Writer's Day
Humor sells:
Funny on demand?
With the SRF Writer's Day, Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) are focusing on screenwriting and material development in an early stage.
The 18th Zurich Film Festival (22.09.-2.10.22) was all about how humor and how to write funny. Helen Fielding, the creator of the character Bridget Jones, spoke in a ZFF Masterclass about how a 'funny' cult character is formed on paper. The session was followed by a SRF panel with Natascha Beller, Viktor Giacobbo, André Küttel and Willibald Ruch, who discussed how humor in Switzerland sells the best.
ZFF Masterclass with Helen Fielding
Helen Fielding is a British novelist screenwriter and journalist, and creator of the character Bridget Jones . Helen is author of six globally bestselling novels including "Bridget Jones Diary", "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason", "Bridget Jones’Baby", and "Bridget Jones: Mad about the boy". She was part of the screenwriting team for the first three Bridget movies and is currently writing and developing the fourth. She spent many years working in BBC entertainment and later as a journalist for the BBC and newspapers in Britain as well as East Africa. She divides her time between London and Los Angeles.
SRF Panel – humor sells
Natascha Beller regularly produces fits of laughter, whether with the film Die fruchtbaren Jahre sind vorbei or as the author of Advent, Advent and the viral hit America First, Switzerland Second. Viktor Giacobbo collects job titles - he's even been called the "madam of Swiss humor." André Küttel is a thoroughbred writer: his clients include Michael Elsener and Massimo Rocchi. He is currently writing for the SRF series Die Beschatter. Willibald Ruch is a professor of personality psychology and diagnostics and has been researching the mechanisms of humor for decades.
Impressions
© Victoria Zaza for ZFF
