This year for the first time the international script competition Script Pool Tallinn also presents projects for TV drama series in addition to scripts for feature films.
The main goal of Script Pool Tallinn, is to gather talented scriptwriters with producers attached, in order to provide them support enhancing the script and maximising its production and distribution potential. Adding the TV and drama series category to the competition for its 3rd edition can be considered as a reaction to the unavoidable change in the industry, where the series market is taking over and people prefer content by global streaming platforms. This gives an opportunity for local authentic stories to travel without language barriers.
“Since the very first year of the Script Pool competition, we have wanted it to have two directions – feature film and drama series,” Triin Tramberg, Script Pool competition coordinator comments. “We are more than excited to finally begin with the Script Pool TV drama series competition and especially that we can also show what kind of series Estonia makes,” she adds.
At the Script Pool Tallinn event, six teams consisting of scriptwriters and producers will be at the open pitch on the 26th of November before the international jury and other decision-makers from the industry including Kamila Zlatušková, Independent TV producer from the Czech Republic, Dominic Schreiber, Global Drama Executive, at leading independent drama producer and distributor, Reel One Entertainment and Benjamin Harris, a writer and producer with over 15 years experience in the industry. The winner of the competition receives a prize of 5000 euros, provided by the leading international sales & distribution company Global Screen GmbH.
Produced by Estonian Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated production house Allfim in co-production with Sweden and Germany The Deep written by Lauri Lippmaa is a political crime thriller that raises the questions; Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we heading?
The Secret Society of Souptown and the Cucumber Mafia is an 8-part TV-series sequel to the most successful Estonian family film by the well known Estonian screenwriters Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman, who have created several popular Estonian TV-series. Their debut feature film Teesklejad (Pretenders, director Vallo Toomla) was released in 2016, having its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Court of Muses, developed by Julia Effertz and Luxembourg’s Wady Films, is a bold and dark, unapologetic vision of female supremacy that has wandered all the way across the abyss of human nature.
The Holy Family is a family drama series with a supernatural twist. 17-year-old high school student Ábel might be a new Messiah, but his mysterious wrist wounds are considered suicide attempts by his family. The TV-series is written by Gábor Osváth, who was chosen to be one of the Emerging Producers (2016), and one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2015. Yvonne Kerékgyártó is a SXSW Gamechanger award-winner scriptwriter-director of the 2014 feature Free Entry. More recently she was the screenwriter of FOMO, which had its international premiere at PÖFF.
Crossing place is a supernatural mystery drama about a writer in search of her boyfriend in an Irish border village and finds folklore seeping into reality. The series is by Gary Duggan, an award-winning playwright & screenwriter. His plays have been produced across Ireland, Europe and in New York.
Different is a horror anthology of ten loosely interconnected stories that explore the myths of Central Europe through the lives of different entities existing among us. The series wants to show different types of beings or creatures in several time periods struggling with the same dilemmas: is it a gift or a curse to be different? The series is created by Petr Koubek, a FAMU scriptwriting department graduate, who has written TV series for Czech Television Lynč, The Manor House, Národní klenoty and TV Nova Ulice, Dáma a Král and a number of commercials.
Since 2018, Industry@Tallinn has partnered with MIDPOINT, a training and networking platform with the aim to strengthen the creative collaboration between writers, directors and producers in the development process in Central and Eastern Europe.
Read about the projects selected for Script Pool feature films in 2019