BAFTA Screenwriters' Lectures Series 2022

Welcome

A very warm welcome to the 2022 Screenwriters’ Lecture Series. In the two years since we last met, our industry has endured the Sturm und Drang of a global pandemic, during which time every Jane, Dick and Harriet appeared to be writing a screenplay. As the dust settles on that glut of development material, it seems like a good time to be asking what makes a successful screenwriter, and how the hell do you get your screenplay noticed enough to stand even the slightest chance of actually being made?

Our lecture series is proudly celebratory and collegiate. We collect under the same roof to hear from the world’s greatest screenwriters as they talk with extraordinary candour and generosity about their experience of writing movies. This year, we’re also offering practical seminars on adaptation, networking and getting your script commissioned. We’ve a panel hosted by the founder of BAFTA’s Rocliffe New Writing Competition, Farah Abushwesha. Over three days of lectures and events, we hope to offer you the chance to build on whatever ideas you’re nurturing, because we understand that confidence and opportunity are vital to all emerging voices.

We also recognise how challenging the ‘development hell’ of a screenwriter’s life can be. We want to encourage the pride you should always feel in the work you make, because – let no writer-manqué tell you otherwise – everything in film is built on words. They are the template upon which the entire industry relies for its industrial-scale collaborations between an army of myriad disciplines.

I’m often chastised for banging on about the primacy of the screenplay, as if we writers are some sort of awkward squad who should hand in our work, go back to our basements and stop making a silly fuss. I think the opposite. Confidence, the confidence you need to write your best work, comes from validation.

We want to encourage the pride you should always feel in your work, because everything in film is built on words.

Because, let’s face it, we are odd. We rarely ever meet. Sometimes we even rewrite each other’s work – the strangest way to know another soul. It can feel like a weirdly alienated existence in which the majority of what we create – those endless hours bent over page after page of imagining or adapting or rewriting – never sees the light of day.

Not here. Here you are not only witnessed, but your art is celebrated amid a feast of luminaries, who include this year’s speakers: Lena Dunham (Sharp Stick, Catherine Called Birdy, Girls), Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness, The Square, Force Majeure), Hirokazu Kore-eda (Broker, The Truth, Shoplifters) and Tony Kushner (The Fabelmans, West Side Story, Lincoln). So, whatever your memories of this year’s event, I hope it fills you with confidence, hope and pride in your work.

Finally, a word about the person who makes all this possible. Without Lucy Guard there would be nothing. Since we first shared an idea for a lecture series about screenwriting back in 2010, she has been a constant source of inspiration, wisdom and support. A huge thank you to Lucy and her JJ Charitable Trust for making all this possible.

Jeremy Brock Screenwriter and Founder of the Lecture Series

Relive this year’s Screenwriters’ Lecture Series on YouTube @BAFTA

With writer-director Alfonso Cuarón, SLS 2018

Lena Dunham

Friday 2 December, 19.30 at BAFTA 195

Earlier this year, US gameshow Jeopardy included the poser: “Who is Lena Dunham?” That’s a good question, and one that the New Yorker herself might find hard pushed to answer. The most succinct response would be that she is a writer-director-producer and actor, but that’s like saying the Kama Sutra is just an ancient manuscript – factually true but it leaves out all the juicy bits. And like that much-read Sanskrit document of yore, Dunham’s work has been just as provocative, compelling, insightful and, yes, erotically charged.

Although it seems like Dunham burst onto the scene with HBO’s Girls (2012-2017), that’s not strictly true. She had already carved out a successful acting career, appearing in films and television from 2006, when she wrote, directed and starred in the film Tiny Furniture (2010). This naturalistic comedy became a festival darling, won several awards and brought her to the attention of HBO.

Thus, Girls was born: a refreshingly honest series that fast became an international hit and saw the 20-something Dunham declared as the outspoken voice of her generation. Not only was it praised for its insightful depiction of modern day women, it also picked up a BAFTA and two Golden Globes wins and 14 Emmy nominations (with one win). Dunham wrote, directed, executive produced and acted in the show, playing Hannah, one of its four leads.

