The submissions for the second edition of The Script Contest took place between November 15th, 2017 and January 10th, 2018, and the winner was announced on March 1st.

The great winner of the second edition of The Script Contest is Alexandra Suciu, with the script called ‘Călătoria urșilor polari în deșert’.

Alexandra Suciu is an actress who graduated from the National University of Theatre and Film ‘I.L. Caragiale’ from Bucharest. Currently, she is working at the National Theatre of Bucharest. Her script tells the story of three neighbours who are in their sixties and try to build their own world in a Romanian judgmental society, away from loneliness and fear of death.

Alexandra Safriuc, a member of the judge, co-founder & artistic director of ShortsUP, tells us more about the process of judging and the winning script:

In the judging process, the battle of scripts was between Kylie X by Rodica Dominteanu and Călătoria urșilor polari în deșert written by Alexandra Suciu. They are very different, but both managed to stand out amongst all the finalists because of the likely world created, which was visually transposed in words. The awarded script, Călătoria urșilor polari în deșert, creates a subtle curiosity regarding the world of the three characters, balancing cliché elements with surprise elements, maintaining an opened end.

This year’s theme was ‘Portraits of a disappearing world’; there were 80 scripts submitted of which only 10 where finalists and were read by the entire jury committee.

Massimiliano Nardulli about his experience as the Jury Director of The Script Contest:

This was already the second edition of TSC. For every contest is always important to confirm the good things of the previous edition and improve yearly. I really believe we met this goal; not only did we get more scripts than the first edition, but, in my opinion, we also reached even more people from different fields and pushed them to play the game of writing their stories in a cinematographic way. We are really proud of the winner because it is not really easy to have unanimity in such a difficult choice. We really hope that our decision will contribute to a beautiful and successful career as a scriptwriter for Alexandra Suciu. Looking forward to reading more next year.

The winner of the second edition, which ended on March 1^st, will receive a 500 € prize and the production of a short film based on the script with the financial support of Castalia Pictures and FILM+. According to the contest rules, the short film must be produced within one year of the end of the second edition.

The jury of The Script Contest #2 consisted of Alexandra Safriuc, Paul Negoescu, Massimiliano Nardulli, Yvonne Irimescu and Laura Mușat.

This year’s theme was ‘Portraits of a disappearing world’ and was opened to all short film genres, but focusing on shorts docs, comedies and dramas.

Romanian Film Development would like to thank the participants for all the scripts sent. The next edition of The Script Contest will take place between November 2018 and January 2019. Keep an eye on The Script Contest website and Facebook page for further details. See you next fall!

Romina Banu

Photographer and editor; she co-founded Dissolved Magazine together with Melissa. For Films in Frame she gathers film and TV series recommendations for lazy weekends and she writes about interesting projects from the film industry. Other than that, she likes traveling, chilling with her cats and sleeping.