Joadie Jurgova and Steven Owad are among the six screenwriters selected to participate in the 2015 edition of the WFF Praxis Screenwriters Lab, a feature script development program running during the Whistler Film Festival this December.

This year’s lab, however, includes a slight twist. Rather than select a round of new projects, six scripts from previous workshops are being invited to return for a four-day version of the lab. The purpose of the change was to give organizers enough time to shift the screenwriting program to one that runs from June to December, scheduled to start in 2016. In the new format, the early work on the screenplays will take place in June, with the second stage to take place in December during the festival when the participants have polished scripts.

At this year’s edition of the program, Jurgova will workshop her psychological drama Trespassers Will Be Executed and Owad will bring his drama Love in the Age of Terror to the lab. Andrew McEvoy’s The Sounding Line, Jesse Heffring’s Everything is Supernova, Katherine Wagner’s thriller Omerta and Sara Beth Edwards action/thriller The Waitress were also selected for the lab.

The program is jointly run by the Whistler Film Festival and the Vancouver-based Praxis Centre for Screenwriters. The lab focuses on taking feature-length projects from script to production via mentorship from industry experts, one-on-one industry meetings, a boot-camp pitch session and a master class. Participants can also attend Whistler screenings and industry events.

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