, the Irish Film Board, Zentropa and the UK Film Council's Development Fund are Paul Wright, Enda Hughes (Northern Ireland), Rory Bresnihan, Ciaran Foy (Ireland) Steph Green (Ireland/ U.S.A) Adrian McDowall (Scotland), Esther May Campbell and Daniel Mulloy (England).

Tristan Orpen Lynch, Producer, Subotica Entertanment said 'There is a highly creative, dynamic and diverse mix of talent on board this ground breaking project and it is the only first time director scheme of its kind in the world'.

Gillian Berrie of Sigma Films says, "The combination of these talented filmmakers and the intriguing and challenging constraints of the Advance Party project is creating an environment for eight memorable and ground-breaking debut features."

Advance Party II (APII) builds on the success of Andrea Arnold's RED ROAD, and Morag McKinnon's forthcoming DONKEYS, which were produced under the innovative conditions of Advance Party I. Taking a lead from the competitive, creative community of the Dogme movement (which spawned films such as FESTEN and THE IDIOTS), Advance Party I imposed new rules on its filmmakers. These primarily concerned the use of a pool of pre-determined characters, which had to be played by the same actors in all the films.

A new set of rules are central to the structure of APII, and will be given to the filmmakers in a workshop at the Berlin Film Festival on 7 February. The rules will reflect the creative challenges of Advance Party I and Dogme, but will also incorporate the filmmakers' tastes and wishes, tailored to both their strengths and their weaknesses.

Zentropa's Peter Aalbaek says, "We are very interested in the establishing collaboration between Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia because we feel there is a mental solidarity between these countries. Advance Party is a great step in that direction"

The filmmakers will take part in a week-long series of workshops during the festival focussing on creating the 'Advance Party community' and the business elements of filmmaking. They will be working with visiting directors, writers and actors as well as lawyers, sales agents, distributors and development gurus, with the aim of arming the eight filmmakers with as much information and inspiration as possible.

The selected filmmakers have a wealth of experience in making distinctive and successful short films and between them have won more than 100 awards, and two are nominated for Oscar® and BAFTA awards.

Venice is 65

The 65th Venice Film Festival kicks off today and runs until the 6th of September.

Variety's article offers an overview of the films that will be screened at the festival this year, and the BBC will post daily reports from Venice with news and information about the films and their creators.

EU Grants

IFTN reports that the European Parliament is seeking non-commercial television programme proposals for its 2009 grants scheme that will see €5 million awarded to communication and information across the 27 member states.

The grant will co-finance television projects which focus on the role played by the European Parliament, the values it upholds, the decisions it takes and how these affect the daily lives of millions of Europeans. The European Parliament seeks innovative and creative projects which approach this subject in a new and interesting way.

In addition to television programmes, grants will be awarded under four more headings: events, websites, proposals from education establishments and radio. The scheme, now in its third year, will see between €5,000 and €300,000 awarded to each project.

The closing date for applications is 1st October 2008.

Euro Filmmaking

EuroNews has an interesting interview with Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu, whose film 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days won last year's Palme d'Or. Cristian discusses European filmmaking and what it has to offer compared to mainstream blockbuster movies.

Pygmalion Plus

Pygmalion Plus is a MEDIA-funded European programme for professional writers to develop a project, be it feature film, animated or live-action TV series, or interactive/cross platform.

Applicants for Pygmalion Plus may be screenwriters and also people accomplished in an allied field, including theatre or fiction, wishing to write for the screen for the first time. The programme will also consider applications from directors or producers developing projects in close collaboration with a writer, and from animators with animation or interactive projects.

There are four places for team support participants who are usually producers, script editors or readers. They are attached to a specific group (ie feature film, animated TV series, interactive media etc) and work with the writers, and the mentor offering support and assistance. This is an excellent opportunity to gain experience of the development process and a greater understanding of the writer's task.

Participation in Pygmalion Plus also results in building networks of potential colleagues and collaborators from amongst fellow participants and programme mentors. There are also opportunities to participate in the Cinekid Festival and BUFF film festival pitching forum.

Dates and Sessions:

• 1st Lab: 8-day residential Lab: August 31- September 7, 2008
• 2nd Lab 3-day residential session: late November 2008 (Date TBC)

There will be Internet support from the programme mentors after both sessions up until December 2008

The deadline for receipt of applications is 2nd June, 2008. Application details and forms can be dowloaded from the web site.

Participants pay their own travel costs but all board and lodging is provided. The working language for the programme is English. The programme is subsidised but there is a fee of €750 (+ VAT) per participant.

Look East Not West

The Irish Independent reports on a recent interview with Simon Perry, the chief executive officer of the Irish Film Board, in Film Ireland. Perry noted what he felt would benefit the Irish film industry:

"I hope Ireland can gain confidence -- confidence is the key word -- by feeling that if our European neighbours can make films that have a clear identity and have something new to say, and break new ground, then Ireland can join them." He said the dependence on the UK for distribution is also a problem.

"There is this wicked set-up in Ireland, the colonial relationship with the UK, which is abysmal, it is appalling and has kept Irish distribution poor for many years.

"One of the nicest things that happened recently was the emergence of Element, an Irish-owned and managed distribution company."

Mr Perry said we could follow the lead of Austria and make films in our own right.

"Austria is a good example for the Irish. It has the same sense of living in the shadow of a bigger country and having a strange colonial relationship in terms of distributors."

He said producers have a responsibility to steer Irish cinema the right way.

"I felt some producers were leading Irish cinema in the wrong direction, in other words trying to go head to head with Hollywood.

"Producers need to make as close a connection as possible to partners in Europe."

Perry said that the international success of the low-budget film Once -- which won the Oscar for Best Original Songwith Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's song Falling Slowly at the Oscars last week -- was a sign we are coming into our own. He also praised such films as Adam and Paul and Garage, by director Lenny Abrahamson.

Call for European TV

According to The Hollywood Reporter the German foreign minister and vice-chancellor Franz-Walter Steinmeier, called for a new pan-European television agenda at the recent European Television Dialogue in Berlin.

"It can no longer be taken for granted European lifestyle or European political views will be considered desirable and worthy of imitation" in this new global world, Steinmeier said, making it all the more important for European media makers to talk to one another.

"Sometimes I think we know more about the territory on the moon than about (fellow European) media territories," he said, adding that Western countries were particularly ignorant about developments in Eastern Europe.

But Steinmeier said Western Europe had a role to play in ensuring that the traditions of media independence and press freedom were extended to the countries of the former Eastern Bloc.

Steinmeier's colleague, former German finance minister Wolfgang Clement, went one step further. In a keynote address titled "Vision of a European Television," Clement called on European public broadcasters to join together to create a truly European channel "available in all households in all countries across the (European) Union."

Clement also struck a protectionist note, demanding new laws to cap non-EU ownership of media companies at 25%. Clement said the move was necessary to maintain a true European media culture.