European Short Pitch 2011 competition gathered again about twenty young screenwriters to a workshop in France, where they had a change to develop their own scripts with professionals and create contacts to filmmakers in other European countries.
Story: Ulpu-Maria Lehtinen



I had a change to join these workshops this year and I would like to courage all the other young writers to participate in the competition too, because the workshop and pitching are truly unique experiences, which help to develop professional writing skills and also give a change to find film loving friends from other European countries.

The aim of the annual competition of the Nisi Masa -organisation is to courage young screenwriters in their work.  The participants are chosen by a short film script competition where all European writers under 28 years are allowed to participate.

This year the Short Pitch workshop had two parts: First was a one week long screenwriting workshop near Paris at Moulin d’Ande in January, where feedback was given in small groups and everyone got good advice for developing their scripts. In my opinion this workshop did not only help to improve own script but also increased the understanding of the short film as a unique form of storytelling.

After this everyone had one month time to develop the script and then in the beginning of March all the young screenwriters gathered in Strasbourg to pitch their projects to producers from several European countries.
This was a valuable lesson of the marketing and production values of the short films, and also about the new trends in business:  Especially short comedies are very valued right now in the European short film scene.

The writer is one of our MA in Screenwriting students
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