She returned to the big screen this year as writer-director-producer of two films, Catherine Called Birdy (2022) and Sharp Stick (2022). The former is maybe a welcome deviation from the norm for Dunham, who handles this joyful take on the classic coming-of-age story both deftly and compassionately. Sharp Stick, meanwhile, is perhaps more quintessentially Dunham – an astute comedy about a young woman’s sexual awakening and all the emotional volatility and vulnerability that comes with that.

HANNAH

:

i just want someone who wants to hang out all the time and thinks im the best person in the world and wants to have sex with only me

Ruben Östlund

Saturday 3 December, 12.00 at BAFTA 195

In some regards, the writer-director Ruben Östlund could be seen as the modern equivalent of 18th century Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. The Swede’s assessment of humanity is perhaps not quite as damning as that of the author of Gulliver’s Travels – “the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth” – but it is no less admonishing or, in several cases, brutal, while often also managing to tickle the rib cage.

Like Swift, Östlund is clearly fascinated by human behaviour, perhaps fuelling his love for documentaries – he’s admitted in the past he once thought he might have become a documentary filmmaker. Maybe that’s why all his films are set in the real world, albeit sometimes heightened versions. Thematically, his films are also linked by tackling morality, especially the kind of ethical quandaries that present in a crisis, inevitably leading to explorations of the darker aspects of human nature, empathic responses, group dynamics and social mores.

Yet, while the likes of Involuntary (2008), Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014, for which he was BAFTA nominated), The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022) have a razor sharp Swiftian dissection of the human condition running through them, they also are rarely utterly bleak, instead delivered with a healthy dose of comedy. Abject horror and intense discomfort are made more palatable through dark humour – just witness the stomachchurning scene featured in Triangle of Sadness, the film that won the Palme d’Or earlier this year (his second Cannes win). Revulsion and comedy paired together like a grilled octopus arm and a glass of bubbly.

Östlund revels in exploring the oddities and imperfections of the human condition, as excruciating and hilarious as that can be. But, there’s also a love for humanity there, too; as if he’s saying, ‘This is how it often is, but it doesn’t have to be’. His films may hold as satirical a mirror up to the world as Swift’s writings, but Östlund’s vision is not nearly as misanthropic.

in association with The JJ Charitable Trust

CAPTAIN

: while youre swimming in

abundance the rest of the world

is drowning in misery thats not

the way its meant to be and

i know you have a good heart

in there somewhere you filthy

capitalist russian pig

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Sunday 4 December, 12.30 at BAFTA 195

It is often the unspoken words that leave the greatest impression in the works of Japanese master filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. It’s a style of subtle storytelling that has been refined over a career spanning 30 years in the business. He uses these moments of silence – or space between what is said and what isn’t – to define the tangled lives of his characters as they try to navigate the milieux of their messy worlds.

His naturalistic stories offer snapshots of life, often involving a motley family unit, such as with Kore-eda’s most recent film, Broker (2022). Here, two friends run an illicit scheme selling abandoned babies to wealthy wannabe parents, but their latest ‘job’ is complicated by the return of the infant’s birth mother. The natural conclusion to such a story would be the arrest of the baby-peddling pair and the happy reunion of mother and child, but this is a Kore-eda movie and his characters are far more polymorphous. The mother, child and two friends form an unlikely ‘family’, and as their stories cross so their motivations become relatably complex.

Broker walked away with the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes this year. It also competed for the Palme d’Or – the sixth time his films have been nominated for the festival’s top prize, to go with Distance (2001), Nobody Knows (2004), Like Father, Like Son (2013), Our Little Sister (2015) and Shoplifters (2018). The latter is the only one to win, also earning Kore-eda a BAFTA nomination.

