I’m so excited to have been invited to be the keynote speaker at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar being held on the campus of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo, Brazil – NEXT WEEK!
Click through for more information in Portuguese and English
It’s all thanks to my friend and colleague from the Screenwriting Research Network (who is actually the president of the network this year) Carmen Sofia Brenes who suggested me to the committee planning the seminar.
I’ll be speaking on “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered” which will be focused on the importance of storytellers in all cultures, and how screenwriters have become this last century’s most powerful storytellers thanks to the reach of technology.
It’s a daunting thing to be asked to be a keynote speaker and I’ve been writing my speech for a few weeks now, still in a bit of a fog that such a fun thing should happen – but the tickets came today so now it’s a reality. I have to finish this speech (and the Google Slides that goes with it) – and PACK!
Here is a summary of my talk. I hope to have it recorded, too. Watch this space for information on a possible live stream of this event.
SUMMARY
To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers.
A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter and Women writers matter. Therefore women writers shall be my focus. Why? Because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.
