LATEST NEWS
1.10.07 | SWF 2007 - big screen names in Arturi founded festival
The Second International Screenwriters' Festival 2007 held in July 2007, whose Director is David Pearson of Arturi Films, was another resounding success with 600 delegates attending from 12 countries. Details of the exciting line up, with podcasts of the sessions and photos, can be found at the SWF website. The speakers included Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain), Michael Goldenberg (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', directed by David Yates), Chris Smith (Severance) , David Hare (The Hours), William Nicholson (Gladiator and Golden Age) and Stephen Frears (The Queen) plus many more fine writers, producers and directors. A new spec script market brought exciting new opportunities to writers.
25.9.07 | HEAR SCREENWRITING GREATS
Podcasts of some of the highlights of the 2007 and 2006 Screenwriters' Festival are now available on the SWF website, including Bill Nicholson, Julian Fellowes and many more. Find out what 600 delegates found so inetresting. Check it out now.
18.10.06 | GREAT FEEDBACK ON SCREENWRITERS' FESTIVAL
David Pearson of Arturi Films & Director of Screenwriters’ Festival in association with Film Four, recently returned from the Toronto Film Festival and Strategic Partners where he and Arturi Film's Lizzie Morgan Hemlock had a successful response to their projects, also found much interest in SWF. He summarised the highly successful Festival which took place in June 2006: "We have been inundated with enthusiastic feed back about the Festival. It really seems to have caught a real demand and need from the industry- here and around the world. Thank you for your kind and supportive messages. We are now planning SWF2007 and more details can soon be found at www.screenwritersfestival.com Over 500 delegates attended, and nearly 100 speakers gave Keynote speeches, led masterclasses, and took part in panels and seminars and screenings. Highlights included sessions with Jimmy McGovern, Tony Marchant, Tony Grisoni, Olivia Hetreed, David Thompson, Julian Fellowes, Guillermo Del Toro, Nic Roeg and Paul Weiland. There were over twelve nationalities attending with people travelling from as far field as Australia, Uganda, and USA, and in Europe; Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Austria, & Ireland. We welcome inquiries from interested companies & individuals who may be able to further the aims of the Festival and its focus on improving the art craft and business of screenwriting around the world. We hope to link this to film making activities connected to the Festival before long. Delegate after delegate told us how much they enjoyed the week and said the high standards, the smooth organisation, and the friendly welcoming atmosphere at the Festival impressed them. Seeing writers fervently engaged in conversations about solving writing issues and talking stories; that they could not have elsewhere, was a real boost to me after all the efforts and hard work of the Festival team over the previous months. A highlight for me was director and writers Guillermo Dle Toro who took time out of a very hectic schedule and flew from LA specially to explain how his films like Chronos, Blade, Hellboy, and the Devils’ Backbone were written and treating us to a sneak preview of his next film Pan’s Labyrinth. The most gratifying comment I had was from one delegate who said he would recommend screenwriters considering attending the next Cannes Film Festival to come instead to the Cheltenham and the Screenwriters’ Festival as they would learn much more and have a much better time." We will publish more details with photographs on the sessions, your reactions and the Festival soon.
21.6.06 | ARTURI ORGANISED SCREENWRITERS' FESTIVAL HOTS UP
As Seen in Screen International this week- and the New Writers Day at SWF is sold out. Some places for 28th-30th June left. Programme hots up for Screenwriters Festival Staff reporters in New York 21 June 2006 With just days to go before the UK's inaugural Screenwriters Festival in Cheltenham, the organizers continue to add to the impressive roster of speakers and estimate that more than two hundred new and established screenwriters from across Britain will flock to the three-day event (June 27-30). Among the latest additions to the Festival, which is being held in association with FilmFour and is supported by Screen International among many others, is producer-director Stephen Woolley, who will discuss his approach to film adaptation. Other highlighted speakers include: Mexico's Guillermo Del Toro, hot off his acclaim in Cannes last month with Pan's Labyrinth; Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park); twice Oscar-nominated screenwriter William Nicholson (Gladiator, Shadowlands) who penned the upcoming Elizabeth I biopic The Golden Age; and Jimmy McGovern, the creator of TV series Cracker who wrote his own Tudor era historical epic, Mary Queen Of Scots, which is in pre-production for Warner Independent. For those with (slightly) more futuristic tastes, there will be James Hawes and Stephen Moffat on hand to discuss writing for the most popular UK sci-fi series ever, Dr Who, and it's spin-off Torchwood about a crack team investigating alien activities