Full Circle Lab held its first-ever edition in the Philippines last year in collaboration with FDCP, .

MANILA, PHILIPPINES, AUGUST 24, 2020 -- Full Circle Lab Philippines, a collaboration between Film Development Council of the Philippines and Matthieu Darras, current director of Full Circle Lab and former Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Torino Film Lab will take place via an online edition. Full Circle Lab Philippines will push through with its expanded program featuring four different film labs to benefit 20 projects from the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Initially scheduled for April until it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s edition of Full Circle Lab Philippine will take place from September 15 to September 30 as we celebrate the official closing of the Philippine Cinema Centennial . During this period, it will hold three film labs for projects in development across the genres of fiction, series, and animation. 16 projects will be supported through these development labs, with eight projects under fiction and four projects each under series and animation. Additionally, Full Circle Lab Philippines will hold First Cut Lab which targets feature films at the editing stage. Four projects in the editing stage will participate in this year’s edition of First Cut Lab.

The Full Circle Lab Philippines will also be featured in online masterclasses and public sessions preceding the two-week film lab through the FDCP Film Industry Conference (FIC). The Full Circle Lab joins FIC in its aim to bring together international experts and stakeholders to share and discuss the latest trends, opportunities, platforms, and cooperation that Filipino producers and filmmakers can explore for the development, production, and distribution of their projects with the intent of crossing over beyond local borders. Scheduled from September 12 to 14, FIC will feature various mentors from Full Circle Lab as they share their areas of expertise and how the international film industry is adapting to the new normal in light of the pandemic. 

Discussing the new platform and participants of FCL, FDCP Chairperson and CEO Liza Diño said, “We are proud that as a continuation of the First Cut Lab last year, the Full Circle Lab this September pursues its empowerment and development of Filipino projects and filmmakers, while also expanding the participation of Southeast Asian filmmakers as well. This is in fulfilment of our commitment to our ASEAN partners to encourage collaboration in the region among our filmmakers as supported by the government’s film commissions that would lead to stories and narratives that are proudly our region’s own and can be shared among our countries’ markets and audiences.”

Mentors from this year's edition of Full Circle Lab will also participate in the online edition of FDCP's Film Industry Conference.

“We are also grateful to the mentors of the Full Circle Lab who will be reaching a broader audience as they will participate in the FDCP Film Industry Conference masterclass and sessions so that they may share to more of our filmmakers, students, and enthusiasts the current state of the global film industry and how they envision it adapting to the new normal during and post-pandemic,” she added.

Speaking to FDCP, Full Circle Lab director Matthieu Daras discussed the program’s move to an online platform saying, “Most exciting with Full Circle Lab’s move to an online platform is the opportunity to involve a very large scope of industry advisors from different parts of the world, who would not necessarily be available in the case of a physical event. For instance, we will have the privilege to have the participation of Nashen Moodley, Sydney Film Festival director, or Mike Goodridge, artistic director of Macau FF, in the First Cut Lab for films at editing stage.”

This will be Full Circle Lab’s second year in the Philippines, where it aims to support local filmmaking talent by bringing in international film industry veterans to lead film labs meant to tap into a project’s creative potential. This year’s edition features 12 mentors across the four separate film labs. 

The mentors for the fiction lab will be script consultants Ayman El Amir and Helen Beltrame-Linne as well as producers Giovanni Pompili and Meiske Taurisia. Series lab will be led by script consultant Mmbatho Kau and producer Naomi Levari. Animation lab, by writer and script consultant Aleksandra Swierk and producer Juraj Krashonorsky. And First Cut Lab by Full Circle Lab director Matthieu Daras and editors Benjamin Mirguet, Matthieu Taponier, and Maya Maffioli. Read more about the mentors below.

LAB MENTORS

MATTHIEU DARRAS

Matthieu Darras designs and leads several programs of film/talent development and consultancy that are active worldwide: the First Cut Lab, the Pop Up Film Residency, and the Full Circle Lab. Previously, he founded and directed the European Network of Young Cinema NISI MASA, wrote for the film magazine Positif, and was the artistic director of the TorinoFilmLab. Matthieu Darras worked for major film festivals in Europe: as a programmer for the Cannes Critics’ Week, as a consultant for the Venice Film Festival, and as a delegate for the San Sebastian Film Festival. He also directed the Bratislava Film Festival.

