Critical coaching: Filmmakers offer help to aspiring local screenwriters

By John Beifuss

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A pair of lauded movie makers will be in Memphis this month to host free screenings and workshops for aspiring local screenwriters.

The filmmakers -- producer Mike S. Ryan and writer-director Barry Jenkins -- will review and discuss script "treatments" in afternoon workshops on July 18-19. Attendance will be limited, to keep the groups manageable, and is restricted to residents of Shelby County. Treatments for review must be submitted in advance, and will be selected by the filmmakers.

Organized by the Memphis and Shelby County Film Commission, the effort is an attempt to help the city's many hopeful writers, said film commissioner Linn Sitler, who has labeled the weekend "Indie Heaven."

Ryan is the producer of such recent independent films as "Junebug," which first brought Amy Adams to fame, earning her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination; "Choke," adapted from the cult novel by Chuck Palahniuk; director Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy," named one of the top 10 films of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly; and native Memphian Ira Sachs' Sundance prize-winner, "Forty Shades of Blue."

Jenkins' first feature as a writer-director, "Medicine for Melancholy," focuses on a day in the lives of a young African-American couple in San Francisco. The movie, which screened at the 2008 Indie Memphis Film Festival before opening earlier this year in several cities, was labeled "an exciting debut" by A.O. Scott of the New York Times, who called it "both sad and vibrant, meandering and formally sure-footed."

Jenkins will screen "Medicine for Melancholy" at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 18, at the Malco Paradiso, 584 S. Mendenhall. He will discuss the movie and answer questions after the screening. At 2:30 that afternoon, the workshop will take place, with Jenkins meeting with the selected local screenwriters to discuss their story treatments.

Ryan's screening takes place at 10 a.m. Sunday, July 19; the movie he will show and discuss is "Fay Grim," starring Parker Posey and Jeff Goldblum, which he produced for writer-director Hal Hartley. A 2006 release, "Fay Grim" -- a spy satire shot in Berlin, Istanbul, Paris and New York -- never screened theatrically in Memphis. Ryan's workshop will take place at 2:30 p.m. that day.

Because seating is limited, tickets for the screenings will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. To register, visit memphisfilmcomm.org.

Treatments must be submitted to the film commission at info@memphisfilmcomm.org. Examples of the requested treatment format can be found on the commission's Web site.

In addition to the film commission, sponsors of the "Indie Heaven" weekend include Malco Theatres Inc. and MemphisED, an economic development organization.

The event is a sequel of sorts to last year's film commission more job-oriented workshops, which focused on film crew positions.

-- John Beifuss: 529-2394