Collective residencies / Cinema- Script writing I / Olot
IRENE MORAY
From Monday, 17 May 2021 to Monday, 31 May 2021
Bio
Irene Moray (1992) is a photographer and filmmaker from Barcelona. In 2012 she moves to Berlin directs her first fiction short film: Bad Lesbian.
After four years in Germany, she decides to return to her hometown where she has shot her next short film as a writer and director: Suc de síndria
(Watermelon Juice) premiered at Berlinale Shorts, nominee for European Film Awards and winner of the Goya Academy Award for Best Short Film.
Her debut feature film Sealskin has been selected at the Residency of the Spanish Academy of Cinema and at TIFF Filmmaker Lab for which she has
received the TIFF Filmmaker Lab Fellowship.
Project
We are going to be working in the script of Sealskin, my first feature as both director and screenwriter. The premise of the film is that women are disappearing. As in the world we live in, where female bodies vanish and oftentimes this is not even carried on the news. In Sealskin, I add a spark of magic realism: women become transparent little by little until they finally disappear.
The stay in Faberllull has been, above all, restful. I was eager to improve the script treatment I was carrying, and I found myself a little lost, not knowing where to start. The tutorials with Marçal Cebrian were very inspiring and I started working hard on a new seal skin structure.
From the window of the room where I worked, I could see the mountains and some spectacular clouds, and I covered part of the views with the colorful post-its that was sticking to the glass, a color for each character.
The meals served me, above all, to relax and get to know my classmates better. We each explained their processes, or we talked about things that had nothing to do with writing. It was nice to be able to share previous experiences, talk about what we had done wrong in the beginning, when we entered the industry. Hearing these stories I think made us feel less alone.
Cold or hot, I used to take a dip in the pool, so my head faded a little. Sometimes on the lawn we did yoga in the morning or even a little coworking, if it was sunny. We really worked in every corner of the hotel.
When my co-writers (Jan Matheu and Irene Solà) arrived, it was fun to be able to share the creative process as well and read aloud what I had been thinking about on my own. In the moments when things were not moving forward, we would walk around with our classmates, to La Fageda or to the center to have a vermouth in Olot and laugh a little.
Care has been vital. In times when I didn't know how to move forward, my classmates have been able to give me honest advice and make me laugh. It's very gratifying to see how everyone's projects are progressing and growing, and how eager they are to see them on screen someday.