IZABEL IGEL

EAVE and Wajda School graduated film producer with a background in television and advertising production Her first feature “Floating Skyscrapers” by Tomasz Wasilewski premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win the top prize in the East of the West competition at the Karlovy Vary IFF. She is now working on Grzegorz Mołda debut film and her first commercial project. Izabela also serves as a trainer for several institutions: Story Lab, Wajda Audiovisual Center, Łódź Film School.

FICTION LAB

AYMAN EL AMIR

Script Consultant

Ayman El Amir is a script consultant and film producer from Egypt. He worked as a script consultant for many programs, labs and institutes including TorinoFilmLab, Doha Film Institute, The Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, International Marrakesh Film Festival Atlas Workshop and The Royal Film Commission of Jordan. As a producer, his latest work includes the short fiction, FAKH, selected for the official competition of Semaine de la Critique at Cannes Film Festival 2019 and the feature documentary HAPPILY EVER AFTER, which premiered at IDFA 2016.

HELEN BELTRAME-LINNÉ

Script Consultant

Helen Beltrame graduated from Brazil’s most prestigious Law School in 1998 and worked as a corporate lawyer before attending Film Studies in Paris in 2005-2006. In 2010 Helen joined Zazen Produções for the independent distribution of the Brazilian all-time box office record, “Elite Squad: The Enemy Within” (2010). In 2014 Helen was hired to be the CEO of The Bergman Center Foundation on Fårö and festival director of the Bergman Week, which she did for 3 years. After serving as editor for Folha de São Paulo, Helen has been dedicated to screenwriting and film consulting since early 2019.

GIOVANNI POMPILI

Producer

Giovanni Pompili is a creative producer dedicated to discovering emerging talents and supporting their visions. His multi-award winning films – shorts and features, fiction and non fiction –  have enjoyed significant worldwide success, screening in Official Competition in Cannes, Venezia, Toronto, Locarno and Busan. Lately factual credits include the feature-length debut SOLE by Carlo Sironi an italian- polish coproduction handled by Luxbox. He is a member of Eave, Eurodoc, Producers’s Network and Berlinale Talents. He shares his expertise teaching production at IED in Rome and tutoring projects in development workshops such as Full Circle Lab.

MEISKE TAURISIA

Producer

She entered the film industry in 2004, and co-founded Babibutafilm in 2007. She produced Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (2008, Rotterdam-Fipresci Award), Postcards from the Zoo (2012, Berlinale), The Fox Exploits the Tiger’s Might (2015, Cannes), to name a few. In 2016 she co-founded Palari Films and produced Posesif (2017, SGIFF), Aruna & Her Palate (2018, Culinary Cinema, Berlinale). Both films won awards at Festival Film Indonesia such as Best Director, Best Actor & Actress, Best Scenario Adaptation & Best Supporting Actor. In 2013 she founded Yayasan Cipta Citra Indonesia, a foundation that focuses on supporting the independent film scenes in Indonesia in various formats.

SERIES LAB

MMABATHO KAU

Script Consultant

Since starting her career over 15 years ago, she has worked as a producer, broadcast and development executive as well as a script consultant on various films. Over the years, she produced drama series, reality shows as well as lifestyle shows for various broadcasters in South Africa. Beyond her work as a producer, she has a deep passion for helping writers find the heart of their story through her work as a script consultant. The best scripts come when a writer is given permission to look beyond what they know. She owns a company called Raindrop Media, which she registered in 2014. The purpose of the company is to develop and produce film and television projects which tell African stories that have strong global resonance.

NAOMI LEVARI

Producer

Naomi Levari is a TV and film producer, script editor and a lecturer. Black Sheep Film Productions, under her management, has produced five prime time TV series to date and is now busy preparing its sixth series.  “Mama’s Angel” Black Sheep’s recent TV series, which Levari produced and edited, premiered at the official competition of Series Mania and has been distributed in many territories including the US and the UK. Naomi lectures about production and show running and conducts one to one mentoring for writers.

