Screenplays from Mexico, Chile and Uruguay beat 16 other contenders at the Feature Film Project Development Workshop and Competition 2002 organized by the Motion Pictures Association (MPA) in Miami.

The winning scripts were Enemigos Intimos (Intimate Enemies) by Ana Carolina Rivera Gonzalez (Mexico), El Bano Del Papa (Daddy's Bath) by Enrique Fernandez ( Uruguay) and Tren Al Purgatorio (Train To Purgatory) by Sergio Gomez (Chile).

Each received $1,000 in cash, the script's translation into English, its submission to the bidding/acquisition process by co sponsoring international production and distribution companies (MPA members and others) and a trip to Los Angeles in order to present the project to studios and agents.

The five-day workshop (Oct 21-25) was marred at the onset by three pullouts from Argentina. Directors/writers Lucho Bender (with the project Chong, El Coreano), Juan Jose Jusid (Una Visita A Los Viejos) and Gerardo Vallejo (La Verdadera Historia De Martin Fierro) decided to withdraw from the workshop when they found out that they would not necessarily have first crack at directing their own projects. "We weren't ready to give up projects we had been writing and developing for years," said Bender.

Sponsored by the MPA Latin American Regional Office in Rio de Janeiro, the School of Communication at the University of Miami and the Miami-Dade Mayor's Office of Film & Entertainment, the workshop offered an opportunity for 19selected Latin American professional screenwriters to develop their feature film scripts under the guidance of established Spanish-speaking professors.