European Short Pitch

The call for short film projects has been launched! The new deadline for submissions is 10th October.

European Short Pitch (ESP) is an initiative aimed at promoting the European coproduction of short films. It combines a scriptwriting workshop in residency, an on-line session and a coproduction forum bringing together scriptwriters and industry professionals from all over Europe.

ESP 2012 is planned for the following dates/locations:

- Scriptwriting workshop in Luxembourg, 3rd to 8th January

- Online session 9th January to 15th February

- Pitching and coproduction forum in Maribor (Slovenia), 2nd to 4th March

ESP is for creative teams developing international short film projects. It is therefore open to writers, directors and producers.

The author(s) of the script must be between 18 and 35 years of age on the closing date of the call and resident in the European Union or one of the following countries: Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine.

Visit www.nisimasa.com for the official call and application form!

Download the NISI MASA guide to short film coproduction in Europe right here!

Hi Everybody !

I’m Mathieu, I was born in 1982 in France and I live in Paris.

During my studies in environment, I practices painting and I had a passion for music. In 2003 I say my dream and my artistic needs by joining an international school of cinema in Paris, where I graduated as a director.

I learns on the ground. After worked on about fourty short films at different positions, I turned to fiction and directed my first short films: Semblants, Cette Nuit Là…, Quelque Part and Alycia who all obtain many selections in the French and international films festivals.

In 2006, I became a producer in creating the collective Imagina Prod who  enable me  to produce Ella & Louis, the first short film by Laurence Moine with Marie-Christine Barrault (Stardust Memories by Woody Allen), Francois Marthouret (Sitcom by François Ozon) and some financial supports.

Six month ago I directed my last movie Alfred (or the story of a wonder fish) in New-York with two friends of mine who are photographers. It’s a road movie actualy in postproduction. Maybe we can talk about it tonight !

I’m very happy to meet all of you this afternoon

So… see you later !

^^

+++

Mat.

Hello everybody!

I’m Fabrizio, 27, I’m from Italy – from a little town near Venice but my parents are from Sicily. I studied in Bologna Communication Science, I’ve been one year in Murcia – Spain – where I did the Erasmus, and now I live in Rome.

When I was at the university I wanted to be a journalist.

I’ve changed my mind.

I started interesting in making cinema after a dinner in our apartment in Murcia when everybody started filming with rudimentary photocameras that made black and white silent short movies. We did some chaplinian short. For everyone was just a funny game that ended that night. For me it was cinema.

Cinema. It was a passion that I repressed for long years, since a little child I watched the old italian movies – “Il Sorpasso”, “Sacco e Vanzetti”… – and dreamed of stories in my head when I didn’t sleep at night…

But I never thought I could be so cool to hold a camera and make films. It seemeed a thing for people coolier than me.

I changed my mind.

I convinced my parents to give me a video camera for Christmas and started filming… almost everything… my crazy sicilian friends, my friends in Spain, myself… back in Bologna, students occupying the University, cops beating the students just in front of the Town City Hall… and so on…

I did an internship in an internet broadcast for young people of the Township of Bologna, shooting and editing little reports. I started shooting shorts films. And writing them (when I realize that was better to write before filming…).

I did a short a bit more professional than the others, with a crew, actors and someone who helped me organizing. It was called “Autumn”. It was not a story… it was just the beginning of a little longer story, because it all start with me wanting to shoot a short feature… It was quite difficult, so I turned to the idea of shooting a short. It doesn’t have a true end… It ends with a cream puff…

But that’s it.

“Autumn” was selected in several important italian festival, was broadcasted, the actress won the prize for best interpretation in a small festival in north Italy. An editing of this short allowed me to participate at the final phase of selection of the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia” of Rome (the italian oldest school of cinema, that of Antonioni, Bellocchio, and many others…). For a month I passed the mornings talking with people that made the history of italian cinema (the dop of Fellini, the costume designer of Visconti, the director of “Sacco e Vanzetti” and so on…) and the afternoon listening to three “young” italian directors that teached us the importance of some rules in the cinema… some rules that, they always ended saying, that were not so important at the end… just shoot!

I shooted. I didn’t pass the exam.

I started collaborating with a little production of shorts and doing the second assistant director in a feature movie. Then I started writing a story set in a roman periphery. I started searching around roman peripheries and ended in Tor Bella Monaca, where I found some people wich has a social association and the notice that it was starting a Civil National Service in a local religious structure that works with boys and girls coming from the troubled area (criminality, toxic dependencies and so on…). My story was about Cristiano, a young guy with anger in his eyes and several problems in his family.

I made the application for the Civil National Service there and I pass this exam. So I passed a year in that structure with nuns, children and psychologists.

I write the story, “In his eyes”, with the collaboration of Francesca Petrucci, one of the psychologist that work and live in that quarter.

The script participated at some script festival and won the prize “Rodolfo Sonego 2010” at Lago Film Fest (with the previous title “Breathe”).

