Thursday was another day of individual meetings of authors discussing their scripts with the advisors. However, the evening was a surprise for all participants and advisors. What kind of a surprise? Let's just say that dinner was taken al fresco.

Lynda Myles: "I was struck by the level of the participants because often when you go to something like this, people are far less experienced. It also means that the level of debate is higher and I think it makes it more challenging and more stimulating for both sides. It's a sensational group of advisors. To get a group at this level is quite amazing, the track record and the experience of the advisors is fantastic. All of the scripts I read could work internationally, only some need more work than others. You can easily imagine three or four of the ones I read to work on the pan-European level."

Enzo Monteleone: "The most important thing is that we have a chance to share experience from two different parts of Europe, and the most interesting thing is that we face the same problems. It's very important to exchange ideas beacuse we are professionals doing the same job. The problem is always film distribution. For the last twenty years, Italians have known nothing about Eastern European films, except for maybe names like Kieślowski. It works the other way round, too. I'm sure people in Eastern Europe know all about big American blokcbusters, but very little about contemporaray Italian cinema."   

Thaddeus O'Sullivan: "I found it really interesting to meet people from Central and Eastern Europe and hear them talk about their experience. Our experience is as if these recent events happened a long time ago, and here I met young people who want to talk about the transition period in Eastern Europe and their direct exeperience of it. A lot of that has gone into the scripts. All the writers involved are really concerned to make those stories travel, and they are not locked in their own theories of what constitutes a movie for the popular audience. They are open to negitiation and listen very carefully."

Thaddeus O'Sullivan with Katrin Laur discussing her script "Bellamora"

Bill Forsyth at a discussion with Maciej Dutkiewicz

Enzo Monteleone with Balazs Lovas (participant from Hungary)