Libertine’s Big Break unearths great New Zealand writing talent and two new film projects
24 September 2014
Libertine Pictures' Big Break talent search has already generated two new feature film projects with previously unproduced New Zealand writers.
The Big Break search for new writing talent has wrapped with Libertine optioning screenplays from Kristi Barnett and Nic
Gorman. The company will now work with the writers to develop their scripts with a view to putting them into production.
Libertine’s joint managing director Richard Fletcher says discussions are also continuing with several other writers and
their work may also be optioned.
The Big Break initiative, launched in February, was an open invitation to all New Zealand writers to pitch their movie ideas and
writing talent to Libertine by submitting a synopsis and sample pages of script.
Richard Fletcher said the company was overwhelmed by the response from writers, who submitted 225 film ideas by the
mid-April closing date.
The company was delighted to put two specific projects into development immediately, but was equally pleased that Big
Break had identified so many writers the company would like to work with, he says.
Libertine's Creative Director, writer Neil Cross says Big Break was as much about identifying writing talent as specific film projects.
"Writing is hard work — but not as hard as getting your work read and taken seriously. I was never in any doubt that in
New Zealand there existed a vast pool of untapped talent; passionate, talented writers who just needed a chance to be
heard. Even so, I was blown away by the number and quality of submissions to Big Break."
Fletcher says 225 is many more submissions than expected.
"We wanted to carefully consider each writer's work, so it's taken a few months of reading and discussion by our
selection team.”
Emily Anderton, Libertine’s head of development, is meeting with a further dozen writers whose work impressed but whose
specific film idea submitted would not able to be made by Libertine.
She says “we now have a group of writers whose ability we really rate and we have invited them to come back to us with
new ideas. As well as being interested their own original material, we have now widened our pool of writers who we can
draw on to work on other projects."