Indo-German script workshop, classics at Mumbai film fest

Mumbai, Sep 18 (IANS) The three-day Indo-German script development workshop will be one of the highlights of the 13th edition of Mumbai Film Festival. The fest will also bring a bouquet of award winning films from the Cannes Critics Week and the National Film Awards spanning the last 50 years.

The main festival, which is a Reliance Entertainment initiative, will start Oct 13, but the workshop will begin Oct 11 and it is for screen-writers, directors, producers and film Students who want to explore opportunities in story-telling and more globally accepted story development, especially between Germany and India.

The workshop will be held in association with 'Germany and India 2011-2012 - Infinite Opportunities, Life Entertainment, PRIMEHOUSE, dffb, HFF and SKW Schwarz'.

'Any writer, director and producer who has at least one film to his credit can apply for the workshop. Film direction and script writing students from the film institutes like FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) in India can also attend the workshop,' said S. Narayanan, festival director, 13th Mumbai Film Festival, in an statement.

'We have the privilege of welcoming talents like Dani Levy, Thorsten Schulz, Jochen Brunow who will share the platform with Indian directors such as Ashutosh Gowarikar amongst others, we believe that this is a huge step forward,' he added.

An Indo-German project will be presented during the workshop as a case study in how collaboration between Indian and German writers and directors might work.

The last date to send in a project is Sep 26 (www.primexchange.eu) with a workshop fee of Rs.3,000. General applications to participate at the workshop are open till Oct 4.

'Nowadays Germany is looking at India and especially Mumbai, representing the biggest film industry in the world, for interesting content. It is an exciting time right now to exchange ideas and cultural point of views in filmmaking and storytelling,' said Stephan Ottenbruch, managing partner, Life Entertainment GmbH.

The film festival will also bring some of the international classics from the Cannes Critics Week such as Valeria Gaii Guermanika's 'Everybody Dies But Me', Ken Loach's 'Kes', Jerzy Skolimowski's 'Walkover' amongst others.

The National Film Awards winning films to be screened in this special section include Adoor Gopalakirshnan's 'Swayamvaram', Shyam Benegal's 'Ankur' and Girish Kasaravalli's 'Ghatasraddha'.

'By juxtaposing the Cannes Critics Week award winning films along with the Indian debut features which won National Film Awards, we are trying to create an analytical study of the films that have created trends abroad and in India, the narrative structure and the technical aspects which went into the making of these path breaking films,' said Narayanan.