Inspiration, performance and feedback come together in Intercut, an engaging evening of staged readings from original scripts by aspiring screenwriters from the Department of Film, performed by students from the Department of Theatre. This collaborative event takes place February 8 at 7pm in the Eleanor Winters Art Gallery, Room 123 Winters College
By pooling their talents, the student screenwriters have an opportunity to hone their scriptwriting technique in a “live” setting, while their fellow theatre students get a chance to refine their performance skills.
Feedback is important for screenwriters who are looking to polish their scripts, so audience members are also key players in Intercut: they’re invited to react critically to the works-in-progress and share their 
impressions with their peers.
Intercut features dramatized excerpts from six screenplays, each about 10-20 minutes long. Here’s a glimpse of the offerings:
Hard Hat Mac, by Daniel Eskin (right), is the story of high school sweethearts Mac and Louise, who find themselves in a marital crisis 20 years later.
An alumnus of the Winnipeg Film Group, Eskin has made seven short films and a feature-length documentary and is currently editing his first feature film.
Spin, by Ren Lewin (right), is set in Cold War Hollywood – a dangerous time for writers. The Red Scare is tightening its grip, testing old loyalties and creating new ones. As established writers are put out to pasture, eager newcomers fill their slots. One such up-and-comer relies on a taboo source to keep his Hollywood dreams afloat.
Lewin worked for several years as a theatre and film critic before turning to screenwriting. He is currently working on a feature screenplay and will be completing his final year of film studies next year.
The Agency by Jorge Manzano (left) features Tejano, a professional assassin who can no longer do the job. He lets his boss at “The Agency” know of his desire to retire but they want him to do one last assignment: to assassinate his former comrade-in-arms, The Colonel, a turncoat who runs guns and drugs for the enemies of the Western world.
Chilean-born Manzano is currently enrolled in the Masters program in screenwriting. His first film, Johnny Greyeyes, premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2000 and has won several awards.
California Dreaming by Tudor Voican (right) unfolds in a small Romanian community during the Balkan War. The Stationmaster, a local mobster, stops a NATO train which is crossing Romania without proper papers. A love story develops between an American soldier and the stationmaster’s daughter, who is desperately trying to leave the dusty village.
A graduate of the Romanian National Film School, Voican’s movies have been shown at more than 100 film festivals worldwide and one of his productions was nominated for the European Academy Awards for Best Short Film.
Airstream Trailer, by Marco Scarpetta and Collin Wiancko (left), is an ensemble comedy about a group of friends in East Los Angeles who are trying to make an honest living despite the street-hustling neighbourhood in which they live. When their business hits a roadblock, they turn for help to the local criminal kingpin. Stumbling upon an enormous cache of unprocessed cocaine stashed away in an Airstream trailer, they see an opportunity to settle their debt with the criminals and gain the capital needed to get their business back on track.
Scarpetta has been honing his writing skills for the past decade. Wiancko, who is studying both business and film at York, works as a location manager and on the production of commercials in the Toronto area. He has written for comic books and is currently working on several different screenplays.
In Santiago Yazigi’s Every Day’s Goodbye, strange symptoms force two former lovers to face each other. Upon reconnecting, they attempt to heal past wounds and have a second chance together. Their problem is that they live in different countries. Their dilemma is that he’s in a mental hospital and she thinks she’s absolutely nuts.
Yazigi studied journalism and film in Chile and fiction film writing in Barcelona before joining York’s film program. His publication credits include editing the book of aphorisms Te Doy Mi Palabra (I Give You My Word). The screenplay, Every Day’s Goodbye, is his thesis project.
These scripts will be brought to life with minimal staging, props and costumes by the following York actors: Aris Athanasopoulos, Shauna Bradley, Josie Cacciola, Collin deBourcier, Matt Draper, Daniel Judes, Stephanie Jung, Mark Keller, Julia Lefebvre, Amber Pilon and Scott Stephenson.
Intercut is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the filmmaker’s art and immerse yourself in the techniques, texture and colour of setting words for the screen. The reading is sponsored by the Office of the Master, Winters College. Admission is free. Refreshments will be provided.
This article was submitted to YFile by Mary-Lou Schagena in the Faculty of Fine Arts.