JURY MEETING
spotlight In Brussels last month, for the 8th time in the history of the Script Contest a jury gathered to discuss the in total 23 national winners and choose from them 12 overall winning scripts. Not an easy feat with a subject like Taboo. Here are the impressions of the meeting by one of the jury members from Spain, Andrea. by Andrea Franco
DO YOU WANT US TO TALK ABOUT YOU? Script contest jury meeting: the conclusion
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ifteen young and fresh brains with their coffee filled bodies took seat around one table; in our hands, twenty three scripts from every corner of Europe sharing one thing in common: taboos; three days of nonstop discussions and one voting afternoon as exciting as an election day. Outside, the cold and the rain didn’t give truce. Brussels wasn’t a casual choice, Brussels is also the very centre of every decision concerning our community, the place where our destiny is put on the table to be debated. But also as capital of culture (the Independent Film Festival was running those same days, for our joy), it was symbolic at least. So what happened? It is hard to think about Taboo as a positive concept, so we frequently bumped into the crudest aspects of life, lurid and thorny facts and ideas –I would say perverted sometimes- which ranged from incest, war crimes and discrimination to Down syndrome sufferers, Oedipus complex and animal mistreat… But what should we expect? In any case, they were certainly inspiring words, capable of including countless and different stories in which universality was the key aspect to delight beyond the own frontiers of the scriptwriter, not only us, but
also the public, who needs to feel close to the story whether it comes from Switzerland or Slovenia. That’s why sometimes, even these fifteen brains couldn’t agree in anything else apart from a confusing plot: “Next!” On the other hand, just as a film reviews helps the spectator to find out another point of view, this meeting achieved, on occasion, to reveal those bright aspects that some of the most complex stories hid; different appreciations that maybe couldn’t be discovered by us separately. So, for us, it wasn’t only an encounter to decide who of you, scriptwriters, deserved such a big opportunity as a pitch session in the very house where artists like François Truffaut or Louis Malle wrote and shot their movies (the Moulin d’Andé-Céci, more symbolism…), but also a fruitful gathering which provoked more than one “Oh! In that case is brilliant!”
ferent, unbelievable, attractive, memorable, something NISI, something MASA… You have time enough to rack your brains before leaving your masterpiece in the hands of another implacable committee. Find your own Moulin d’Andé and go there to write a winning script. Let us dedicate you some words. for the list of winners, see:
http://www.nisimasa.com/?q=node/323
As any jury meeting, consensus and differences followed one another every five minutes, but maybe there was something we all missed in the end: a little more risk, bravery, development, more involvement from your selves, there are no taboos on writing about taboo, are there? We agreed in the fact that there were great ideas that sometimes were only named, introduced. “Ok, here’s the taboo, but what else?” That’s why now, from here, we encourage you to lose the control of your mind and think of something unusual, new, rare, dif-
Photos by Karoliina Paasonen
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