Screenwriter of the Week

Brad Silberling

Writer/Director Brad Silberling on the set of THINKFilm’s 10 Items or Less - 2006.

After making his mark with the autobiographical drama Moonlight Mile, writer-director Brad Silberling has moved on to an indie retelling of the buddy road trip movie with Ten Items or Less, starring Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega as an unemployed actor and grocery store clerk who hit the road while learning about the other’s respective worlds. Silberling, whose directorial debut was the underwhelming live-action Casper in 1995, has found himself a niche in the bordering-on-mainstream indie world.

Born in Washington, DC in 1963, Silberling has worked steadily as a director for film and TV since the ‘80s, busting out his writing chops whenever he has a chance to bring a meaningful story to life. Moonlight Mile, based on Silberling’s experiences dealing with the murder of his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, was a quiet yet heart-wrenching indie film with an all-star cast of Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman and relative newcomers Jake Gyllenhaal and Ellen Pompeo. Now, with 10 Items or Less, Silberling proves that less is more with his short (running time barely passes 70 minutes) but charming story of the unexpected intertwining of two very different lives.

While Silberling may make a living directing bigger flicks like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, it’s clear that the writer’s heart lies in telling smaller, more personal stories that strike a deep chord in his audiences. Ten Items or Less will open to limited released on December 1st, but will also screen on http://www.cstar.com beginning December 15th.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Joseph Greco

Writing is often called a cathartic exercise, but turning this introspective psychological act into a compelling piece of entertainment is another thing altogether. Somehow, writer/director Joseph Greco has managed to do just this with his feature film debut, Canvas. Based on Greco’s experiences growing up with a schizophrenic mother, Canvas stars Joe Pantoliano and Marcia Gay Harden in this portrait of a family struggling with the repercussions of mental illness. “I always wanted to make a realistic, yet entertaining film about the subject,” says Greco, “I needed to sublimate my harrowing experience into something useful. Make lemonade out of lemons, as they say."Having worked as an assistant for Oscar winning director James Cameron (during the filming of Titanic) and garnering awards of his own with his short, Lena’s Spaghetti, Greco felt ready to commit his story to film. The most challenging part of writing Canvas was creating a story that was both true to the experience and emotionally satisfying,” Greco comments. “I did not want a happy-go-lucky ending. There is no cure for mental illness. One in five Americans lives with mental illness every day of their lives. They are heroes in my opinion. With that said, though, I did not want a depressing movie. While writing, I decided to just tell the truth - the emotional truth.” It seems that Greco’s goal was realized--Canvas, which premiered at the Hampton’s International Film Festival, has been praised by the National Alliance on Mental Illness for its authentic portrayal of schizophrenia. Currently, Greco is working on several new screenplays, including a comedy called The Big Secret.

To learn more about Canvas, visit the film’s Website at their website.

October 30th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Erin Cressida Wilson

Ty Burrell and Nicole Kidman in Steven Shainberg’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.  Credit: Picturehouse Films.

Whether she’s writing for the stage or the screen, Erin Cressida Wilson has a talent for revolting against the norm. Cressida made waves with her first screenplay, Secretary, which told the story of a twisted sadomasochistic relationship with equal parts sensitivity and humor. Now, Wilson and Secretary director Steven Shainberg have teamed up again for Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, which details the highly fictionalized account of how the legendary photographer found her passion for capturing the grotesque. Fur, which stars Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey, Jr.. opens in limited release on November 10th.Aside from her cinematic work, Wilson is also an accomplished playwright, with works including “The Erotica Project” and the 2003 musical “Wilder.” Though sex seems to be a running theme throughout most of her work, the larger issue that Wilson often visits is that of repression. Whether it is Diane Arbus freeing herself from the confines of her upper-class New York existence or Secretary’sLee Holloway finding self-confidence by exploring her kinkier side, Wilson’s work never fails to celebrate the liberation that goes hand-in-hand with living outside the norm. Next on Wilson’s plate is an adaptation of the best-selling novel Can You Keep a Secret?, produced by Kate Hudson (who is also rumored to star). Here’s hoping she’ll give the chick flick genre a much-needed facelift with some of her trademark irreverent wit.

October 23rd, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Guillermo Arriaga

Alfonso Cuaròn, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu are three names that might come to mind when thinking of contemporary Latin auteurs. But Guillermo Arriaga’s growing reputation as one of the most intelligent screenwriters in the business has secured him a place on this list as well.A regular collaborator with Iñárritu (he wrote the screenplays for Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros), the Mexico City native also won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes in 2005 for Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Throughout his written work (Arriaga is also an accomplished novelist), themes of death and fate dominate the story, and the screenwriter is a self-proclaimed “thanatic” (i.e., obsessed with death) who draws heavily on the dense language of Shakespeare and, more recently, William Faulkner.

