The Pokaži jezik (Show Your Tongue) school was founded in 1998 as part of the Open Society Institute – Slovenia. Its goals are:

1. to open up and support the development of scriptwriting in Slovenia
2. to educate writers who wish to write for film, but who have not chosen to attend the relevant academy
3. to offer promising scriptwriters a possibility, after finishing the course, to further improve their work in participation withestablished film makers
4. to put the authors of succesful scripts in contact with producers at home and abroad
5. to send the most successful participants to similar schools throughout Europe in order to supplement the knowledge they have gained
6. to contribute to the development of existing scripts and thus, in participation with the Film Fund of Slovenia, Slovene television, producers and others, modernize and reduce the cost of film production in Slovenia

CASTING

Each December, the School advertises for applicants and then chooses a muximum of fifteen candidates who wil, during a workshop the following spring, write a draft version of a script for a feature film. In the autumn, after individual work and further assessment, the school decides which script to support and facilitates free assistance with further improvement.
 

ASSISTANTS AND STARS

The school's external collaborators are established film makers from home and abroad who, through lectures, analyses and talks on script development, open up various aspects of scriptwriting and help course participants find solutions to their scriptwriting problems. Among others, Yvette Biro, Srdjan Karanović, Dušan Makavejev, David Gothard, Branko Baletić, Brina Svit, Irena Krčelić and Vladimir Blaževski have already participated in this way.
 

EVENING PERFORMANCES

The School sees Ljubljana as a city where it is possible to meet and listen to film makers with differing aestetic directions and creative views, so it invites the wider public to their talks and lectures.
 

LOCATIONS

An intensive scriptwriting workshop is held each spring, split into three parts of three days; it takes place outside Ljubljana, inisolated and comfortable surroundings, which enables the participants to focus all their attention on the writing. Lectures given by guest directors, scriptwriters and film teoreticians for the wider public are held at the Slovenski gledališki muzej (the Slovene Theatre Museum) in Ljubljana, whilst film projections take place on the same days at the Slovenska kinoteka (the Slovene Cinemateque).
 

CO-PRODUCERS

The initiative of the OSI-Slovenia has been supported by the Open Society Arts&Culture Network Programs (Film Training Program and the Cultural Link Network Program), and by Mobitel, the national mobile phone company. The Slovenian organisations which co-operate with the school are the Slovene Cinemateque, the Film Fund of Slovenia, Nova Gorica High School and the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television.
 

LIBRARY

Show Your Tongue, within a collection of book with the same title, publishes film scripts as well as books on scriptwriting and film making. So far, the following have been published:

1. Yvette Biro, TO DRESS A NUDE, exercises in scriptwriting;
2. Miha Mazzini, A MARCH TOWARDS THE SCRIPT, two instruction books and three scrpts;
3. Several Authors, THE LAST STATION: CINEMA, selected lectures from the Show Your Tongue scriptwriting school 98;
4. Hanif Kureishi, THE RAINBOW SIGN, essays and a diary of a screenwriter;
5. Jean-Claude Carriere and Pascal Bonitzer, EXERCICE DU SCENARIO.

ENTRY FEE

The course, accomodation, food and other costs incurred during the scriptwriting process are free for the chosen candidates; also free are the talks with guest directors and scriptwriters as well as their subsequent supervision and doctoring of the finished scripts, created during the course.