2.Main Content
World Class Screenwriters take the BAFTA/ BFI Stage
Photo: flickr.com/photos/kpwerke
Thu, 11 Aug 2011
We are delighted to announce that we will again be joining BAFTA and the BFI as Media Partner for the brilliant Screenwriters' Lecture Series. Back for a second year - the series continues to celebrate the screenwriter’s contribution to a film’s creative vision.
Seven extraordinary evenings with internationally celebrated screenwriters will take place at BAFTA and BFI Southbank in September. It all kicks off on September 13 with William Gladiator Nicholson.
The series then continues with Moira Tamara Drewe Buffini; John The Aviator Logan; Guillermo Babel Arriaga; Frank Cottrell Boyce of 24 Hour Party People fame; Ken Loach's long time collaborator Paul Laverty, writer of The Wind That Shakes the Barley; and closing with screenwriting legend Charlie Kaufman, Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Recognising this as the perfect place to get inspired about your own work, we’re excited to be able to invite a selection of our Members to be our guests at each event. We’ve also set aside a pair of tickets for you to win if you’re not an SF Member.
To win a pair of tickets to the lecture of your choice, answer the following question:
We all know screenwriters are a multi-talented bunch and many of the series’ writers have played different roles in the film making process but which of the writers started out as actors?
Answers by email to general@scriptfactory.co.uk with Screenwriters’ Lectures in your subject line by Friday 12 August.
Tickets for the series are on sale from Wednesday 10 August.
For William Nicholson, Moira Buffini and Frank Cottrell Boyce, tickets can be booked via www.bafta.org/screenwriters.
For all others at BFI Southbank Box Office tel: 020 7928 3232.
BAFTA & BFI SCREENWRITERS' LECTURE SERIES
In association with The JJ Charitable Trust
“The idea is to celebrate screenwriters as collaborative authors of films, rather than simply as adjuncts of the director’s vision. I am passionately against the possessory credit now taken by almost all directors - “a film by” - except in the case of directors who also write their own screenplays. Even then, I think the possessory credit demeans all those whose vision and talent goes into making a movie: writers, producers, actors, cameramen, designers, make-up, editors, composers, special effects etc. I hope that these lectures will help to celebrate the screenwriter’s contribution, but also the fact that a film is not a singular piece of work, but a true collaboration.”
(Jeremy Brock, BAFTA Film Committee
Screenwriter Mrs Brown, Last King Of Scotland, Eagle of the Ninth) 
GladiatorWilliam Nicholson
Tuesday 13 September - 6.45pm / BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly
Twice Oscar nominated but it was almost by accident that Nicholson moved into writing for screen. Shadowlands earned the writer a BAFTA award and an Oscar nomination. Subsequent work included the screenplay for Nel (with Mark Handley), directed by Michael Apted, and the Ridley Scott directed Gladiator for which he shared an Oscar nomination with John Logan and David Franzoni. Nicholson is currently working on a script for Working Title’s adaptation of Les Miserables to be directed by Tom Hooper.
Tamara DreweMoira Buffini
Friday 16 September- 6.30pm / BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly
Buffini has established herself a playwright whose ambitious and confident vision refuses to be restricted by the confines of current theatre conventions and she is already bringing this same attitude to her screenwriting. Her skill at handling multi-character and mutli-stranded stories made her the perfect choice for adapting comic strip Tamara DreweI for the screen (directed by Stephen Frears). Her forthcoming adaptation ofJane Eyre (directed by Sin Nombre’s Cary Fukunaga) is released in September 2011 and her reworking of her own play, Byzantium will be directed by Neil Jordan and will star Soairse Ronan.
The AviatorJohn Logan
Tuesday 20 September - 7.00pm / BFI Southbank
Widely regarded as one of Hollywood's leading screenwriters, John Logan has collaborated with some of the most visionary directors of our time: Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg. This multi-Oscar and BAFTA nominated writer has an ability to turn his hand with superb virtuosity to any style or genre from The Aviator to Star Trek: Nemesis or Any Given Sunday. This year alone, his writing is at the heart of four major features: animated comedy Rango; Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut Coriolanus; Bond 23 directed by Sam Mendes; and Hugo Cabret, a 3D film directed by Scorsese.
Babel Guillermo Arriaga
Monday 26 September - 7.00pm / BFI Southbank
In the last decade, Guillermo Arriaga has become a major screenwriting force, with a style that is equal parts head, heart, and soul. With both Amores Perros and his BAFTA-nominated screenplay for 21 Grams he updates classic melodramatic themes of love and loss with a structural complexity that is utterly modern. Babel (like his earlier features, made with director Alejandro González Iñárritu) received an Oscar nomination. His first work as writer-director, The Burning Plain starred Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence and Kim Basinger.
24 Hour Party PeopleFrank Cottrell Boyce
Tuesday 27 September - 7.00pm / BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly
A much loved and prolific writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce moves effortlessly between media - stage, TV and film - as well as several children’s novels. His long term collaboration with Michael Winterbottom gave us Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and Cock and Bull Story and in 1999 he was nominated for a BAFTA award for Hilary and Jackie.
The Wind that Shakes the BarleyPaul Laverty
Thursday 29 September, 6.30pm / BFI Southbank
Paul Laverty's writing delicately balances the political and emotional. He's best known for his 15-year creative partnership with Ken Loach which has yielded outstanding feature films such as Carla's Song, My Name Is Joe, Sweet Sixteen, A Fond Kiss and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. A recent Spanish language script for Even the Rain (directed by Icíar Bollaín) won a slew of awards, including a Goya nomination and an Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival.
Being John MalkovichCharlie Kaufman
Friday 30 September, 7.00pm / BFI Southbank
Modern screenwriters don’t come more iconic than Charlie Kaufman: Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Synecdoche, New York: these all are intensely individual works of art but they share a sense of their creator - wildly imaginative, with a sharp mental acuity and mischievous wit.
Tickets for the series are on sale from Wednesday 10 August:
For William Nicholson, Moira Buffini and Frank Cottrell Boyce, tickets can be booked via www.bafta.org/screenwriters .
For all others at BFI Southbank Box Office tel: 020 7928 3232.
