• In your experience, what type of feedback is most valuable to a beginning screenwriter?
    Every story has its own genesis and a reason for being. The first piece of advice we can give a screenwriter who wants to tell a cinematic story is to ask themselves if this story really has the elements necessary to become a film. Sometimes, there are stories that can find other forms of expression that are just as valid, that distance themselves from cinema. So, the first question you should probably ask yourself is this: is this story interesting from a cinematic point of view? And this is not just true for beginning screenwriters and directors, but should be a healthy practice for all filmmakers.In a mentoring program, what are the most common problems you encounter with early drafts of scripts?

    The big problem with all early drafts of a script is often the same. There is a tendency to jump to script form too early, without having explored all the possibilities that a story can express. Furthermore, the story is often not shared sufficiently with the people involved in the project. Making a film is a collective effort from start to finish; it seems absurd to me that a script should not also be the result of a collaborative effort between different minds, even if it is actually written by only one or two people. Creating a world is a work that involves everyone, from the screenwriter to the electrician, from the editor to the actors, and so on… if there were less ego and more cooperation, I think every project would benefit enormously.

    How can a mentor help a screenwriter maintain their personal voice, but at the same time improve the structure and clarity of their story?

    The answer to this question lies in the question itself… namely, trying to maintain your personal voice. The structure and clarity of any story have nothing to do with your personal voice. Almost anyone can find a workable structure and narrative clarity, which is why there are so many manuals and books telling you what to do. I think it’s important to read them all and then forget them. I would say that it’s much more difficult to find a personal voice than a narrative structure, and that the clarity of a story has little to do with personal voice. To avoid having films that all look the same, maybe you should work a little more on personal voice than on other things, and that’s a job that is done individually. A mentor can only stimulate and should never offer solutions, but rather fuel the search with questions and doubts.

    If you were to structure an ideal mentoring program for screenwriters, what would be the most important stages a project should go through, from idea to final script?

    I’m not sure there is an ideal program, simply because projects often have different needs and are tied to a variety of unpredictable factors. But I believe that an organic process needs to go through several phases, much like the process of alchemy. All projects need these phases to be completed slowly, with enough time for each individual to rework them individually. As a project mentor, I first try to understand each individual’s time and work rhythms and try to adapt to theirs, rather than letting them adapt to mine. Once this process is complete, each writer can independently carry out their writing work.

    This year, the theme for miniseries scripts is INJUSTICE. A powerful and necessary theme in the context of the times we live in. What expectations do you have this year from scripts that will address this theme? What life situations do you think the writers will choose?
    Injustice is a topic as vast as the world itself. What matters on a screen, but even more so in everyday life, is that it should never be trivialized or assumed to be normal. I hope that those who propose a project do not think that they have already done enough to change things. As the atrocities and absurdities we face every day demonstrate, we have reached a very dangerous extreme, where rights are ignored, where a small group of unscrupulous madmen can decide what is good and what is bad and can act violently at will, without suffering the consequences. All this confirms that we can no longer stand aside and watch. Cinema is just one of the weapons, but indignation and denunciation must be constant and at all levels.