His love for the family dynamic has seen Kore-eda likened to cinema great Yasujiro Ozu, although he himself feels his work is more akin to the bleak but impactful realism of Ken Loach and Mikio Naruse. The latter’s filmography is associated with the Japanese concept of mono no aware , or demonstrating pathos or empathy towards the transient. There’s certainly a wistful element to Kore-eda’s humanistic storytelling.

Kore-eda’s modern fables rarely tie together with a happily-ever-after bow, but they are always evocative journeys of contemplation that add the ‘extra’ to the ‘ordinary’.

SO-YEUNG: i have this dream sometimes its raining the rain washes away everything i was up to yesterday but when i open my eyes the rain is still pouring down and nothing about me has changed DONG-SOO: dont you just need an umbrella

Tony Kushner

Sunday 4 December, 17.00 at BAFTA 195

While Tony Kushner is a celebrated playwright and author in his own right, when it comes to film he has become almost wholly associated with director Steven Spielberg. Together, the pair have collaborated on four films over almost 20 years, with a fifth in the works.

Their relationship began with Munich (2005), when Spielberg asked Kushner to work his magic on an existing script. It was a simple case of mutual admiration: Spielberg was a fan of the writer, in particular his Pulitzer and Tony award-winning play Angels in America, the game-changing ‘gay fantasia’ that debuted on the stage in 1991 and was fashioned by Kushner into an Emmy-winning 2003 mini-series, directed by Mike Nichols. Meanwhile, Kushner was a huge fan of Spielberg, citing Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) as one of his all-time favourite movies. The resulting script earned Kushner an Oscar nomination.

Kushner next penned Lincoln (2012) for Spielberg, which earned him both BAFTA and

Oscar nominations. Then came the muchanticipated reworking of beloved musical West Side Story (2021), and this year’s The Fabelmans (2022), inspired by the director’s own life, which Kushner and Spielberg have co-written. Kushner was also brought onboard to help adapt August Wilson’s play Fences into the Denzel Washington film (2016).

What makes Kushner’s work so distinctive is how layered his stories and characters feel. For instance, on the surface, Munich is a simple thriller based on a tragic historical incident, but bubbling under are contemplations on politics, belief systems, personal values versus ethics and more.

Kushner’s language is also beautifully intricate yet never impenetrable. Profound moments, audacious themes and complex issues are expressed with passion and creativity. When paired with the visual flourishes of master filmmaker Spielberg, they are brought eloquently to life on the big screen.

in association with The JJ Charitable Trust

LINCOLN: it is a self evident

truth that things which are equal

to the same thing are equal to

each other we begin with equality

thats the origin thats balance

thats fairness thats justice

Writing Exercises

One key thought from the 2019 Lecturers

CÉLINE SCIAMMA Girlhood, Petit Maman, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

“The scenes are the centre of my writing process; each scene as a unit of desire. Technically, this is how it works: it is about having two files opened on my laptop. The first is very free, it’s a list of ideas for scenes, sometimes images, a line of dialogue; they have no connections with one another and are often not connected yet with the plot of the film... These are the desired scenes, the ones you don’t have to look for; they are your compass, the ones you make the film for. Those belong to the list of scenes you desire, they have the point of impact. Sometimes you don’t even know why, you just know they will be in the film. And you should respect that a lot.

“The other file is a list of scenes you need, the steps that inevitably build the story, the ones that are logically unfolding your plot. These scenes seem much simpler to write because they belong; they are needed. But actually my work is all about making them belong to the other list. They must become desired, every single one of them. My rule is that not a single scene must stay on the ‘needed’ list, because it’s cinema and I’m going to direct it.”

BONG JOON-HO Memories of Murder, Parasite, Snowpiercer

“I don’t really come up with years’ worth of backstory for each character, I tend to jump very quickly into the situations. I think about the surface actions and situations that happen within the story. Meanwhile, I continue thinking about who these characters are. I focus first on the actions that they would do in the story. I’m not saying that’s the best method to write [but] I always believe that the specific actions are the most important part of a character.”

