Meet Your Match ’11
Hightlights from LA
Hamilton Helps DreamAgo Connect
On the morning of November 3rd, in Santa Monica, California, Meet your Match 2011 presented its Speed dating event, “Hamilton Helps DreamAgo Connect” with great success. Ten screenwriters, who went through DreamAgo’s screenwriting lab Plume & Pellicule pitched their projects to producers in a speed dating format to insure maximum exposure for our writers and the utmost connectivity between producers and projects of interest. Some writers travelled from places as far as Cuba, France, or Switzerland for the opportunity to spend ten minutes, at each table winning over each of the thirteen producers present at the event. The correct timing was insured by a big timer provided by Hamilton, visible to all, which counted down the minutes. DreamAgo was very happy to have shared this event with Martine Ayer, the head of marketing at Hamilton. The fun then continued over an informal lunch where everyone who wanted to was able to continue discussing the projects further.
Artist in Residency Winner
The same afternoon, thirty writers from the WGA, who were shortlisted from a list of two hundred projects, were in the running for winning a six week “Artist in Residency” at the Villa Ruffieux in Sierre, Switzerland. This residency is a result of a partnership between the Villa Ruffieux and DreamAgo and will allow a screenwriter to focus on writing for six weeks, expenses paid, nestled in the foothills of the Swiss Alps. With a Hamilton clock as their backdrop, experienced WGA writers had six minutes to pitch their screenplay idea to the president of Cinephiles de DreamAgo, representing the Villa Ruffieux, Pascale Rey (president of DreamAgo) and Maggie Soboil (director of DreamAgo USA).
With such a group of talented writers, short listing eleven was hard but choosing only one to receive the Residency gift was even harder. The final winner was announced at the Swiss Consulate Brunch and awarded the Residency gift by France Massy for Villa Ruffieux.
The winner of the residency: George Huang (the writer of Swimming with Sharks)
The short list of writers were:
Bourne Jonathan – “The Cure”
Calloway Peter – “Shadow Doctor”
Chi Anna – “Yimeng Song”
Coiro Kat – “ Immacolata”
Elbling Peter – “The Late spring of Madame Broussard”
Forte Joe – “The Alternative Life of J.Lennon and P.McCartney”
Huang George – “Agong”
Kelman – “Bill Fly North”
Kurzfeld Stephen – “Forgive Me”
Nazarian Eric – “Land of Plenty”
Smith Alex – “The year of the Heaven and Hell”
Panel Discussion
The culminating event was the panel mediated by Sydney Levine on the topic, “How can screenwriters navigate the rough seas of the system without capsizing?” This roundtable talk was open to all WGA and DreamAgo members so needless to say the room was packed with writers. The cocktail following, at the Swiss Consulate, was attended by more than 110 people.
DreamAgo writers selected for Meet Your Match:
Nicolas Bilder – Esteban
Jayro Bustamante & Fabrice Passebosc – El Escuadron de la Muerte
Limor Diamant – Metamorphosis
David Kosh – Grand Cru
Tianna Langham & Chris Bessounian – The Butcher of Bosnia
Laurent Negre – Zeru
Sheila Sawhny & Dee Johnson – The Third Sex
Dominique Schnabele – L’homme qui sauvait les femmes
Alejandro Seri – Grain
Arturo Sotto Diaz – Perdidos en el Cielo
Mark Stratton, Lois Becker & Gita Breslin – Free Fall
Silenn Thomas & Cassidy Pope – A Perfect Wife