The Albanian Film Center has announced a call for scripts for its AlbaSCRIPT:
Script development and coaching for Albanian film professionals” training programme, organised by Cineuropa.

The three-day course that will take place in Pogradec, between 1-3 August, will also have a six-month follow-up period, during which the scriptwriters and authors will re-write their scripts, coached by professional script editors. A maximum of 20 participants will be selected – ten feature-film projects and another ten short-film scripts.

The course’s topics include:

Pitching and promotional material: how best to market your project;

Developing a project, line-up, skills and talent;

When and how to collaborate with a co-writer, script consultant or story editor, when a producer is on board or not; and

The fundamental laws of dramaturgy.

Three remarkable European professionals will participate as tutors: the first of these is Isabelle Fauvel, the founder of Initiative Film, a company specialising in the development of audiovisual projects. She has contributed to different events, such as Thessaloniki’s Crossroads and Sofia’s Meeting, as a script doctor and development expert, and is a regular trainer at the Sorbonne. Fauvel was recently involved in the “Shoot the Book!” event at the Cannes Film Festival and is also a partner of the Torino Film Lab for the Adapt Film Lab, which she co-founded. Also involved is Giovanni Robbiano, a scriptwriter, director, film trainer and winner of the Solinas Prize (the most prestigious Italian prize for scriptwriters) for Figurine. He has directed various films: Figurine, 500! and Hermano, among others. Since the early 1990s he has worked as a film teacher and trainer at private and public institutions (the University of Bologna, Milano IULM, Genova and Mediterranean Film Institute). The final tutor is Izer Aliu, a filmmaker known for his internationally acclaimed shorts: To Guard a Mountain and The Good Life Over There. He has received the main awards at Palm Springs, the Norwegian Short Film Festival and the CinEast-Central and Eastern European Film Festival. Aliu’s debut feature film, Hunting Flies, will be released in 2016, while he is currently in post-production with his second feature, 12 Dares.

The project director is Andamion Murataj, an Albanian scriptwriter, director and producer. In 2010, he won the Silver Bear for Best Script (with Joshua Marston) for the movie The Forgiveness of Blood [+]. He is working with European partners on the development of the feature films Man of the House and Bride on the Bridge.

The course is open to Albanian professionals with a script in development. Up to ten feature-film and ten short-film projects will be selected to participate.