Pitching Their Talent
A closer look at the 2010 Talent Project Market, and at the submissions that may turn three directors' dreams into a film reality.
The three filmmakers: Sharon Maymon, Laura Astorga and Asitha Ameresekere.
“Back home we say we women are housekeepers first, and sometimes we make films.“ Laura Astorga, filmmaker from Costa Rica, was given five minutes to make a pitch for PRINCESAS ROJAS at the Talent Project Market, a feature-length film about the vagaries of a revolutionary family’s fortunes under the shadow of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution. Astorga’s is one of three projects in the spotlight at this year’s Talent Project Market, a collaborative interface which provides up-and-coming filmmakers from the Berlinale Talent Campus the opportunity to meet seasoned producers and film financiers from the Berlinale Co-Production Market. With films in draft stage, Talents at the Project Market gain access to a formidable international platform; in particular, three scripts, screened from a record 267 submissions, receive a generous award from the VFF (German Collecting Society for Inhouse and Commissioned Production of Film and TV Programmes) and the chance to conduct a formal pitch for their project at the Talent Highlight Pitch.
MY SWEET EUTHANASIA, a pitched project from the Israeli writer-director team of Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit, is a dark comedy set in a Jerusalem retirement home, the residents of which invent a self-euthanasia device. “The film isn’t really about taking sides“, says Sharon, “but we would like to ask the question: Is life worth living at all costs?“
Nor is Sri Lankan-born English filmmaker Asitha Ameresekere interested in taking sides. His pitch for KIN, a feature-length sequel to a short film he made a few years ago, tells the story of a mother who sends videotaped messages to her son serving in Iraq, and continues to do so even after being informed of his death. “I wouldn’t say it’s about war“, Asitha argues, ‘It’s about loss, which is a very universal experience’. Likewise, while Astorga’s script is immensely personal – to the extent that it draws on archival material from her family’s past – she is aware of its broad historical appeal as a chronicle of 80s Central America. “This is a story about not just what happened in my family…it happened to the region”, she reminds us.
The three projects that were pitched on Monday afternoon come from different parts of the world and with varying production formats, budgets and schedules, but what they have in common are the compelling personal visions of their directors.
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