and crime in modern-day Britain. Among the more intriguing sessions is one featuring Debbie Isitt, the director of the largely improvisational Confetti talking about working with actors with little more than a storyline. Also bound to stir up discussion is Sean Steele who, on behalf of his market research company NRG, will lift the lid on the little-known world of test screenings - and their implications for screenwriting. The Cheltenham event will conclude with a curated screening of Sixty Six, Paul Weiland's semi-autobiographical account of how a boy's barmitzvah looks set to be a disaster when it coincides with the 1966 World Cup Final in England. Appropriately enough, the Screenwriters Festival finds itself taking place in the midst of the current World Cup in Germany – football games that will be shown live to delegates and speakers who crave live, unscripted dramatics. For more on the festival, www.screenwritersfestival.com
24.5.06 | ERIC CANTONA SUPPORTS FESTIVAL WITH ARTURI
Football icon Eric Cantona (seen here with Arturi Films' David Pearson the Director of SWF ) attended a lunch for the Screenwriters’ Festival hosted by South West Screen‘s Caroline Norbury at the Cannes Film Festival this week. Eric, a poet himself, who is in two films being shown at the Cannes Festival, demonstrated his support for good screenplays and the Festival (which is organised by Arturi Films). Writers, producers, directors and industry supporters from eight nations at the lunch included Stephen Woolley (Stoned) , Paul Grindley Film Four, writer/director VJ Singh, UK Writers Guild Screenwriters Committee Chair Hugh Stoddart, director Helen Grace, distributor Jeffrey Erb Kindred Media, Annette Funch Thomassen from North By Northwest, & Juan Romero from Madrid based Visonaire, and Tony Brown & Neil Phelps of Coutts Bank, and they heard more details about the forthcoming Festival- which includes Nic Roeg, Julian Fellowes and Jimmy McGovern.
1.5.06 | KIDS START OPENING SEQUENCE
The first workshop in the Opening Sequence initiative started by Arturi Films for introducing school children to screenwriting was held recently in Gloucester UK. Teacher, Jenny Cameron, from Brockworth Enterprise School commented: “They had a really good time, and talked non-stop all the way back to school about what they'd done, the ideas they'd had, and what they're going to do next…It's great that they had the opportunity to do something different - they really enjoyed themselves, and felt that they'd learned new skills, so thank you!”
30.1.06 | BILL NICHOLSON ON SCREENWRITERS AS GLADIATORS
"Being a screenwriter- It’s like being a gladiator. You sit all alone in a cage for a very long time and then they throw lions at you. It’s very, very tough."
1.1.06 | ARTURI ORGANISED SCREENWRITERS' FESTIVAL ROCKS
David Pearson of Arturi Films & Director of Screenwriters’ Festival in association with Film Four brought the successful Festival last week to a close and says: We have been inundated with enthusiastic feed back about last weeks' Festival. It really seems to have caught a real demand and need from the industry- here and around the world. Thank you for your kind and supportive messages. We are still counting the final figures but over 500 delegates attended, and 110 speakers gave Keynote speeches, led masterclasses, and took part in panels and seminars and screenings. Highlights included sessions with Jimmy McGovern, Tony Marchant, Tony Grisoni, Olivia Hetreed, David Thompson, Julian Fellowes, Guillermo Del Toro, Nic Roeg and Paul Weiland. There were over twelve nationalities attending with people travelling from as far field as Australia, Uganda, and USA, and in Europe; Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Austria, & Ireland. Jim Tierney of CFS Management Ltd and David Bill of The Manor By The Lake Ltd both made public commitments at the Festival to sponsor the Festival in 2007. We welcome inquiries from interested companies & individuals who may be able to further the aims of the Festival and its focus on improving the art craft and business of screenwriting around the world. We hope to link this to film making activities connected to the Festival before long. Delegate after delegate told us how much they enjoyed the week and said the high standards, the smooth organisation, and the friendly welcoming atmosphere at the Festival impressed them. Seeing writers fervently engaged in conversations about solving writing issues and talking stories; that they could not have elsewhere, was a real boost to me after all the efforts and hard work of the Festival team over the previous months. A highlight for me was director and writers Guillermo Dle Toro who took time out of a very hectic schedule and flew from LA specially to explain how his films like Chronos, Blade, Hellboy, and the Devils’ Backbone were written and treating us to a sneak preview of his next film Pan’s Labyrinth. The most gratifying comment I had was from one delegate who said he would recommend screenwriters considering attending the next Cannes Film Festival to come instead to the Cheltenham and the Screenwriters’ Festival as they would learn much more and have a much better time. We will publish more details with photographs on the sessions, your reactions and the Festival soon.
