Screenwriting from Unlikely Places … and Winning Oscar Awards

The deep rooted theme of this blog is embedded in the title—Screenwriting from Iowa … and Other Unlikely Places. Here are a couple of quotes from two recent Oscar winners about telling stories from unlikely places (at least from a Hollywood, Oscar-winning perspective):

“Because I’m based in Seoul, I wanted to tell the story about people around me in neighborhoods that I encounter on a daily basis. That’s where the thought began. I wanted to sort of delve deeper into the reality that surrounds me, as if I’m looking at it through a microscope—something smaller but also deeper.”
Writer/director Bong Joon-Ho (on his Oscar-winning film Parasite)
GQ interview with Gabriella Pailella  

“I think what it all comes down to is putting the power back into the people the hands of the people who own on those stories. So I think the only way you can tell an authentic story from a particular place is to get someone from that place. Someone who knows that content and knows the culture to tell it. I fully support the idea of getting Indigenous people to tell their stories.”
Oscar winning Jo-Jo Rabbit writer/ director Taika Waititi 
A filmmaker from New Zealand whose ancestry includes Maori and Ashkenazi Jewish cultures

Scott W. Smith