User:Samira/

Project Proposal: Pain and Homecoming

I would like to spend the coming few months to further develop my practice in screenwriting and filmmaking. This year I had written a script entitled ‘Sascha’, with which I entered the ‘European Short Pitch,’ and for which I was short-listed. Unfortunately my entry was not successful, which has led me to reconsider my final project. It is important to me to continue working on Sascha as a screenplay, and not push myself into making this short-film, as I feel I have not yet become capable of supplying the nuances necessary to write on the subjects the story concerns itself with.

Sascha is a metaphorical narrative about grief and the process of accepting death. It will explore the effect loss has on a group of friends, the dynamics and grotesque competitiveness between them and the diversity in an individual’s response. This work was triggered when a dear friend passed away in an accident this last July. She had been a schoolmate and our friendship continued until now. I do not feel I am yet capable of portraying the necessary emotional subtleties. For this reason I would like to conduct a series of experiments in short-film in the following months.

Nostalgia is often prompted as a response to sadness, a reminder of heart-warming events, and friends whose company we miss. My youth was mostly spent in international schools, where most other children grew up in a shared third culture context. These relationships develop in strikingly different ways from those of children growing up in a stable context. The bonds between third culture friends are stronger and more resilient as separation is a reality as opposed to a far-fetched fear. Friendships are built without expectations of possession or reliability, differing greatly from the general politics of friendship that most people experience, in which resentment can be harboured and used as tools of control. Due to this upbringing I have often struggled to deal with other forms of friendship, like how many times someone calls the other, seeing each other once a week etc…

In December I will be returning to Malta for Christmas, where I have organised a small film shoot. I have invited three old friends who were of great importance to me between the age of 16-22. We made up a small group of two couples, two relationships that exploded in 2012, when two members of the group started an affair. Since then I have remained in contact with all members separately, and we have all in one way or another made amends with each other. These individuals are still a part of my life, the older I get the fewer people I find that share my sensibility. Although I am still only beginning to understand the complexities of love, I feel it goes beyond personal possession, who one loves is not something we control but we do choose the people that will be important to us. If that agreement of love is betrayed, the bond needn’t be destroyed but simply reconsidered, and repositioned.

My curiosity doesn’t lie in the event of ‘betrayal,’ but in capturing a group of people that were so important to one another during a specific period, and who have a shared history. Each of these individuals grew up in my same village. During the shoot we will walk a familiar path through the countryside of our village. The walk will begin from our town until the old ruins of the ‘Roman Villa,’ a large old house whose roof and floors had caved in decades ago. The ‘Roman Villa’ is a place in which we used to hang out as teenagers.

My motivations for this project are to become more familiar with the way that people speak to one another, to understand how subtext is carried through conversation even if the event itself is not brought up directly, and to understand the nuances of love expressed through friendship and forgiveness. I casually title these future works as ‘an experiment in nostalgia,’ this is very much true to the places and people I will be working with.

I do not plan to write a script, but simply inform the participants of specific subject matter that we will discuss as we walk to the roman villa. The event between us, that has never been addressed, and will not be addressed, should shine through any conversation we have. The fear of confrontation has been the primary reason for all the involved individuals to never have regrouped. During the shoot I will hold the camera, I will refrain myself from any interaction with the actors, and will allow for anyone to walk leave the shoot if the they so desire.

In January I will be taking a road-trip from Italy to Holland with my partner, Eraldo, and one of my closest friends, Teun, who is currently living in Leipzig. Based on the successes and failures of the walk in December, I will conduct a new short throughout our journey. The journey will begin in Eraldo’s hometown of Norcia, which has recently been half-destroyed by an earthquake, we will drive through the Rome, the city where my parents met, through Germany and to my mother’s village. In Munich or somewhere further north we'll stop and Teun will leave and rush to catch a train Leipzig. Finally arriving home in Den Haag in Den Haag, the city where I’ve kept my life for the past 6 years. The trip will reversely map the journey I had originally planned for ‘Sascha’. This work moves from the past into the present. In the same way as before, I will not direct and will carry the camera, although at times I may set it down and film myself, or allow Teun to film as Eraldo drives. In this case there may be sections of the work that will be scripted, although there is a great deal of history between Teun and myself I am unsure whether to bring it up. In any case I will document information on specific events to create the option of using it.

Once these two works are completed, I will be able to continue my development on Sascha, making use of any and all conversations that express something of loss and love. The completed screenplay for Sascha will be a major part of my project.

I will continue to develop further unscripted experiments. If an honest narrative presents itself, I would like to develop this into a short screen-play based on my findings. This short-film will be fully filmed in The Netherlands.

Steve, Ine and David are valuable sources of feedback, their comments and advice are extremely constructive in furthering and solidifying the conceptual aspects of my work. Barend is a great asset in understanding and improving my technical abilities.

I hope to complete the script for Sascha by the end of the year, and be able to move on as a more experienced screen-writer.