EKRAN FOR THE FIFTH TIME!
INTERNATIONAL FILM WORKSHOP AT THE ANDRZEJ WAJDA SCHOOL

The 5th edition of EKRAN – the International Programme for Film Professionals conducted by the Andrzej Wajda School has just started. Among the tutors there are: Andrzej Wajda, Wojciech Marczewski, Allan Starski, Volker Schloendorff.

EKRAN is a European training programme for film professionals, focusing on the creative pre-production process. Its main goal is to develop a project and produce two scenes from each script. There are 11 teams participating in the programme, each consisting of a director, a screenwriter, a producer and a DOP.

Among the Polish participants of this year's edition of EKRAN there are:
Michał Rogalski – a graduate of the Directing Department at the Film School in Lodz and of the feature film course at the Andrzej Wajda School, the winner of the Polish Edition of the Hartley-Merrill Screenwriting Contest 2008; his full-length feature film debut “Ostatnia akcja [The Last Action]” will be released this summer;
Marcin Wrona (together with writer Marek Stokowski) – a film and theatre director, a graduate of directing at the Faculty of Radio and TV at the Silesian University and of the feature film course at the Andrzej Wajda School; the winner of the Polish Edition of the Hartley-Merrill Screenwriting Contest 2007; his first full-length feature film entitled “Moja krew [My Flesh, My Blood]” is currently in the stage of postproduction;
Michał Otłowski – a director and scriptwriter, a graduate of the Film School in Lodz, among others, he has been granted scholarships at the Script Factory and the Nipkow Program in Berlin.

Also well-known producers will participate at this year's EKRAN: the German project 'Sonemaenner' by Ingo Haeb is supported by Peter Rommel (the producer of 'Halbe-Treppe') and 'The Summer Solstice' by Michał Rogalski is produced by Jan Dworak.

The first session of EKRAN 2009 (2-7 March) involves first a discussion on participants' projects as well as individual and group consultations. Furthermore, there will be meetings with a casting director and a set designer in order to prepare the cast and the set for the scenes from each script, which will be produced during subsequent sessions. Among the lecturers there will be: Andrzej Wajda, Wojciech Marczewski, Volker Schloendorff, Allan Starski, Witold Stok, Antoine Jaccoud. Next sessions – in April and May.
 
EKRAN is one the few programmes in Poland co-financed by the MEDIA programme. It is prepared in cooperation with the most important film institutions in Europe: the FOCAL Foundation from Switzerland, the Norwegian Film Development, the Nordrhein-Westfalen Filmstiftung and the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln, the Netherlands Film Institute, the International Film School Wales, the Polish Filmmakers Association and the Polish Film Institute.

The participants of the previous editions of the programme were, among others: Dariusz Gajewski ('Warszawa [Warsaw]'), Anna Jadowska  ('Teraz ja [It's Me Now]') Leszek Dawid ('Moje miejsce [My Place]') and a documentary filmmaker Grzegorz Pacek ('Jestem zły [I'm Bad]'), Agnieszka Smoczyńska ('Aria Diva'), Norah McGettigan ('Jak to jest być moją matką [Being My Mother]'). Out of 22 projects developed at EKRAN 2004 and EKRAN 2006 three of them have been produced so far: the film by Anna Jadowska 'Teraz ja', which won a debut director award at the Gdynia 2006 Polish Film Festival and a number of other awards, 'Out of ropes' by Fulvio Bernasconi, whose premiere took place at the IFF in Locarno 2007 – it was awarded the Best Actor Prize and ‘Ma salama Jamil’ by Omar Shargavi, produced by Zentropa – the winner of VPRO Tiger Award at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam 2008. Five other projects are in the midst of production process.

Until 2008 there have been 4 editions of the programme; 46 teams have participated – in total over 130 participants. At each edition there was around 70 actors, 20 DOPs, 3 production managers, 7 editors, sound engineers, set designers, casting directors, prop masters, make-up artists and researchers. Among the producers of the EKRAN projects there were Zentropa (Lars von Trier), 'Les Films du Fleuve' ( Jean Pierre i Luc Dardenne), Pandora Film Studio (Karl Baumgartner), RFF International (Stefan Kitanov) and Ventura Film (Andreas Pfaeffli, Elda Guinetti). A project developed at the first edition of the EKRAN, 'Bunker 5' by Harry Floetter won the Best German Script Award - 'Deutschen Drehbuchpreis' in 2005.

 

(March 2009)