Screenwriter and producer of X-Files coming to Romania

Frank Spotnitz, the screenwriter and producer of the X-Files series, is coming to Romania to hold a masterclass as part of the Full Moon Creative Lab project. It is his first visit to the country.

The masterclass is part of the second creative residency of the first edition of the Full Moon Creative Lab program, an initiative of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). The program will take place from March 7 to 13 and will include 12 screenwriters from Europe in thriller, horror, and fantasy.

The writers will reunite at the Bethlen-Haller Castle in Transylvania. Once there, they will develop their writing skills alongside international film industry experts.

As part of their training, the screenwriters will receive a masterclass from American writer and producer Frank Spotnitz, who is coming to Romania for the first time. With a career spanning over 25 years in television production, he is the writer and executive producer of one of the most successful TV series, The X-Files, as well as the two movies that followed. The X-Files won three Golden Globes for Best Drama Series, a Peabody Award, and was nominated for Emmy Awards for both screenplay and Best Drama Series.

Spotnitz is also the CEO and founder of Big Light Productions, a production company in London and Paris that specializes in international TV series, including drama, comedy, and documentaries such as Emmy winner The Man in the High Castle; Medici: Masters of Florence and two seasons of Medici: The Magnificent (RAI, Netflix, SFR Play); Indian Detective (Netflix, CTV); Ransom (CBS, Global, TF1, RTL); season three of Crossing Lines (Tandem Productions/StudioCanal); and season two of Transporter: The Series (TNT, M6, HBO Canada).

Drawing on his experience in television in both the US and Europe, Frank Spotnitz will discuss in the masterclass the values that help create and sustain successful storytellers.

The projects selected for the first edition of the Full Moon Creative Lab belong to screenwriters Adina Istrate (Romania), Giulio Rizzo (Italy), and Barbara Skubic (Slovenia). The three mentioned screenwriters will be joined by another nine scriptwriters from Romania, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, and Bulgaria.

Divided into three Writers’ Rooms, participants in the Full Moon Creative Lab will be guided by three facilitators, film industry professionals: Eilon Ratzkovsky (Israel), a producer with over 25 years of experience in film and TV production, Arnaud Louvet, a French screenwriter and producer involved in streaming platform series projects, and Romanian screenwriter and director Geo Doba, a graduate of the prestigious Serial Eyes Program at DFFB in Berlin, where she received the Big Light Writers’ Apprenticeship Award (2021).