"Film Summer" Film and Art Festival - time for scriptwriters

The 14th “Film Summer” aroused great interest in the viewers. For the first time it takes place in Warsaw. The most successful is Script Festival organised in the buildings of University of Warsaw Library.


“I am impressed with this event, which is really needed,” said Janusz Głowacki, outstanding writer, scriptwriter, and dramatist who devoted his speech to the dialogue in film scripts. Well-known director Yurek Bogajewicz told about writing for an actor, and Jerzy Wójcik about “how to write pictures”.

Master classes entitled “Screenwriter’s confession” by Andrzej Mularczyk evoked a lot of discussion. Summarizing he said: “I warned my former students and listeners that the role of a scriptwriter lies in the necessity to renounce own personality for the industry that is cinematography. It is often said that a good film won’t arise without a good script, and that is obvious. However, the question is why scripts are not treated as a ready artistic proposition, but as a freshly mined stone which has to undergo processing. It is endlessly processed, so that everybody would like it, and it isn’t noticed that it loses its peculiarity, shape, and becomes a copy’s copy. This can lead to the collapse of the profession of a scriptwriter.”

“I believe that future belongs to those scriptwriters who will be also directors of own works, and also even set designers,” said Mularczyk. “Today the role of the scriptwriter is underestimated–at least for one who wants to have his own style, his own relationship with the world and his own idea of describing it. Today on each stage of film production the scriptwriter is deprived of his individuality. I believe that the situation in which the script cost is merely 0.5% of the whole film budget is abnormal. I know that it will soon change, and I am waiting for it.”

Yesterday James Ragan gave an interesting lecture devoted to script doctoring. Maia Morgenstern, an outstanding Romanian actress, invited viewers gathered in Luna cinema for a retrospective of films by Lucian Pintilie.

“What I value most is intelligence, a woman’s soul, and a dignified and beautiful old age,” said the actress during a meeting with viewers.

On Saturday, films with the best scripts will be awarded during a special gala.

The “Film Summer” Film and Art Festival was co-financed by the Polish Film Institute.

 

Translated by Monika Miziniak | Edited by Patricia Koza

11.07.2008