Athens, Greece: Christos V. Konstantakopoulos’ Faliro House Productions (The Founder, The Lobster), in collaboration with Sundance Institute, will host the second edition of the Faliro House | Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop in Costa Navarino, Greece July 3-9. The workshop is designed to support emerging filmmakers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and this year will include filmmakers from Cyprus.
The Workshop is a five-day writer’s intensive that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work on their feature film scripts in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier, Attenberg), who initiated the Workshop with Christos and serves as Co-Director, consulted with Sundance Institute and Faliro House during project selection.
Filmmaker Gyula Gazdag, longtime Artistic Director at the Institute’s renowned Directors Lab in the U.S., will serve as Artistic Director, and will lead group sessions, alongside one-on-one story meetings with each project, where Tsangari and Gazdag will be joined by Creative Advisors Lisa Cholodenko (Olive Kitteridge, The Kids Are Alright), Julie Delpy (Before Midnight, 2 Days In Paris), Jeff Nichols (Loving, Take Shelter), Ruben Östlund (Palme d’Or winner The Square, Force Majeure), Ira Sachs (Little Men, Love Is Strange), Zach Sklar (JFK), and Eva Stefani (Bathers, Acropolis). The model for the Workshop is based on the venerable Sundance Institute Screenwriters Labs in the U.S., designed to be an artistically rigorous process that offers lessons in craft, fresh perspectives on their work and a platform to fully realize their material.
Christos V. Konstantakopoulos said, “We are excited to be entering our second year of collaboration with Michelle Satter, Paul Federbush and Matthew Takata of the Sundance Institute and are grateful for their commitment to supporting filmmakers from the Mediterranean region. I wish to thank my co-instigator Athina Rachel Tsangari and everyone who has worked on the workshop, as well as our gracious hosts at Costa Navarino. Above all, we are deeply appreciative of the participating fellows and advisors, for their vision, trust, and commitment to their craft.”
Paul Federbush, International Director for Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program said, “This unique forum, created with Christos V. Konstantakopoulos and Athina Rachel Tsangari supports a diverse and visionary cohort of screenwriting fellows from the region. We are also extremely grateful to have a group of such accomplished filmmakers serve as Creative Advisors–we want to thank our Creative Advisors for generously bringing their breadth of experience and depth of insight to this year’s workshop.”
The Screenwriting Fellows for the 2017 Faliro House | Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop are:
WE KISS IN DARK NIGHTCLUBS AND I EXPLAIN (Greece) / Daphné Hérétakis
BIO: Daphné Hérétakis graduated from the University of Paris 8 Saint-Denis and the Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts. Her films combine documentary and fiction and have screened at festivals such as IFF Rottedam, Visions du réel, Hors Pistes Pompidou, Entrevues de Belfort.
LOGLINE: A day in the life of two young girls who wander the streets of Athens creating chaos.
PATTY (Greece) / Giorgos Georgopoulos
BIO: Giorgos Georgopoulos studied directing at the School of Cinematography and Television Likourgou Stavrakou, in Athens. He works as a film editor, a director and producer, mainly for films, documentaries & TV commercials. His award-winning first feature, Tungsten, played several international film festivals.
LOGLINE: Teenager Daphne trains for the Olympics in Judo, and is faced with the ultimate challenge–whether to do the right thing or win at all costs.
NO GOD NO MASTER (Greece) / Loukianos Moschonas
BIO: Loukianos Moshonas was born in 1985 in Athens. He attended Le Fresnoy in Lille. His short film Manodopera premiered at Locarno film festival, and New Directors/New Films. No God, No Master is his first feature film.
LOGLINE: A twisted, class-related melodrama of endless demolition and renovation work, between the affluent nephew of the building’s owner and a middle-aged Albanian hired hand, between reality and fantasy, in an Athens flat.
MARTIN EDEN (Italy) / Pietro Marcello and Maurizio Braucci
BIOS:
Born in Caserta, Italy in 1976, Pietro Marcello attended the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied painting. In 2007, his documentary Il passaggio della linea (Crossing the Line) was presented at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. In 2009, his first feature, La bocca del lupo (The Mouth of the Wolf), won Best Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 27th Turin Film Festival, the Caligari Preis at the Berlinale, the Signis Prize at BAFICI, and many others. In 2011, Il silenzio di Pelešjan (The Silence of Pelešjan), which was presented as a special event at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. In 2015 his film Bella e perduta (Lost and Beautiful) was presented at the Locarno Film Festival.
