16-17 September 2023
PLOT – Professional Script Lab ran a special edition in Lisbon, focused in 4 Portuguese language projects with the support of the Portuguese Film Institute and Projeto Paradiso and within the framework of GUIÕES – Portuguese Language Screenplay Festival and Co-Production Forum 2023.
(PT) RESTLESSNESS, Martina Rupp (screenwriter/show runner)
(BR) THE JAGUAR, Emanuel Lavor (writer / director)
(BR) BRING ME THE HEAD OF ORUM BOMANI, Ariel L. Ferreira (writer / director)
MENTORS
SIMÃO CAYATTE
Simão Cayatte was born in Lisbon in 1984. He studied theatre and live art at Goldsmiths University in London and obtained his Film MFA at Columbia University, New York. While in New York he worked as a script reader at Protozoa Pictures, Darren Aronofsky’s production company. His first short film A Viagem was selected in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Cinéfondation, and was awarded at multiple international film festivals. In 2017 Menina won the Sophia Portuguese Academy Award for Best short film and was selected by the Académie des César for the Nuits en Or programme. His work as a screenwriter is heavily influenced by his practice as an actor having worked over the years with directors such as Werner Schroeter, Marco Pontecorvo, Carlos Marques Marcet, Cristèle Alves-Meira and Ivo Ferreira. His first feature film Vadio, a Portuguese/French/Polish co-production opened at the Lisbon Estoril Film Festival 2022 and played in theatres nationwide in 2023. It has since been selected and awarded at various International film festivals. Simão also writes and directs for television, having recently directed the tv series Vanda, a co-production between SPi, La Panda and Legendary Pictures which premiered at the Berlinale Series Market and was distributed by Canal +, Hulu and Lionsgate. Alongside his work as a writer/director Simão works regularly as a script-consultant and story editor for film and television. He is a frequent collaborator of Le Groupe Ouest where he does mentorship for the screenwriting lab Less is More.
MIGUEL CLARA VASCONCELOS
FERNANDA POLACOW
I am a Brazilian screenwriter, director and script consultant, living in Portugal but in constant connection with my home country. My second feature film as a writer, The Last Summer, is currently in production after being selected for the Script Station at Berlinale 2023. My first feature as a writer, Mosquito, was the opening film at the Rotterdam International FF and won the Critics Prize at the São Paulo International FF. I have been developing, writing and directing projects for TV, streaming and cinema, series and features, documentaries and fiction and some of my work have received awards and nominations at the Brazilian Cinema Academy, Portuguese Cinema Academy, New York TV&Film Festival, Hollywood Woman’s Film Festival, among others. I am part of the ScriptLab 2023 at the Torino Film Lab as a Story Editor. As a script consultant I have worked for Cabíria Festival, Projeto Paradiso and also as mentor and creator of IndieLab, a project development workshop at the IndieLisboa Film Festival. I am a co-founder of MUTIM, the women in film association in Portugal. But from all the above, I am first and foremost, a mother. And an amateur percussionist.
JULIA PRIOLLI
Julia Priolli, Brazilian, is a streaming executive, specializing in Screenwriting from Columbia University and Stonybrook University. She led the development and content of the series Cangaço Novo, Dom, Me Chama de Bruna, Impuros and 1 Contra Todos, the last two of which were nominated for an International Emmy.
GUSTAVO GONTIJO
O2 Filmes Executive Producer for Development since January 2021, working with projects like Prime’s “New Bandits” and “September Morning” and Max’s “City of God”, Gustavo Gontijo has a long career in entertainment and development. Before that he was with Globo Studios (Brazil and Latin Americas’s biggest content producer) since 2000 when hired as a writer. In 2014 with the creation of the Drama Weekly division dedicated to drama and comedy series, he was named its Content Manager. During his tenure, he helped to conceive and develop hits like the medical drama UNDER PRESSURE (the number 1 series in Brazil), the adventure IRON ISLAND, the classroom drama SECOND CALL, Brazil’s first supernatural big-budget drama SUPERMAX (and its spanish spoken spinoff), the racial comedy MISTER BRAU, Fernando Meirelles’ THE WISE ONES, the 2017 MIPtv Grand Jury Prize winner JAILERS and other twenty shows, in a total of over 30 seasons broadcasted. The executive was personally in charge of taking those shows abroad, making Globo’s series, for the first time, available to international and prestigious Festivals like the Berlinale, TIFF, SXSW, Canneseries, Seriesfest and many more. During the same time, Gustavo was also behind the conception and establishment of the House of Writers (Casa dos Roteiristas), a physical space with 13 Writer’s Room dedicated exclusively for series developing, writing and production, with the best Brazilian talent available like Guel Arraes, Jorge Furtado, Bráulio Mantovani, George Moura, Cláudio Paiva, Marçal & Bonassi, Mauro Wilson, Lucas Paraizo, Antonio Prata and many more. From 2019 to 2020, he was the content manager for Globo Filmes with the main focus in features.
