MFI Script Workshops is a training activity that addresses to European professionals as well as emerging screenwriters or writers/directors with a feature film project in development. Others, such as screenwriting teachers, dramatists, readers, script consultants and editors, development executives, producers, directors etc. may also apply to participate as observers.

Priority is placed on projects that are on a production "track", scripts which already have a producer, or a reasonable plan for making the film a reality. Projects that are not in production track but demonstrate quality and potential are also qualified to apply.



• philosophy

The program combines a comprehensive approach towards filmmaking that is essentially European in outlook - melding both screenwriting and directing (directing being an essentially dramaturgical discipline as well) - while also emphasizing the primacy of story and action that are the vital and fundamental characteristics of American filmmaking. The single most important thing for a new filmmaker to do is to develop his/her sense of the dramatic material in his/her story. Most new filmmakers are shy of translating their ideas and concerns into external events.

This program does not treat cinematic narrative as a “how-to” project. We treat stories as organic forms, not mechanical applications of screenwriting rules, and look for the “dramatic material” in the filmmakers’ original vision. We seek to educate filmmakers about principles that strengthen and clarify the dramatic values in the story rather than dictate them, principles rooted in the great narrative and theatrical traditions from which visual storytelling first emerged.



• innovative methods and European dimension

Designed for feature film scripts for cinema and television, this training initiative helps to develop the participating projects to the maximum of their capacity in ways that will clarify and enhance the qualities of the original story material, bring out their fullest dramatic impact, and make them engaging to audiences in international markets.

MFI’s intensive program of workshops and on-line sessions constitutes a full program of script development that approaches the task not through any pre-formulated techniques or “clichés”, but rather through a serious and difficult process of analysis of the material, evaluation, critique, inner-seeking and creative exchange between trainers and participants.

Our primary objective is to focus on the primacy of story and the crucial importance of dramatic action. For many years now, these elements have been consistently the weakest points of European films, which tend to overemphasize style and pure narrative at the expense of dramatic impact.

MFI's program seeks to improve the participating projects by making them dramatically stronger and therefore more effective. In this way, the essential elements of drama are being discovered and elaborated giving to the original and truly imaginative stories, European filmmakers usually have, the dramatic power they must possess in order to engage a larger audience. In the same time our program remains sensitive towards national and local narrative concerns and characteristics.

The importance of the exchanges between participants themselves cannot be underestimated. As previous sessions of the program have illustrated, within the right workshop atmosphere, a spirit of cooperation can develop which extends beyond the workshop, in productive long-term relationships. After all, the institute's "raison d' etre" is creating a cinematic forum where projects can flourish through the exchange of diverse cultural perspective and a lively dialogue among the region's fresh talent.