Saturday, 04.11
10.30 – 11.30 Agora Series Masterclass by Jeremy Podeswa @ Pavlos Zannas
Free entrance by priority order
Simultaneous translation in Greek
From six feet under, to the top: the evolution of contemporary television
Award-winning feature film and television director and producer Jeremy Podeswa is giving a masterclass on the future of storytelling. Podeswa, who is numerous times nominated and awarded for series such as Six Feet Under, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, The Pacific, True Detective and more, will share with the audience his personal experience on how a lead director is setting the tone in the production process and the evolution of series content throughout the years. With insightful information from his personal journey in series projects.
Moderated by Lefteris Charitos, film and series director and Chairman of the Hellenic Film Academy.
Jeremy Podeswa is an award winning feature film and television director who has been nominated four times for the Best Director Emmy Award (for HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones” twice, and for the Tom Hanks/ Steven Spielberg produced “The Pacific”, HBO, also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award.
He has recently Executive Produced and Directed the HBOMax limited series “Station Eleven” (based on the novel by Emily St. John Mandel, nominated for 7 Emmy Awards, and the DGA Award). And he has most recently directed “The Three Body Problem” for Netflix (from “Game of Thrones” creators Dan Weiss and David Benioff), and “The New Look” for Apple (starring Juliette Binoche).
He has additionally directed many of the most ground breaking cable television series and mini-series, including for HULU “The Handmaid’s Tale”; for HBO, “Game of Thrones”, “True Detective”, “The Newsroom”, “Here and Now”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “True Blood”, “Rome”, “Six Feet Under”, “Carnivale” and “The Pacific”; for Apple “The Mosquito Coast”; for Showtime, “The Loudest Voice”, “On Becoming a God in Central Florida”, “Homeland”, “Ray Donovan”, “The Borgias”, “The Tudors”, “Dexter”, “Weeds”, “Queer as Folk”, “The L Word”; for AMC “The Walking Dead”; for F/X “American Horror Story: Asylum and Coven”; and for TNT the mini-series “Into the West” (produced by Steven Spielberg and nominated for 16 Emmy Awards).
Other credits include the television movie “After the Harvest”, starring Sam Shepard, winner of the Directors Guild of Canada Award for Best Direction.
He has also written and directed three award winning feature films: “Fugitive Pieces” (Samuel Goldwyn Films, Opening Night, Toronto International Film Festival) starring Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike; “The Five Senses” (Fine Line Distribution, Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival) starring Mary Louise Parker; and “Eclipse” (Berlin and Sundance Festivals).
Sunday, 05.11
10.30 – 11.30 Masterclass by Panayotis Christopoulos @ Pavlos Zannas
Free entrance by priority order
Simultaneous translation in English
More Is More: Building the narrative world of a series
The total duration and episodic format of series constitute the principal difference between a series and a movie, as far as screenplay is concerned. In filmmaking, screenwriters are usually asked to reduce the pages of a screenplay – by “cutting” subplots, characters, scenes that do not directly expediate the action. That imperative “less is more” of filmmaking fills a screenwriter’s drawers with eliminated aspects of the story which may be superfluous for the film itself, but are often parts of a narrative world that the screenwriter built with love.
A series may not only provide refuge for all those “superfluous” elements, but actually need them. The screenwriter who is creating a series is asked, from the start, to construct not only a storyline, but a narrative world which will envelop the main story and with which the main story will open up a “dialogue”. In More Is More we will examine how the world of a series is built – and which are the invisible narrative threads that ensure it does not end up in chaos.
Panayotis Christopoulos is a screenwriter. He studied Film in London, holds a Master’s degree in History of Film and Audiovisual Media and is a fellow of the Cannes Film Festival Résidence. His television works include “One August Night”, “Cartes Postales”, “I Am Jo”. He is co-writer of the feature film “Daniel ‘16” by Dimitris Koutsiabasakos and has written and directed the short “Discussing Space”. As a script editor and screenplay consultant he has collaborated with, among others, Zacharias Mavroeidis, Evi Kalogiropoulou, Menelaos Karamaghiolis, Penny Panagiotopoulou. He teaches screenwriting at the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos.
Monday, 06.11
10.30 – 11.30 Masterclass by Dora Masklavanou @ Pavlos Zannas
Free entrance by priority order
Simultaneous translation in English
Screenwriting: Unlimited freedom, unlimited constraints
In a world which is fascinating, demanding, competitive and expensive, the screenwriters are asked to find and set, for themselves, the constraints they will follow, before they are set by someone else. And to convert them into advantages and merits of their dramaturgy.
Director, screenwriter, editor, producer and actor. She has directed three feature films, “Tomorrow Is Another Day” (2001), “Coming as a Friend” (2005, LAGFF award) and “Polyxeni” (2017, TIFF, IRIS, LAGFF, Tetouan IMFF awards). She has worked as a director for “Paraskinio” (“Behind the Curtain”) and “Stekia” (“The Haunts”) and as screenwriter for many series in Greek television.
Tuesday, 07.11
10.30 – 11.30 Masterclass by Dimosthenis Papamarkos @ Pavlos Zannas
Free entrance by priority order
Simultaneous translation in English
Around the fire, in front of the lights
Dimosthenis Papamarkos in an open discussion with the audience about narration as a shadow and word play, its multiple genres and how they converse with each other creating new ways of artistic expression, and also the role of modern media in the re-validation of narrative techniques which bring again to the present traditional motifs of interaction between the narrator and their audience.
Dimosthenis Papamarkos was born in 1983 in Malessina, Lokris. He studied Classical History in the University of Athens and University of Oxford. He has published novels, short story collections and graphic novels. In 2014 his short story collection, Gjak, won the Academy of Athens Literary Prize and the critics circle award of the literary magazine O Anagnostis; it has since been translated in Russian and German. He has also written for the theatre and the cinema, and he has translated ancient dramas for productions of the National Theatre at the Athens Epidaurus Festival. He is working at the development department of the film production company Faliro House.
Wednesday, 08.11
10.30 – 11.30 Agora Masterclass by Ruth Atkinson @ Pavlos Zannas
Free entrance by priority order
Simultaneous translation in Greek
In collaboration with Discovery Days - LA Greek Film Festival
Writing From The Inside Out: Finding Your Voice
Lanthimos, Gerwig, Joon-Ho, Campion, del Toro and Zhao are filmmakers with distinct, unique voices. You know their work from the first frame and it’s clear they’re telling stories they’re deeply passionate about. Voice is what sets you apart as a storyteller, it draws collaborators and audiences. Yet, as important as voice is, it’s one of the most elusive and misunderstood aspects of screenwriting. In this conversation we’ll define and explore ways of finding your voice so that you’re able to write scripts that have your specific, unique storytelling signature. Tapping into your authentic voice, through connecting with your personal wheelhouse of interests, experiences and themes, will ensure your stories connect with readers and resonate with audiences long after they’ve left the theater.
Ruth Atkinson is a Los Angeles-based script consultant and story editor who has been helping writers, directors and producers tell stories for over 20 years. Ruth has consulted on award-winning, internationally distributed shorts, features and series screened at high profile festivals such as TIFF, Cannes, Sundance, Berlin and SXSW, in theaters globally and on North American cable and streamers. Ruth is also a story advisor for Project Involve, Film Independent’s signature diversity program, and for Film Independent’s Screenwriter and Director Labs, as well as Creative Advisor for Global Media Makers. She is also a facilitator-mentor for the prestigious Whistler Film Festival Screenwriters Lab. http://ruthatkinson.com/
