Completely redesigned to adapt to the global health emergency, the first module of the ScriptLab programme kicked off online on Thursday 16th April.
ScriptLab welcomes 20 teams of filmmakers of different ranges of experience, all working on their feature film projects at an early development stage. They are divided into groups of 4 projects and a story editor trainee, each of them mentored by one of TFL tutors: Philippe Barrière (France), Rasmus Horskjaer (Denmark), Franz Rodenkirchen (Germany), Maria Solrun (Iceland) and Françoise von Roy (Germany).
Due to the outreach of the COVID-19 disease, the first workshop of ScriptLab – initially scheduled to take place in Lviv, Ukraine, in March 2020 –, had to be reinvented. In close discussion with the TFL Pedagogical Team, it was therefore decided to transform the original setting into a digital workshop. To quote ScriptLab Head of Studies, Eva Svenstedt Ward: «ScriptLab is a programme that has changed shape over the years, yet always retained its core belief that an ongoing conversation among peers is an invaluable asset to dynamic and creative development in the early stages of writing a screenplay».
The adapted setting will ensure high-quality training and encourage close collaborations in the long run: the first session will indeed be spread between mid-April and mid-May to offer an ongoing creative context, through a combination of plenaries, group and individual sessions, as well as several special events to stimulate a networking context. The work will continue throughout the year, up until the TFL Meeting Event in November 2020.
TorinoFilmLab wishes to thank the 28 participants who demonstrated their trust towards the organization, accepting to join this adventure albeit in a different format. In these difficult times, it is more than ever fundamental to open conversations and encourage the creation of stories that can bring us closer together.