The TorinoFilmLab Managing Director on the Development process, Talents and Audience Design

Long before a film premieres in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, or Locarno, it passes through a stage that audiences rarely see. Ideas are tested, scripts evolve, creative partnerships emerge, and projects gradually discover their shape. For many filmmakers, this period can be as important as production itself.

Few organisations have influenced that process as significantly as TorinoFilmLab.

Since joining the initiative at its launch in 2008, Mercedes Fernández Alonso has helped build TorinoFilmLab (TFL) into one of the world’s leading development platforms for emerging filmmakers. Yet when she speaks about the organisation, she is careful to shift attention away from festival premieres and toward something less visible.

“The real objective is supporting the development of the professional and the potential of the filmmaker.”

The goal is not simply to improve projects, but to help filmmakers grow alongside them through a collaborative and ongoing process.

Beyond Script Development

One of the most revealing aspects of Fernández Alonso’s perspective is her refusal to reduce development to script work alone.

While scripts remain central, she sees the process as simultaneously artistic, professional, collaborative, and personal. A project evolves, but so does the filmmaker behind it.

This understanding is reflected in TorinoFilmLab’s own evolution. Over the years, the organisation has expanded beyond script-focused programmes into a broader structure that includes co-production initiatives, audience engagement programmes, sustainability projects, funding opportunities, and specialised initiatives such as ComedyLab.

What connects these activities is a shared methodology built around exchange.

Rather than functioning as a top-down environment in which experts provide solutions, TorinoFilmLab encourages participants to engage with diverse perspectives, challenge assumptions, and rethink their work through dialogue.

For Fernández Alonso, openness is essential. Development often requires revisiting ideas, questioning earlier decisions, and remaining receptive to change.

This emphasis on exchange may also explain TorinoFilmLab’s international influence. Rather than teaching a formula, it encourages filmmakers to strengthen the capacity to keep learning long after a project is completed.

A Space Before the Industry Arrives

A recurring theme throughout the conversation is the importance of creating space before external expectations begin shaping creative decisions.

As Fernández Alonso explains, TorinoFilmLab begins by working with filmmakers in an environment removed from immediate industry pressures.

“We first work with filmmakers in a space of freedom without pressure from the industry.”

The intention is not to separate projects from professional realities. Rather, it is to give them room to develop before questions of positioning, financing, distribution, or festival strategy become dominant concerns.

This philosophy runs throughout the organisation’s approach. Participants are encouraged to question, experiment, exchange ideas, and remain open to transformation when a project requires it.

At its core, the approach recognizes that meaningful creative growth requires time, trust, and space to discover what a film wants to become before industry pressures intervene.

What Makes a Project Stand Out?

For filmmakers hoping to enter programmes such as TorinoFilmLab, an obvious question emerges: what makes a project worth selecting?

The answer is more nuanced than simple notions of quality or polish.

Projects do not need to arrive fully formed. They may still be searching for their final shape. What matters is the filmmaker’s willingness to engage with the process and remain open to development.

Success depends on maintaining a balance between conviction and flexibility: holding onto the core of a project while remaining open to perspectives that may strengthen it.

Fernández Alonso also emphasises the importance of supporting a diversity of voices and perspectives capable of engaging with the complexity of the contemporary world. Peer-to-peer exchange and conversation become central tools in that process.

In many ways, this principle extends beyond TorinoFilmLab itself. Creative growth is rarely linear. The ability to listen, adapt, and rethink may be as important as any individual talent.

Audience Design and the Life of a Film

Among TorinoFilmLab’s most influential contributions to contemporary film culture is Audience Design, a concept that has reshaped how many organisations think about circulation and audience engagement.

For Fernández Alonso, the idea emerged from recognising a recurring issue among filmmakers: audiences are often considered too late in the process.

“You need to think about your audience from the very beginning.”

Importantly, Audience Design is not about tailoring films to market demand. Nor is it simply a marketing strategy.

Instead, it encourages filmmakers to think carefully about how audiences encounter films, how works circulate, and what kinds of conversations they may generate once released.

This perspective has become increasingly relevant in a fragmented audiovisual landscape where films travel through multiple pathways, and audience attention is increasingly contested.

“It may be a small audience. But you have your audience.”

The observation quietly challenges the assumption that success is measured only through scale.

For many independent films, sustainability depends not on reaching everyone, but on understanding and connecting with the audience that exists for the work.

In this sense, Audience Design expands the filmmaker’s perspective beyond authorship alone. It asks filmmakers to think about circulation, access, and the life of a film after completion.

For emerging filmmakers, understanding that the relationship with their audience begins long before a premiere can foster a sense of value and long-term connection with viewers.

Expanding the Possibilities of Development

If TorinoFilmLab initially became known for project development, Fernández Alonso increasingly describes it as a space for experimentation and research.

Recent initiatives such as Green Narratives and ComedyLab reflect that continuing evolution.

Green Narratives expands sustainability discussions beyond production logistics into storytelling itself, asking how ecological realities might reshape narrative structures and cinematic imagination.

ComedyLab emerged from a different observation: the relative absence of comedy within contemporary arthouse cinema.

“Comedy is very difficult to write.”

Rather than treating humour as secondary, the programme views comedy as a craft that requires precision, rhythm, collaboration, and emotional intelligence.

By bringing together filmmakers, comedians, theatre practitioners, podcasters, and writers, it creates exchanges rarely found in more traditional development environments.

Both initiatives reflect a broader willingness to question assumptions and respond to changing cultural and creative realities. Rather than preserving established models, TorinoFilmLab continues exploring new ways of supporting filmmakers.

The Journey Matters Most

Throughout the conversation, Fernández Alonso repeatedly returns to the same idea.

Whether discussing project selection, audience design, sustainability, or comedy, her focus remains on the filmmaker’s long-term growth.

This perspective feels particularly relevant within an industry often shaped by urgency, visibility, and pressure to become market-ready.

TorinoFilmLab proposes a different rhythm: strengthen the work before accelerating it, understand audiences before seeking visibility, and remain open to collaboration without losing creative identity.

Ultimately, Fernández Alonso sees this process not as preparation for a single opportunity, but as part of a longer creative journey.

It is a simple observation, yet it captures the philosophy that runs through TorinoFilmLab’s work: supporting filmmakers not only in making films, but in continuing to grow long after a project is finished.

“The cake is really the journey of the filmmaker,” she says. “The festival is the cherry on top.”