Now I’m participating at this Nisi Masa Short Pitch with this script…

When I started writing this story I wanted to shoot it soon…

Almost two years have passed.

Now I still would like to film it. I would like to see Cristiano’s eyes on the screen. I would like other people can see his eyes on the screen.

When they asked him what he can do, the young Siddharta used to answer “I can fast, I can think, I can wait”.

Aside from fasting, I had to learn the other two things…

¡Hasta pronto!

Fabrizio

Hi, everybody,

my name’s Lucio, 28 years old, Sagittarium (or Ophiuncus, who knows), Italian.

I grew up as a country boy in the outskirts of Milan, then moved to the Big City when I was 19. The plan was to become a Psychologist, working in schools and helping teens.  It was beautiful. But.

I’ve always had the passion for movies, books and comics, and I always had a good feelings with words and images. I’ve been writing stories and drawing comics since I was 10. I thought that this passion would wither with age, instead grew bigger each day. As life became harder and the political situation in my country turned darker, telling stories became a need.

During the studies, I watched thousands of movies and read hundreds of novels and dozens of script and all the books about scriptwriting I could find. That was my training course.

After the bachelor, I tried the selection for the Civic School of Cinema, Tv and New Medias in Milan, and I made it to the Direction Course. During these three years, I wrote, produced and directed many documentaries and short movies, two-three of them even watchable.

About my writings. I work with genres. I grew up as an hardcore horror and sci-fi fan, I later developed a passion for western movies, and I soon discovered that these imaginariums, so rough, childish, brutal and many times naive, has potential to become powerful metaphors of human nature and a sharp photography of our times.

Working with genres it’s challenging, also. The keyword with genres is “entertain”. But the line between “entertain” and “wasted time” is very, very thin.

My professional aim is to improve my storytelling abilities, to the higher level I can reach without going psycho. I’ve just read your bios, and I’m sincerely happy to share this opportunity with you.

That’s all, by now. You’ll see the full movie in a few days : )

See you soon,

Lucio

I am Martina from Slovakia. I am 22, I was born and I still live in the capital city – Bratislava.

Since I was a child, I have always loved writing a making up stories (which were usually about friendly vampires, horrible, but funny creatures, corpses, ghosts etc.). Later I fell in love with films and the result is scriptwriting.

At the moment I am a student of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. This year I’m finishing with Bachelor of Arts (in film and TV scriptwriting), then I want to apply for the Master.

I am working on several student shorts, I am also writing my first feature witch is an adaptation of a story of Slovak writer.

In October I participated in a pitching and scriptwriting workshop Puglia Experience 2010.  Besides me there were 15 chosen scriptwriters from all around the world. We spend 3 weeks travelling in Italy, writing and practicing pitching. At the end we met 22 producers and tried to sell them our ideas for the feature film. It was amazing experience and I am sure European Short Pitch will be something similar. What’s more – I have seen some shorts that were produced in the frame of ESP and they were great!

I am very excited to meet you all. Unfortunately, I will not attend the first session in Moulin d’Andé because of my trip to China (which I have planned a long time in advance). I will work online with my tutor, I am really happy I have this possibility!

Anyway, I wish you good luck and enjoy it as much as possible. See you in March!

Martina

Hi everybody,

my name is Tereza. I was born in Czech Republic – in the east side of the country near the second biggest town in Czech Republic called BRNO.

I studied screenwriting at Theatre Academy. After 2 years of studying I thought that it is a little bit unpractical and decided to study German language and literature. Both studies I did finish. After that I decided to do my Phd. at Theatre Academy. I write about German radio plays in fifties and hope to finish it as soon as possible because science makes someone to curious.. I spent a year with my research in Berlin. That was a fabulous experience for me in every aspect..

After that I moved to my boyfriend to a very small German university town called GÖTTINGEN where I have been living for a year now. I worked in a mensa with a ladle in my hand giving soup to mathematic experts and then I moved to Medicine library where I work till now as librarian – both very big experiences for life..

Me and writing: I started writing when I was very young. I read many books as a child and was angry when the end was not like the way I wanted it. So I rewrited it for myself. After that I wrote some fairy tales and short stories. I did write also scripts for my “drama in education” group where I met  someone with whom I started to write and who became my first reader. Soon we hope to publish a novel which will rewrite the history of fiction literature, so people, watch out!

(Beside that I wrote some radio plays, some scripts, I translated some books etc – uninteresting CV stuff..)

My head is always full of weird formulations, sentences a phrases. In everyday fight how to survive in commercial world which was not done for us – dreamers – I did always found a way how to work for living and write for living.

To win the national competition of Nisimasa and the possibility to participate at European Short Pitch 2011 is a small but crucial (because coming in the right time) impulse for me that all the non-goal-directed writing has a sense. What else should have sense in this chaotic world?

Chaos reigns, said the fox.

I am looking forward to see you all,

Tereza.