The Australian Film Commission (AFC) today announced that Christine Vachon, Laurence Coriat and Vinca Wiedemann will be the international advisors at the 2008 IndiVision Project Lab in February.
Christine Vachon has produced some of the most acclaimed U.S. independent films, including Safe, Kids, Velvet Goldmine, Happiness, Boys Don’t Cry, and Far From Heaven (nominated for four Academy Awards®) amongst more than forty other features. Along with partner Pamela Koffler, she runs iconic New York production company Killer Films. Christine’s upcoming releases include Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan feature I’m Not There, starring Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, and Heath Ledger; Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace starring Julianne Moore; and Helen Hunt’s directorial debut Then She Found Me, starring Hunt, Colin Firth, and Bette Midler.
Laurence Coriat is the acclaimed London based screenwriting collaborator of Michael Winterbottom. Her writing credits include Winterbottom’s Wonderland, which was selected for competition at Cannes in 1999 and won Best British Independent Film award that year. Laurence collaborated with Winterbottom on A Mighty Heart and co-wrote Sandra Goldbacher’s Me Without You, which was selected for Venice in 2001. Laurence is currently co-writing Winterbottom’s latest two projects, Genova, starring Colin Firth and Catherine Keener, and Seven Days.
Vinca Wiedemann is an internationally renowned development executive. Vinca oversaw the creation of some of Denmark’s most successful films as a development and production executive at the Danish Film Institute. As head of New Danish Screen, a low budget feature programme, Vinca encouraged experienced filmmakers to discover new ways of working. In this role, she was responsible for the production of Christopher Boe’s Offscreen which won the Young Cinema Award at Venice in 2007, the two-time Berlin Film Festival winner A Soap, and Princess which was selected for Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. Vinca currently consults for Zentropa and for many European film bodies.
‘We are thrilled that Christina Vachon, Laurence Coriat and Vinca Wiedemann have agreed to share their decades of experience in international independent, low-budget filmmaking with the participants of the 2008 IndiVision Project Lab,’ said AFC Chief Executive Chris Fitchett. ‘The insights of international advisors of this calibre will allow those selected for the Project Lab to develop as filmmakers and find creative solutions to realise the potential of their scripts.’
The IndiVision Project Lab is a high-level professional hothouse that supports Australian filmmakers in developing low-budget feature films. The core philosophy of the Lab is ‘whole-project development’ – simultaneously developing a film’s script, director’s vision and production methodology. The Lab program combines performance, shooting, visual language, production strategies, script development and financing. The AFC will announce the selected participants at a media launch in late January. The IndiVision Project Lab runs from Thursday 31 January to Wednesday 6 February 2008 in Sydney.
The Project Lab is part of the IndiVision initiative’s suite of practitioner development programs, including the IndiVision Production Fund, which provides funding of up to $1.25 million for low-budget features, the IndiVision Single Draft Development Fund, and IndiVision Marketing which provides marketing workshops and assistance to filmmakers to travel to festivals and markets.
[release from Avviso PR for the AFC]