Arriaga’s most recent project, Babel (which won Iñárritu a Best Director award at Cannes), returns to the theme of connectivity by following the stories of several families living in Morocco, Tunisia, Mexico and Japan. As in 21 Grams, the lives of the characters gradually intertwine, leading to a poignant commentary on the barriers established by language and culture. With his next film, Jorge Hernandez Aldana’s The Night Buffalo, in post-production and The Buyer’s Club recently announced with director Marc Forster attached, audiences can look forward to more difficult and riveting work from one of the rising stars of modern screenwriting.

October 16th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Peter Morgan

Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay for Stephen Frears’ The Queen, starring Helen Mirren.

While some might say that dabbling in several different careers is a risky undertaking, screenwriter Peter Morgan has shown himself to be a particularly talented jack-of-all-trades. With successful scripts written for both TV and film and a hit show in the West End and on Broadway, in a few short years Morgan’s voice has emerged as a witty and articulate one, adaptable to a variety of mediums.Though he dabbled briefly in acting during his college years, Morgan quickly found his passion lay in creating stories rather than starring in them. His first play got him talent-spotted at the Edinburgh Festival, and at the age of 21 Morgan found himself in the screenwriting business. Merging the fictional world with the very-real modern political landscape has become Morgan’s forte, best illustrated in the slew of projects being released this fall.

Following their successful pairing for the hit U.K. TV series “The Deal,” Morgan has again teamed up with director Stephen Frears for the royal drama The Queen, starring Helen Mirren as the titular Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II as she deals with the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death. In addition to The Queen, which won Morgan the Best Screenplay prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Morgan also co-wrote Kevin Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland with Jeremy Brock, which is already garnering loads of critical acclaim. With these two sure-to-be-hits landing in theaters this week, we’re guessing that as long as there’s a need for intelligent and captivating movies with a political twist, Peter Morgan will remain one of the indie world’s most in-demand scribes.

October 2nd, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Dito Montiel

Screenwriter/Director Dito Montiel with Robert Downey Jr. and Rosario Dawson on the set of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Photo by Walter Thomson.

Say you grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. You got kicked out of school for fighting and spent all of your time with your friends getting into trouble around the neighborhood. Some of your friends wound up in jail, on drugs or—worse—dead, while others encouraged you to take a different path. Twenty years later, you turned your story into a book which was turned into a movie that you also happened to direct. This is the story of Dito Montiel, whose A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (opening on September 29th) ended up nabbing the Best Director award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.In penning his first film, Montiel has managed the tricky feat of translating his story from page to screen in a way that is both artful and honest. Formerly the lead singer of the hardcore band Gutterboy, Montiel has crossed over into film with startling ease. With help from the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, he honed his script for Guide into a gritty coming-of-age story in the tradition of films like The Basketball Diaries and Raising Victor Vargas. With an impressive cast, which includes Robert Downey Jr., Dianne Wiest and Shia LaBeouf, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints brings Montiel’s story to life. While, for the time being, Montiel has no future film projects lined up, his lightning-fast rise to the top of the indie food chain is an inspiration to all aspiring moviemakers. Here’s hoping that Montiel’s screenwriting (and directing) career is more than just a flash in the pan.

For more information, visit www.firstlookstudios.com/guide

September 25th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Paul Haggis

Don Cheadle and writer-director Paul Haggis on the set of Crash. Photo credit: Jim Sheldon

Unless they’ve been living under a rock, every aspiring screenwriter should recognize Paul Haggis’ name. He is the first person in the history of the Academy Awards to have scribed two back-to-back Best Picture winners: Crash (which he also directed) and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby.Born in Ontario, Canada, Haggis relocated to Los Angeles at the age of 22 and quickly found work writing for some of the most popular television series of the 1970s and ‘80s, including “The Love Boat,” “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Who’s the Boss.” While Haggis found success in TV, particularly as the creator of the improbably popular “Walker: Texas Ranger” series, the big screen is where Haggis’ talent has truly shone.

Over the next several months, Haggis has a slew of impressive projects lined up, from Flags of Our Fathers (his second collaboration with Clint Eastwood) to The Last Kiss, which opens on September 15th. An American recasting of the 2001 Italian film L’Ultimo baccio, The Last Kiss stars Zach Braff as a young man who begins to question his relationship with a long-term girlfriend when he is faced with the reality of embracing adulthood. Several of Haggis’ other upcoming high-profile flicks include Honeymoon with Harry (which he is also slated to direct) and the new Bond episode, Casino Royale, which tells the story of the secret agent’s (Daniel Craig) first 007 mission.

In a few short years Haggis has risen from the small screen to become a king of the big one, and it doesn’t seem that his star will be fading any time soon.

September 15th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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