KATHMANDU, Nov 14: A script and project development workshop for directors and producers started from Sunday at Hotel Greenwich Village, Sanepa Height. The four-day workshop is organized by Ekadeshma International Short Film Festival in support of Festival Del Film Locarno and Embassy of Switzerland.

In the workshop, titled as ‘Ekadeshma Film Lab’, 12 directors and producers working on nine projects will be mentored by Sophie Bourdon, Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten and Paolo Bertolin over the period of four days. In these four days, the participants will attend multiple workshops with the three aforementioned mentors and learn techniques to pitch their ideas on a large cinematic scale.  

Talking about her sessions, Sophie said the workshop will be an introduction to film labs in general and a way to give the writing minds a different perspective to think over. “There will be presentations and discussions over each of their stories so that they can make corrections all the while being faithful to their original idea. We will only let them know the strengths and weaknesses of their story and how the international scenes and scenarios should be thought over in the developing as well as pre-production stages and how they should be executed.” 

Sophie will also be orienting the participants about Open Doors Section in the Festival Del Film Locarno and how they can participate. Marietta, on the other hand, is focusing more on the writing part itself. “There is no wrong approach to any story. But one needs to be clear about how and what they want to execute. A writer (in this case director) should know what the story is and be able to know how to execute that. We will not be correcting them rather will give them that just another point of view to think over."

 The participants will be working in groups and brainstorming on their projects under the mentors. Also one-on-one discussion of each project would be held for further developments. Guests including Deepak Rauniyar, Asha Magarti, Ram Krishna Pokharel and the Open Doors Alumni will too be speaking in the workshop talking about their projects and dissecting them to help the participants understand fluently.

Ekadeshma had called for participants before the workshop started, among which nine projects were selected, informed the organizers. Participants include Nepali directors Sampada Malla, Pranay Limbu, Purnendu Jha, Arun Dev Joshi, Manoj Babu Pant, Keshav Pandey, Kesang Tseten, producers Saroj S Sapkota, Nawa Nidhi Dahal and Rabindra Singh Baniya, and two Bangladeshi directors Saiful Faidin and Mahde Hasan.

With the conclusion of the workshop, the fifth Ekadeshma International Short Film Festival will kick-off with the screening of 100 films from all over the world that deal with various social, political and cultural issues.