Archives | 2003 | Script Contests

2nd Edition of the Script Contest - "Borders", 2003

After the success of the first edition, organizations of six new countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland and UK) became members of the NISI MASA network.
In 2003 the competition was thus organised in 13 countries from May to the end of August, on the theme "Borders".

NISI MASA got almost 500 scripts, each country having to choose two finalists before the jury meeting.

Out of those 26 pre-selected scripts translated into English, the jury, which gathered December 2003 in Courmayeur, Italy, gave three prizes –worth 4.000 euros each this time- to the following scripts:

- Rehearsals, by Galina Dimitrova (Bulgaria)
Prague, August 1968. A theatre professor makes up stories with his Bulgarian student. A story of desillusions coming with the end of the Prague Spring.

- The Crossing, by Nathaniel Tapley (U.K.)
Two frontier guards face each other and get bored stiff. A Monty Python’s style black comedy on the absurdy of borders.

- Mundo Pequeno, by Jorge Vaz Nande (Portugal)
On the main square of a village in Alentejo, a mad man claims to create his own new country. A comical portrait gallery: the mayor, the policeman, and the priest facing the crazy French man.

2003 was also the first year to organise a workshop for the finalists of the competition. "Crossing Borders" took place in Caen, France, in April 2004. The aim of this meeting was to make the finalists of the contest meet and also communicate around the topics debated in their scripts. Besides public readings of the scripts, debates and script workshops were carried out.