Scriptwriter Services

Here is how this works in practice. We supply scriptwriters who develop screenplays, treatments and story material for Austrian shoots. Our scriptwriters work across feature films, television series, documentary and commercials, handling first concepts, adaptations and rewrites, and working closely with the director and producer through development. We brief them on your project, genre and audience, then confirm openings against your development timeline.

Here is the short of it. Many of our scriptwriters trained at the Filmakademie Wien, the film academy of the mdw, and they write fluently in German and English — valuable for global co-productions that need scripts working in both languages. We contract under the Kollektivvertrag terms set by the Fachverband der Film- und Musikwirtschaft within the WKO.

Set up the scriptwriter with the creative producer and director so the screenplay develops in step with the project's funding and schedule.

Here is what we have to work with. Austria has a profound literary heritage that feeds its screenwriting. Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century was a centre of European letters. Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Karl Kraus shaped a custom of psychological insight and social observation that still marks Austrian storytelling.

Here is the layout. That sensibility runs directly into the country's cinema: Michael Haneke writes his own screenplays. His scripts for 'The White Ribbon', 'Amour' and 'The Piano Teacher' show the same precision and moral seriousness. Stefan Ruzowitzky's 'The Counterfeiters' and Goetz Spielmann's 'Revanche' earned Academy recognition on the strength of their writing.

Here is how the work shapes up. The auteur model — writer-directors such as Jessica Hausner and Ulrich Seidl — is central to how Austria makes films. The Filmakademie Wien trains writers in this custom. Their work is celebrated at the Viennale, the Diagonale in Graz and the Oesterreichischer Filmpreis.