ANIMATION LAB

ALEKSANDRA ŚWIERK

Writer & Script Consultant

In her professional career she has assisted in the development of almost a hundred scripts within different workshops as a tutor and as a freelance consultant. Consulting, writing and co-writing animations is a big part of her professional experience, she collaborates with top Polish animation producers, such as Animoon, EGoFILM, Badi Badi. Aleksandra has co-funded Polish script development workshop Atelier Scenariuszowe. She has been working for numerous selection committees and jury panels, including Krakow Film Festival, ScriptWars award, One Movie Project, TorinoFilmLab, Less Is More, and Sources2. 

JURAJ KRASNOHORSKY 

Producer

Juraj Krasnohorsky is a film producer based in Bratislava. In 2010 he founded Artichoke and released his debut feature film as director of Tigers in the City (2012). In 2016 his co-produced animated short film Superbia (2016) by Luca Tóth competed at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. As a creative producer he currently works on several animated, feature length and documentary films, such as the Eurimages supported 2D/3D animated feature film for adults White Plastic Sky (in production) by Tibor Bánóczki & Sarolta Szabó and animated stop-motion feature film for children Of Unwanted Things and People (in production), winner of the Eurimages Co-production Development Award at Cartoon Movie 2019. Juraj is an EAVE alumni and head of studies of the CEE Animation Workshop.

FIRST CUT LAB

MATTHIEU DARRAS

Matthieu Darras designs and leads several programs of film/talent development and consultancy that are active worldwide: the First Cut Lab, the Pop Up Film Residency, and the Full Circle Lab. Previously, he founded and directed the European Network of Young Cinema NISI MASA, wrote for the film magazine Positif, and was the artistic director of the TorinoFilmLab. Matthieu Darras worked for major film festivals in Europe: as a programmer for the Cannes Critics’ Week, as a consultant for the Venice Film Festival, and as a delegate for the San Sebastian Film Festival. He also directed the Bratislava Film Festival.

BENJAMIN MIRGUET

Editor

Benjamin Mirguet is an editor, trainer, director, and festival programmer. As an editor, he was involved in projects such as “Batalla En El Cielo” by Carlos Reygadas, “Meteora” by Spiros Stathoulopoulos,” 40 Days Of Silence” by Saodat Ismailova, “Dau” by Ilya Khrzhanovski, “Deadweight” by Axel Koenzen, “The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers” by Ben Rivers, “Together Forever” by Lina Luzyte and “Rey” by Niles Atallah, premiering in international festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam and Karlovy Vary. Since 2015, he runs First Cut Lab together with Matthieu Darras. In 2018, he was editing tutor for 5 projects in QUMRA (Doha Film Institute), a workshop dedicated to films in post production. He was part of the selection committee for Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2010 and 2011. 

MATTHIEU TAPONIER

Editor

Born in 1982, Matthieu Taponier is a Franco-American script consultant, screenwriter and film editor. After studying Modern Literature in Paris, he completed an MFA in filmmaking at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was trained as a story editor by the TorinoFilmLab Script&Pitch program in 2013 and has since tutored in workshops such as Critic’s Week Next Step program, Biennale College-Cinema and Le Groupe Ouest (Cross Chanel Film Lab, Puissance & Ame). He collaborated both as a script consultant and film editor on Son of Saul by László Nemes (Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival 2015, Oscar 2016 for Best Foreign Language Film), and as co-writer and film editor on Nemes’ second feature film, Sunset, that premiered in competition in Venice in 2018.

MAYA MAFFIOLI

Editor

Italo-British editor Maya Maffioli grew up in Italy but settled in London in the early 2000s. It was in the UK that she started working in post production. In 2006-2008 she attended the editing MA at the National Film and Television School. At film school she met director Michael Pearce and collaborated with him on his two BAFTA nominated shorts RITE ( 2010 ) and KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES ( 2013 ), and later on editing his feature debut BEAST which won a BAFTA for Best Debut in 2019. Maya has worked on an array of projects, including the art film project DAU by Russian director Ilya Khrzanovsky, the Netflix-backed documentary KINGDOM OF US (directed by Lucy Cohen) and has recently worked with Sarah Gavron on the feature film ROCKS, which opened at the 2019 TIFF Platform section and has been shown in several international festivals.