2014 Joplin Winner Optioned by Victoria Films

The 2014 Joplin Award winning script, The Longest Birthday, authored by Savion Einstein, has been optioned for production by Victoria Films and was presented at the Venice Film Market pitching forum.

Each year, BlueCat grants the Joplin Award to the best feature screenplay submitted from outside of the United States, United Kingdom, or Canada. Savion is a former television producer from Israel. She left her role as producer several years ago to focus solely on writing.

The Longest Birthday is the story of a mother and her son who is dying from terminal cancer. Together, they travel from Israel to Los Angeles to make his last birthday the best, as well as the longest due to their traveling across time zones.

Savion spoke with BlueCat of The Longest Birthday‘s success, “Anna [Dziembowska] and Maxim [Dashkin] of Victoria Films first learned of my script when it won the Joplin Award. After the table read that BlueCat held for the script, I did a pretty major rewrite that has no doubt made the script better and stronger, and I’m sure has contributed to some of its recent success. So, needless to say, BlueCat’s role in this has been tremendous!”

At the Venice Film Market, Roskino, a state funded organization responsible for promoting the Russian film industry, awarded grants to four projects based on the Venice pitching forum. The grants are meant to encourage international co-production, and The Longest Birthday was among the top four selected.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Katya Mtsitouridze, CEO of Roskino, about the grants, and she is confident that, “no project went unnoticed and each one is bound to enjoy success.”

Such success for The Longest Birthday continues to grow. “It was also selected to the upcoming Film London Production Finance Market and is one of the four projects participating at B’EST EAVE this year,” says Savion. “Wish us good luck!”

In its ninth year, the Film London Production Finance Market also seeks to encourage international co-production by connecting international producers and financiers. The Baltic Bridge East by West (B’EST) works in conjunction with the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) to offer workshops for a select number of feature film projects.

We at BlueCat wish Savion the best of luck with The Longest Birthday and in all of her future endeavors. For more from Savion, check out her exclusive BlueCat interview.