Stories are powerful. A good story can sell a product, win an election, unite a nation. A rumour – a story by another name – can ruin a man’s life.

If we invest in a French film, the French are then obliged to invest in our film. That’s how we sell our country

Think of an important figure or nation, and you find yourself thinking about a story. Einstein was a relatively unpromising student-turned-superstar physicist; the ancient Greeks outsmarted the Trojans in an oversized toy horse and Marie Antoinette made a spectacularly ill-timed offer of cake. A common narrative can unite a people in times good or bad – and it makes the others want to join in.

Jean Pierre Magro, one of the V18 Foundation’s programme directors, is well aware of the power of stories. As a trans-media producer, narratives put bread on his table, but he’s keen to share, as is evidenced by Story Works – a series of writing workshops, which he hopes will sow the seeds of professional creative storytelling, particularly in screenwriting, locally.

As a 20-something out of university hoping to make a living as a writer, he soon faced a home truth: “No one wanted to pay writers – I remember writing copy for adverts and people saying they wouldn’t pay for the script. It shows in the final result.”

Fast-forward a few years, and he believes that there is not enough respect for the graft and the craft that goes into a professional piece of writing.

“If you look at the US, some €380m are spent on developing projects, the results of which rarely ever show. In Malta, you write a first draft and you film that – there’s no real development. I feel as if I’m the little kid in The Emperor’s New Clothes, pointing out that people don’t have clothes on. Maltese people have got the talent, but they need the right tools to cross borders with their projects, and this is what V18 is trying to do – it’s a catalyst to change a culture,” Magro says.

The Story Works programme will see 12 Maltese writers a year, for a period of five years, being tutored by David Howard, Martin Daniels or Mary Kate O’Flanagan, all faculty members at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts – which counts Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner among its long list of notable alumni.

If the programme is successful, there would still be a long way to go.

The programme is not just about the two intense weeks of training the writers and their collaborators (directors, editors and producers are also being invited to take part) will go through. In the weeks spanning July 1-7 and September 8-14, the public is invited to free lectures, where films will be dissected and the script discussed.

Magro hopes the programme will serve as a boost to local industry, and he reports there has been a positive response from PBS and the Malta Film Commission about collaborating in this programme. He believes Malta can be used as a test base for films, which, if received well locally, could then be exported and made into something bigger, something which is already happening in countries like Denmark and Israel.

The elusive art of effective storytelling

He finds it “shameful” that Malta has never been involved in any co-productions. “If we invest in a French film, the French are then obliged to invest in our film. That’s how we sell our country – we need to tell the story of our island. Adverts portraying a woman in a bikini on a beach don’t sell any more – a story will sell, because it sticks in people’s memories.”

The narrative deficit in Malta runs deep, according to Magro, and is largely a product of Malta’s colonial past.

“It’s my impression that we don’t even have songs which everyone knows and which people can get together and sing. I feel it’s because we’ve never told the right stories. We have to start from scratch, say ‘this is where we are, this is where we came from’.

“I’ve asked people at university about who their local heroes are, and almost no one replies. The only answers I get are Fenech Adami and Mintoff. Is that the only thing we know about our history? Is there nothing more?” he complains. For the record, his hero is Manuel Dimech.

The fact that two political giants were mentioned as heroes indicates that the Maltese do have their own stories, but only as far as the two political tribes are concerned.

This, Magro argues, is also down to our colonisers, who used to divide and conquer. By living up to these divisions, we do ourselves no favours, he says.

It is not that there aren’t stories to be told. When researching a documentary he was making for the History Channel, Magro came across information he had never been taught at school, such as the fact that Malta was a hub for corsairs. He is not alone in his fascination.

“A friend of mine, Michel Reilhac, an important figure in French cinema, came to Malta, and he had never heard anything about the island. He was so impressed that he changed a film he was working on to be shot in Malta in 2014 – it is these things that we need,” Magro says.

Speaking about V18, there is a Jason Micallef-shaped elephant in the room. With the press conference announcing the Story Works programme being held right after Micallef’s controversial appointment to the board, Magro was upset the announcement was overshadowed by questions about Micallef’s appointment and not the programme itself.

“Give the man a chance, see if he can deliver,” he says. If he doesn’t, he says, then Micallef would be fair game for criticism.

“The artistic team has not changed. If it was good before, is it possible Jason will suddenly ruin everything?”

Magro believes that the creative industries in Malta have a cultural, not an economical, deficit.

“The culture isn’t present in Malta. We can fund things. There is money in Malta; the problem is that it’s mismanaged. You can’t copy Hollywood in a local drama – you have to find your own voice.

“Our bar is very low. You look at adverts – no one is selling a story. In today’s world, you have to sell a story. Human beings, throughout time, have sought stories to understand the world. There’s nothing more beautiful than narrative – we consume stories all the time, even in our sleep.”

Story Works – The craft of weaving great stories is open to Maltese writers, directors, editors and producers, and will run over two weeks – July 1-7 and September 8-14. The course is being offered free of charge, and the deadline for applications is May 31.

www.valletta2018.org