Maurizio Braucci, born in Naples, Italy, in 1966, is a novelist and a screenwriter. His first novel Il Mare Guasto has been translated into French. He co-wrote the screenplays of Gomorrah (2008) and Reality (2012) by Matteo Garrone, both winners of the Grand Prix at Cannes. He worked also with Abel Ferrara (Napoli Napoli Napoli, 2009; Pasolini, 2014), Leonardo di Costanzo (The Interval, 2012; The Intruder, 2016), Giuseppe Gagliardi (Tatanka, 2010), Francesco Munzi (Black Souls, 2014) and Pietro Marcello (Lost and Beautiful, 2015). He directed the short-film Room 52, which played in competition at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.
LOGLINE: Love, life and death, as a young sailor struggles with the boundaries of his own social classes through his ambition and passion for writing.
TOBACCO BARNS (Spain) / Rocio Mesa
BIO: Born in Granada (Spain), Rocio Mesa premiered Orensanz, her first feature film as a director, in 2013; it was nominated for Best Andalusian Documentary at the ASECAN Awards and played several international film festivals, including Seville European Film Festival, BAFICI and Alcances. Mesa is the director of L.A. OLA – Spanish Contemporary Cinema Showcase in USA, celebrating its 3rd edition in 2017. She is currently working on her next feature film project as a writer/director called Secaderos (Tobacco Barns).
LOGLINE: The landscape of a rural area is filled with large and mysterious tobacco barns. Three generations spend the summer uncovering the secrets of these structures and of their own lives.
NOWHERE (Portugal) / André Santos and Marco Leão
BIOS: Between 2008 and 2017, André and Marco have developed six short films that have been screened and awarded in several film festivals around the world. In 2017, their latest film, Pedro, was the first Portuguese short film to be selected for the Short Film competition at the Sundance Film Festival. They are currently writing their first feature film, Nowhere, and are in pre-production on a feature experimental documentary, set in the Aokigahara forest in Japan, both under the support of the Portuguese Cinema Institute.
LOGLINE: João, a physical education teacher, vanishes without warning to meet a man he met online. After spending a day together, he wakes up alone in the middle of nowhere. Unable to remember what happened, João stays at the place for one more night, waiting for the other man to return.
FATAMORGANA (Portugal) / Salomé Lamas
BIO: Salomé Lamas is a filmmaker and artist based in Lisbon. She studied cinema in Lisbon and Prague, received an MFA in Amsterdam and is a Ph.D candidate in Contemporary Art Studies in Coimbra. Her work has been screened both at art venues and film festivals such as Berlinale, Museum of Moving Images NY, MoMA, Tate Modern, Hong Kong Film Festival, Fid Marseille, Vision du reel, among others. She collaborates with the production company O Som e a Fúria and is represented by Miguel Nabinho Gallery – Lisboa 20.
LOGLINE: Hanan, a Muslim Molly Bloom, finds herself somehow at Beirut’s Hall of Fame, after its closing hours. She waits for her husband: she appears to have set a date with him, but he has not arrived. Where can he be? Fatamorgana is a political parody, where historical and contemporary personalities are given voice in an ironic way.
MY FRIEND GOLIATH (Cyprus) / Stavros Pamballis
BIO: Stavros Pamballis is a filmmaker and heavy metal nerd based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Though he mainly works as a screenwriter, his first feature as writer-director, The Siege on Liperti Street, is heading into production in early 2018, with support from Cyprus’ Ministry of Culture and the Greek Film Centre.
LOGLINE: In 1020 B.C., with the Israelite-Philistine war at a stalemate, a warrior and his shield-bearer embark on a mission that could make history. One of them will be remembered forever. This is the story of the other one.
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About Faliro House
Faliro House Productions S.A. is a film production company active in Greece and abroad. It was founded in 2008 by Christos V. Konstantakopoulos and has since been involved in more than 40 films, including Song To Song by Terrence Malick, The Founder by John Lee Hancock, Midnight Special by Jeff Nichols, Little Men by Ira Sachs, Chevalier by Athina Rachel Tsangari, The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, Park by Sofia Exarchou, Before Midnight by Richard Linklater, Stratos by Yannis Economides, Miss Violence by Alexandros Avranas and Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch. Upcoming projects include Love Me Not by Alexandros Avranas, The Tunnels by Paul Greengrass, Membrane by Yannis Veslemes, Stranger Here Myself written by Emma Doxiadi, Pity by Babis Makridis and Ballad For A Pierced Heart by Yannis Economides.
About Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Boyhood, Swiss Army Man, Manchester By the Sea, Brooklyn, Little Miss Sunshine, Life, Animated, Sonita, 20 Feet From Stardom, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Supporting this year’s Workshop: Hosting venue Costa Navarino | Oxbelly | with the support of the National Bank of Greece | Empowered by the Onassis Cultural Centre | with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Athens | Official Carrier Aegean Airlines | myTransfer.
