Watch the Winning Screenplay Reading.
1. What is your screenplay about?
– Invincible is about being young and ambitious with the expectations of others weighing heavily on you. What I really love about the story of Arthas and his quest is his struggle to prevent the inevitable, to save his people from an unfathomable foe, ultimately heralding that which he set out to prevent. It’s a tragic story made even more tragic as we, the audience, realize that his path leads to his own undoing the more he tries.
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?
– It’s a late-youth drama set up in a fantasy/adventure setting.
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
– Game of Thrones paved the way for medieval fantasy with an edge. Suddenly dungeons and dragons became popular and even bigboys with tats were into it, and it was no longer the stereotypical mother’s basement-dwelling acne boy thing it used to be. Invincible is essentially about people put to the test when you peel back all the layers. We’ve had enough of these stories told through realistic settings and the like, but the fantasy universe is an excellent tool to highlight the problems we love to discuss through film. The fantasy genre is a great tool to manifest the stories that can connect with the audience. Invincible is the perfect setting and perfect story for a broad audience to connect to the main characters and relate while escaping reality for even just a brief moment – something we can all need in these trying times.
4. How would you describe this script in two words?
– Fucking Fantastic.
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
– Interstellar.
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?
– 4 years.
7. How many stories have you written?
– Oof, between 8 and 12 in both English and Danish.
8. What is your favorite song? (Or, what song have you listened to the most times in your life?)
– Anything Hans Zimmer. I’ve written some of my most intense scenes to Hans Zimmer, and I absolutely adore his music. I wrote one of the most intense scenes in Invincible listening to ‘No Time for Caution’. The scene in which the horse, Invincible, dies.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
– Fantasy is incredibly difficult to write, to build a universe from scratch and inform the audience of the laws and physics of the universe whilst also entertaining the audience and keeping them on their toes.
– The story is based on a game, and that is something I’ve struggled a lot with.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
– I really love editing and colourgrading.
– I love food.
– I’ve worked as a freelance modelscout, which is something I’ve loved doing a lot. I am still doing a lot of amateur photography. A different aspect of creativity.
11. You entered your screenplay via FilmFreeway. What has been your experiences working with the submission platform site?
– FilmFreeway is my prefered site. Smooth, easy to use.
12. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?
– Aspiring screenwriters are usually not the richest. It costs a fuckton of money to attend festivals. and at most we receive a laurel. If we pay even more, we may get some decent feedback we can adapt to. Sometimes we receive free feedback, which is worth a lot more to be honest. The idea of having my screenplay read out loud is a massive opportunity to really understand how my story is perceived, something I am very excited about. My best screenplays in Danish were usually done after a proper table-read.
Matthew Toffolo's Summary 