NOAH BAUMBACH

Marriage Story, The Squid and the Whale, White Noise

“I find often with the material I’m drawn to – and very true of Marriage Story – that humour and drama and sympathy and fallibility, they kind of exist side by side and part of my job is to be aware of that and let it in. I don’t think about writing comedy to lighten a dramatic scene or adding drama because things are getting too silly. I think of it as they always exist side by side and so I need to be aware of that and acknowledge it. It is how I see things and how I approach writing.”

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR

All

About My Mother, Parallel Mothers, The Skin I Live In

“Writing a script is always an adventure. I always have the impression that I’m not the owner of the story I’m writing, but rather the story chooses me as a way of manifesting itself. I act as a medium; the author’s relationship, at least in my case, with the origin of the story and its development is always mysterious and unpredictable. I am not the one who decides it, at least until a first draft. That is where the most important work in writing begins: correcting the material, time and again. Writing a script is rewriting it continuously until it’s done for the sound mixers.”

ROBERT EGGERS

The Lighthouse, The Norseman, The Witch

“What’s very important to me when I begin writing a piece is not to have a message; to not have any intention beyond staying true to the world in which I’m trying to write in. Thank heavens, as much as I try to seal myself up like an anchor and lock myself in my alchemical cell, my world is not vacuum-sealed, so I am affected by the zeitgeist, whether I want to be or not. That’s important because otherwise The Witch can’t just appeal to people who are alive in the 1630s and The Lighthouse can’t just appeal to people from the 1890s.”

SCHEDULE AND BOOKINGS

LECTURES

Lena Dunham

Catherine Called Birdy, Girls, Sharp Stick

Friday 2 December, 19.30

Ruben Östlund

Force Majeure, The Square, Triangle of Sadness

Saturday 3 December, 12.00

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Broker, Shoplifters, The Truth

Sunday 4 December, 12.30

Tony Kushner

The Fabelmans, Lincoln, West Side Story

Sunday 4 December, 17.00

EVENTS

The Rules of Engagement with Adaptation

Saturday 3 December, 14.00

From Page to Screen: Getting your Script Commissioned

Saturday, 3 December, 16.00

Networking Drinks

Saturday 3 December, 17.00

Navigating a Career Post Winning a Writing Competition

Sunday 4 December, 15.00

HOW TO BOOK

All lectures and events will take place at: BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London W1J 9EU. Tickets can be booked via the BAFTA website

PREVIOUS

SCREENWRITERS’ LECTURES HAVE BEEN

DELIVERED BY:

2022 Lena Dunham, Ruben Östlund, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Tony Kushner

2020 - 2021 Series postponed

2019 Pedro Almodóvar, Céline Sciamma Noah Baumbach, Robert Eggers, Bong Joon-ho

2018 Ol Parker, Taika Waititi, Nicole Holofcener, Alfonso Cuaron, Nadine Labaki, Paul Schrader

2017 Mark Boal, Sean Baker, Dee Rees, Anthony McCarten

2016 Kenneth Lonergan, Maren Ade, Park Chan-wook, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

2015 Nick Hornby, Andrew Bovell, Nancy Meyers, Jimmy McGovern, Beau Willimon

2014 James Schamus, Emma Thompson, Steven Knight

2013 David S Goyer, Hossein Amini, Susannah Grant, Tony Gilroy, Richard Curtis cbe

2012 Lord Fellowes, Scott Frank, Peter Straughan, Brian Helgeland, Abi Morgan

2011 Charlie Kaufman, William Nicholson obe , Moira Buffini, John Logan, Guillermo Arriaga, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Paul Laverty

2010 Aline Brosh McKenna, Simon Beaufoy, Christopher Hampton cbe , Sir David Hare, Sir Ronald Harwood cbe , Peter Morgan cbe