Hi, my name is Rebecca Wilson and I am an actor, writer and fight director originally from North Wales who now lives in London. I am also Jewish and a lot of my recent writing has centred around my Jewish identity.

I have created several short films which have been selected for various festivals with my film company Sisu Productions Films including ‘BITTEN’ and ‘Don’t You Want Me, Baby?’ I am also a theatre maker and am very interested in learning more about screenwriting and the film world.

I wanted to come on the Ulysses’ Shelter Screenwriters Residency to get space away from the UK to be inspired artistically. I love creating bilingual work and knew travelling out of the UK to an international film festival would be a great opportunity to discover new ways of creating work.

During my first few days I got used to my new landscape, discovered the area of Carrer De Trafalgar, just outside of Palma where I was staying and decided what writing project I would be spending my first few days focusing on. I chose to work on a pilot episode of a TV show I have been wanting to write for a while. I managed to finish it in 3 days as I had so many ideas building up to my residency. Once I was there and had peace and quiet I was able to get so much work done.

I met with the Mallorca film commission team and learnt about the work they do and more about the industry in Mallorca. It was fascinating to learn about how filming trends have changed, why Mallorca is a popular filming location, what filming was taking place on the island currently and more about the film industry in general.

Once the festival began I had less time to write but much more time to network and be inspired by internationally acclaimed artists.

The opening ceremony film was Alonso Ruizpalacios’ ‘La Cocina’. This bilingual feature film was very inspiring as I have been given feedback as a Welsh writer to find justification in the bilingual world of the script through character development and story necessity. This film was a great example of how to make an impactful bilingual film. I had a great time and it was amazing to be in such a beautiful location in the Teatre Principal.

The next day I had another writing day and I managed to complete the first draft of my pilot. It was so inspirational to be writing after attending the opening ceremony.

I then attended one of my favourite events which was a film talk with Oscar Winning Filmmaker Asif Kapadia. Hearing him talk about how much passion he puts into each film and how the networking works within the industry was very interesting. The main quote I remember from his talk was ‘finish the film’. I found this extremely motivating and I enjoyed the event a lot.

At the cineciut in Palma, this is where many of the films were shown, I then watched back to back short films within the theme of love “Strangelove” and “Forbidden love”. It was so great to watch so many short films as I could see why they were selected for the festival and that they worked so well together. Advice I kept hearing in talks was always to stick to who you are and make what only you can create. One of my favourite shorts was ‘El Martir’ directed

by Alejandro Mathe. Later on during my time at the festival I ended up having a wonderful conversation with him about what inspired the film, how he made it happen and what he hoped to create in the future. He was an incredibly inspiring filmmaker and we have kept in touch since the event.

The following day I attended a great talk presented by the ‘Girls on Film’ podcast ‘Women in Leadership’. Again it was an extremely inspiring and practical talk with a range of speakers from different sectors of the industry. I met a screenwriter from America at the talk and we went for coffee after the talk. It was great to hear about the idea she had written and entered into the competition and we again have kept in touch since the festival.

I then went to see the new Joker film after having a lovely dinner with a load of filmmakers I’d made friends with. The festival hosted a Q&A with the cinematographer Laurence Sher after the film. Hearing him talk about the concepts, the prep time and the shooting schedule was so interesting. He spoke candidly about how wonderful it was to work on a big budget film but that like every project there are always problems that need solving.

I then saw the comedy short films and knew some of the filmmakers so it was great to speak to them before and after seeing their films. One of my personal favourites was a short film which was set on a nudist colony! As you can imagine there were a lot of bum cheeks! It was very eye-opening to so many styles of comedy from so many countries. Knowing that comedy still hits when subtitles are used in a room full of people from so many backgrounds and countries was fascinating. Imagery is just so important in film and in all art forms. Again I went out for dinner with some of the filmmakers I met. It was great to discuss what we liked and disliked about the films we had just watched.

On Monday I was up nice and early to see award winning producer Kim Magnusson talk ‘Road to Oscar’. I loved hearing about his experiences throughout his career and it was surprising to hear how much the industry has and hasn’t changed in so many ways. We watched his first short film from the 70s and it still landed well in the room, the audience was very receptive. After the talk I attended the cafe con cine networking event and heard many people speak about their films and met more filmmakers. The setting was beautiful we were on the roof of the rialto living space and the sun was beaming down on us. If felt very luck to be in Mallorca.

Later in the afternoon I attended one of my favourite events which was the Go Girls! Short films. I found it very inspiring to see so many female led films and again it was wonderful to get talking to the creatives. One of my favourites was London based film about a ballet dancer and a Welsh based film about a new mother. Seeing how the British film style was slightly different was interesting.

The final film I watched on my very busy Monday was Jupiter. Now I hadn’t realised I would be watching this German film with Spanish subtitles! I must read the small print more. But actually it was an amazing experience because even without understanding any of the dialogue I completely understood the characters journey. I was gutted I missed The Outrun but I had to come to peace with not being able to see everything!! The director of Jupiter then spoke to us about his inspiration. What I found interesting was that the idea always came from one moment and then developed into something bigger. He had made the film as