Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer and filmmaker known for his short stories, graphic novels,
and scriptwriting for film and television. Etgar’s first feature film, which he directed with his
wife Shira Geffen won the Golden Camera award in the Cannes Film Festival. His books have
received international acclaim and have been published in more than 22 languages.
As a filmmaker, Keret’s first short film Skin Deep won prizes at several international film
festivals, and was awarded an Israeli Oscar. Jellyfish , was his first feature film as a director.
As well as winning the Camera D’Or at Cannes he and his partner Shira Geffen won the Best
Director Award from the French Artists and Writers’ Guild. Keret has also worked in Israeli
television and film. In 2006, Wristcutters: A Love Story, a dark comedy/love story based on
Keret’s novella Kneller’s Happy Campers, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
$9.99, a stop motion animated feature film, was released in 2009. Written by Keret and
directed by Tatia Rosenthal and featuring the voices of Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia.
Over 40 short films have been based on his stories. In 2010 a short feature film based on
Keret’s story was released. An Exclusive novella was adapted and directed by the young Polish
director Krzysztof Szot. The film, also known as Wyłączność, was presented at the Cannes Film
Festival.
As a writer Keret’s first published work was Pipelines, His second book, Missing Kissinger,
caught the attention of the general public. In 1998, Keret published Kneller’s Happy Campers.
His collection The Nimrod Flipout was chosen by the L.A. Times and the Boston Phoenix as
one of the best books of 2006. In 2007 he was shortlisted for “the world’s richest short story
award”, for his collection Missing Kissinger. In Israel he has received the Book Publishers
Association’s Platinum Prize several times, as well as the Prime Minister’s Prize, and the
Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Prize. In 2006 he was chosen as an outstanding artist of the
prestigious Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation.
In 1993 he won the first prize in the Alternative Theater Festival in Akko for Entebbe: A
Musical, which he wrote with Jonathan Bar Giora.
In 2010, Keret received the Chevalier (Knight) Medallion of France’s Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres.

What others have to say about Etgar:
“A brilliant writer…completely unlike any writer I know. The voice of the next generation.” — Salman Rushdie
“Keret can do more with six . . . paragraphs than most writers can with 600 pages.” — Kyle Smith, People
“One of the most important writers alive – enchantingly witty” – Clive James

Workshop Description
Over two days the workshop will discuss the principles and methods of writing. You will be given insight of problems encountered in depiction of characters and plot. Examples from Keret’s work inprose writing and films will be presented discussed and analyzed.
The workshop will stimulate story ideas, help writers develop those stories and find theirvoices. It will also pay attention to the writing process and look at methods to promote regular writing habits. A variety of exercises and explanations of different aspects of storytelling will be presented. These exercises might seed new ideas but also aim to open the participants’ minds to new ways of thinking. It will also provide you with the concepts and practices you need to be aware of before diving in, such as Ideas generation, theme, plot, tone and character.
The workshop will only be available to a small group of 25 people maximum, enabling the one on one exchange of knowledge and feedback.
In the workshop Etgar will also explore and explain his 10 Commandments for writing, which are the following:

1. Make sure you enjoy writing.
Writers always like to say how hard the writing process is and how much suffering it causes.
They’re lying. People don’t like to admit they make a living from something they genuinely
enjoy.
Writing is a way to live another life. Many other lives. The lives of countless people whom
you’ve never been, but who are completely you. Every time you sit down and face a page and
try—even if you don’t succeed—be grateful for the opportunity to expand the scope of your
life. It’s fun. It’s groovy. It’s dandy. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

2. Love your characters.
For a character to be real, there has to be at least one person in this world capable of loving it
and understanding it, whether they like what the character does or not. You’re the mother and
the father of the characters you create. If you can’t love them, nobody can.

3. When you’re writing, you don’t owe anything to anyone.
In real life, if you don’t behave yourself, you’ll wind up in jail or in an institution, but in writing,
anything goes. If there’s a character in your story who appeals to you, kiss it. If there’s a carpet
in your story that you hate, set fire to it right in the middle of the living room. When it comes
to writing, you can destroy entire planets and eradicate whole civilizations with the click of a
key, and an hour later, when the old lady from the floor below sees you in the hallway, she’ll
still say hello.

4. Always start from the middle.
The beginning is like the scorched edge of a cake that’s touched the cake pan. You may need it
just to get going, but it isn’t really edible.

5. Try not to know how it ends.
Curiosity is a powerful force. Don’t let go of it. When you’re about to write a story or a chapter,
take control of the situation and of your characters’ motives, but always let yourself be
surprised by the twists in the plot.

6. Don’t use anything just because “that’s how it always is.”
Paragraphing, quotation marks, characters that still go by the same name even though you’ve
turned the page: all those are just conventions that exist to serve you. If they don’t work,
forget about them. The fact that a particular rule applies in every book you’ve ever read
doesn’t mean it has to apply in your book too.

7. Write like yourself.
If you try to write like Nabokov, there will always be at least one person (whose name is
Nabokov) who’ll do it better than you. But when it comes to writing the way you do, you’ll
always be the world champion at being yourself.

8. Make sure you’re all alone in the room when you write.
Even if writing in cafés sounds romantic, having other people around you is likely to make you
conform, whether you realize it or not. When there’s nobody around, you can talk to yourself
or pick your nose without even being aware of it. Writing can be a kind of nose-picking, and
when there are people around, the task may become less natural.

9. Let people who like what you write encourage you.
And try to ignore all the others. Whatever you’ve written is simply not for them. Never mind.
There are plenty of other writers in the world. If they look hard enough, they’re bound to find
one who meets their expectations.

10. Hear what everyone has to say but don’t listen to anyone (except me).
Writing is the most private territory in the world. Just as nobody can really teach you how you
like your coffee, so nobody can really teach you how to write. If someone gives you a piece
of advice that sounds right and feels right, use it. If someone gives you a piece of advice that
sounds right and feels wrong, don’t waste so much as a single second on it. It may be fine for
someone else, but not for you.

Who is this aimed at?
This course is aimed at writers who want to learn the art of screenwriting or filmmakers who
want to develop their writing skills. Writers who are excited about writing for the screen, who
have a background in writing for other mediums, directors who are seeking to write their
own feature script and writers who wish to establish long-term mentoring relationships with
development professionals.


In partnership with Filmkraft Rogaland AS