In this 90-minute screenwriting workshop appropriate for all levels, writers will learn the basics of screenwriting while focusing on how to create a sense of place. Attention will be paid to excerpts from adapted screenplays with a strong sense of place and their source material. Texts to be examined may include Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2009), based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, and Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), based on the short story by Annie Proulx. Writers will put what they’ve learned into practice by generating a scene (either original or an adaptation of their own work).
Alessandra Bautze is Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at Georgia State University. She holds an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from The University of Texas at Austin, as well as a B.A. in The Writing Seminars and Film & Media Studies from The Johns Hopkins University. Her work seeks to reflect the diversity of the American experience while also embracing a socially-conscious, realist approach to narrative. Her screenplay RACING THE WOLF GOD won Best Screenplay at the 2021 Anchorage International Film Festival. Set in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska, this drama follows a 26-year-old Yup’ik woman and former champion musher who, after ten years in prison, faces the challenges of re-entry as she finds herself back in the world of dogsled racing—the exact activity that led to her incarceration in the first place. In addition to her work as a writer, Alessandra also works as a script consultant, most recently for SignWorld Studios, a Deaf-owned production company focusing on producing authentic media in American Sign Language and English. In November 2021, she was one of six writers selected to participate in the 2021 Nanjing International Writers’ Residency Program, where she participated in a virtual cultural exchange with Chinese writers. In July 2022, she returned to Alaska to participate in the Storyknife Writers Residency Program for women writers in Homer, Alaska. She believes in the power of language to connect communities.
