Storylines Lab / Taller de Líneas Argumentales

Elina Fessa is a screenwriter, director and script consultant from Thessaloniki, Greece. Her scripts have been selected at prestigious national and international film labs such as the Berlinale Script Station and the SGAE Foundation Screenwriting Lab. Her short films have played at numerous Oscar^®-qualifying international film festivals and have been awarded, among others, by the Directors Guild of America. Her latest short film, Tracks, was one of only two short films funded by the Greek Film Academy and Cosmote TV and won the Best Actress Award at the Athens International Film Festival.

Elina is currently developing two feature films — Retiro, a coproduction between Greece and Spain which has received development funding from the Greek Film Center and has been awarded the Initiative Film Award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival Crossroads Co-Production Market, and The Girl with the Sun in Her Eyes, selected and developed at the prestigious SGAE Foundation Screenwriting Lab and the Mediterranean Film Institute (MFI) Script 2 Film Workshops.

Elina has directed commercials, produced the short film Cavo d’Oro, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, and produced theater. She combines filmmaking with teaching screenwriting at Master’s Programs such as EFTI | Centro Internacional de Fotografía y Cine in Madrid, and script consulting for international residencies such as Coofilm in Spain and Cine Qua Non Lab in Mexico. She is also a mother of three.

Elina holds a B.A. in Photography from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Film Directing from Columbia University in New York City.