- «The Coronation of the Word» is one of the most famous literary competitions in Ukraine. How did you become the member of its jury?

Julia Chernyavska: «FRESH PRODUCTION» and «The Coronation of the Word» literary competition were just «doomed» to cooperate. The matter is that in the very beginning of the film market formation here in Ukraine, when there was a serious deficit of scripts and scriptwriters, our company decided to “work” with the contemporary Ukrainian prose. Thus, we started the close cooperation with the Ukrainian publishing houses, such as «Nora Druk», «Zelenyi Pes», «Folio», etc. As a result, «FRESH PRODUCTION» has screened many fictions of the famous Ukrainian writers, such as: Iren Rozdobudko, Valerii and Natalia Lapikury, Lada Lusina, Andrey Kokotiukha. And since all these authors were the winners of «The Coronation of the Word», in different years we set a goal to be sure to get acquainted with the competition, where the books of really high quality can be found.

- Many people consider this competition the only really stable and deserving attention here in Ukraine. In your opinion, what is the secret of such success?

Julia Chernyavska: First of all, the «Coronation of the Word» has proved itself to be the honest professional competition, which`s results are truly objective. Therefore, the authors are eager to send their works to “Coronation”. Secondly, perhaps the secret of success is the cornerstone of competition`s philosophy – to give a support to the worthy works in order to open the way to the market. This basic condition makes it really helpful and useful for everybody: for the participants, for the publishers and also for the film companies.

- Judging the works, in many cases, you decide their future. Don`t you feel scary taking such responsibility upon yourself?

Julia Chernyavska: The position of Company`s General producer requires the ability to make the difficult decisions and to bear responsibility for them, so I can say that I am used to. Besides, the responsibility is «shared» by all the members of the jury, very experienced and objective professionals.

- You have to read numerous novels and screenplays, how do you find time for it?

Julia Chernyavska: The thing is that I perceive this process as my favorite job. This means that I just enjoy the reading of the scripts. Actually, you always take a dip into a new adventure with the very first pages, hoping that it will be an amazing one… and the start of a new film project, of course! This can be compared with the search of a hidden treasure, and it`s quite cool.

- In which categories you act as a jury member?

Julia Chernyavska: In two categories: “screenplays”, which is quite natural for the Film Company representative; and «Novels», since we`re experienced in the adaptation of prose for films.

- What can you say about the quality of the screenplays sent to the competition?

Julia Chernyavska:  It is still quite difficult to fix the average quality-level for all the submitted works, but the progress is obvious. We already can deal with the works which deserve to be considered as the screenplays!

- You have already the 4 years long experience of jury membership. Could you name the work which has made the biggest impression on you?

Julia Chernyavska: It was «Frosyas` Love» presented to the competition one and a half years ago. It was not the script yet but the treatment. Every member of the jury was impressed, not only me, and it won the competition. I believe «Frosyas` Love» has a huge potential, so I`d like to produce it. Also this year I was impressed by several works. But I can not mention them until the competition is not over.

- You also are a writer. Do you plan to participate in the future competition?

Julia Chernyavska: Yes, but not me personally! “Fresh Production” plans to submit one of our scripts.

- And what about your jury membership in such case?

Julia Chernyavska: In such case you`ll not find me among the jury members, be sure!

Back to list