European Screenplay Library

There is a significant lack of European film and television scripts available for students to read and use in their film and screenwriting studies, a script library curated by screenwriting professionals from different European universities would go a long way to address that.

Currently, teaching scriptwriting mainly relies on Anglo-American scripts, particularly on those from Hollywood, which limits exposure to Europe's own rich storytelling tradition in films and television. Finding suitable European scripts often involves time-consuming negotiations with producers or authors, in addition to the significant linguistic plurality of Europe, making it a challenging material for educators to incorporate into teaching. Because of this, European scripts are often excluded from a proper academic and pedagogical treatment, negatively affecting engagement with the rich European filmmaking heritage. In essence, we are teaching future European screenwriters based on Hollywood screenplays. This needs adjustment.

A broad and diverse group of the European University FilmEU’s scholars, filmmakers, lecturers, and students aim to tackle this concern by forming a working group. The group would, firstly, create an initial list of scripts for consideration for a European Screenplay Library – the outcome of the proposed project. The next steps will be acquiring the rights to the scripts and commissioning the translations. Once the scripts are ready for publishing, they would be made available to FilmEU members as a teaching material and research resource. We are planning to include interviews with the authors and other study materials with the screenplays.

After a successful pilot project, it would be our goal to keep the library running and growing so it could become a true library of European screenplays and screenwriting resources.

Team

• Andris Feldmanis
• Eilish Kent
• Possidónio Cachapa
• Zuzana Ferenczova
• Eglė Vertelytė