Screenwriters honored with film academy’s Nicholl award
Five emerging screenwriters gained the film academy’s stamp of admission into Hollywood with help from an ensemble of actors that included Tyrese Gibson and Rosa Salazar.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored each screenwriter at the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting awards and presentation on Thursday night. The five individuals each received $35,000 fellowships and had their work brought to life through live readings by Gibson, Salazar, Amandla Stenberg and Wes Studi.
The event was held at the academy’s headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The five screenplays selected include: Aaron Chung’s “Princess Vietnam,” Karen McDermott’s “Lullabies of La Jaula,” Renee Pillai’s “Boy With Kite,” Sean Malcolm’s “Mother” and Walter McKnight’s “Street Rat Allie Punches Her Ticket.”
“I want to write scripts in Hollywood. What kind of fool would want to do that?” asked Pillai, sarcastically, while pointing at herself before the audience burst into laughter. She is the first Nicholl fellow from Malaysia and faced a series of obstacles that almost kept her from attending the event.
Pillai applied for her U.S. visa, was told the earliest appointment she could get wouldn’t be until the day after the ceremony. But a fellowship official contacted the cultural affairs office at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Pillai’s behalf, arranging a meeting to appeal to the consul general to expedite her visa request.
Pillai then drove two hours to Kuala Lumpur to attend the granted interview, with only the $160 donated by her friends to pay the visa application fee. She ultimately obtained the visa and took 30 hours to travel by air from Malaysia to Los Angeles — that including layovers in China and Seattle.
“If it wasn’t for the academy and my friends, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “I would’ve missed out not only this ceremony, but also the seminars and preparations for the life you want to live. This is the start of my career.”