Inside the 2016 Nicholl Competition

The Magnificent Six

By Sean Kennelly

MEET THE UNLIKELY BAND OF SCRIBES HONORED WITH THE ACADEMY’S NICHOLL FELLOWSHIPS

This year’s Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winners rode into town ready to write and rewrite their hard-hitting tales, all set in trying circumstances that tested their characters as well as the scribes themselves. Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ selection committee and readers alike had no clue about the identity or sex of the writers upon digesting the efforts, this year’s script slingers actually wound up leaning heavily on the estrogen side of the scales. Four of the winning scripts were penned by females, thus proving that a woman’s touch can be both gritty and delicate.

In the beginning, 6,915 scripts entered the fray (down from last year’s 7,442), but when the dust settled, five scripts were left standing. Each of the six writers (including one writing duo) believed so strongly in their screenplays they each entered only one script in the contest. Some had en-tered that same script in past Nicholl contests, but this year, the scribes’ singular vision elevated their tales and led them to the grand prize: $35,000 per script and face time with Hollywood movers and shakers. They also got to revel in the spotlight when the Nicholl committee live-streamed the no-tification of each new fellow. At the end of the day, all stood tall and boldly embraced the honor…

The Nicholl notification calls

2016 Nicholl Fellowship Ceremony Introductions

Director Rodrigo Garcia

Left to right: Cary Elwes, Aja Naomi King, Alia Shawkat and John Cho.

Left to right: Lloyd Harvey, Elizabeth Oyebode, Michele Atkins, Nicholl Fellowships Chair Robin Swicord, Geeta Malik, Spencer Harvey & Justin Piasecki.

Synopsis: When a spoiled, Indian-American teenager uncovers her mother’s feminist past and her father’s infidelities, she is driven to turn her world of privilege upside down and expose the truth.

The Housewriter

Geeta Malik Los Angeles

Total Number of Nicholl Entries: 2

Winning Script: Dinner with Friends

Writers encounter all kinds of hurdles in completing their scripts, but Nich-oll winner Geeta Malik is no ordinary scribe. The UCLA film school grad and mother of two used her Indian heritage as a rich springboard. In a competition often dominated by dramas, her Dinner with Friends is that rare comedy that digs into stereotypes. It tells the story of Alia Khanna, a 19-year-old Indian living in Southern California but determined to shed the cultural shackles into which she’s been born. When she learns her mother once fought for the rights of In-

Geeta Malik

Jennifer Yuh Nelson

dian women, she is driven to expose the hidden hypocrisies of the world around her. The story was a natural product of Malik’s background. “Initially, I had set out to write a straight comedy based on my own experiences growing up as an Indian-American kid in Colorado,” she says, “at-tending countless, endless dinner parties within the Indian community. Everyone would spend the night bragging about how rich they were, how suc-cessful they were and how amazing their kids were. It was so over the top that it became comical.”

Yet much was at play beneath the surface. Malik and her mother saw those parties as ther-apy for a people too proud to seek the psycho-logical help they so needed, something they called Desi therapy. (“Desi” means a person from India.) To them, the gatherings were actu-ally a safe space for Indian immigrants to feel a sense of belonging. To compensate for whatever they felt they lacked, the attendees would, she says, resort to “bragging consistently and loudly about their amazing lives.” And it all just seemed so funny to her—until she had children of her own. “Then I found myself starting to relate to my characters. My friends and I were becom-ing those adults we used to mock!” The change prompted her to explore the dynamics between children and their parents and the sacrifices adults often make in the best interests of the kids, even staying in a loveless marriage. “It made me think much more deeply about my own par-ents and their pasts and who they used to be be-fore we kids were born and their own hopes and dreams were somehow thwarted.”

Malik started the script before she had her first child but found that motherly demands decreased her productivity. With the birth of her second baby, she all but gave up writing to focus on getting enough shut-eye to function,

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but still her filmmaking dreams persisted: “I think when I finally started getting some consistent sleep, I started churning out drafts again.” Of course, getting back in the groove was no easy task, as she now had to work around her kids’ schedules, occasionally using a nearby café to escape. On Dinner with Friends, she also had to strike a balance between constructive criticism and her own vision. “It’s important to listen to feedback, but it’s also important to know when you should stick to your instincts. It took me a while to understand that.” In 2014, not 100 per-cent sure the script was ready, she entered it in the 2014 Nicholl com-petition, where she made it to quarterfinals and wrote a thank-you note to Beal. “He actually responded with such kindness that it gave me the extra motivation to keep plugging away at the script.” She rewrote and polished, and her effort was no surprise to her family. Writing had al-ways come naturally to the girl who grew up watching Hindi films with her mom and westerns with her dad. “We were always going to muse-ums, plays and films, learning instruments and being creative. There was a constant exposure to the arts.” While encouraging of the pastime and proud of Malik’s filmmaking degree and directing efforts, her traditional Indian family frowned on entertainment as a career path. Winning the Nicholl in 2016 was the victory that put the stamp of re-spectability on her choice. “I think they might think I’m actually legit!” she says. “It’s more than me just walking around trying to convince peo-ple I’m a writer. It’s something I can actually point to and say, ‘Look, this amazing organization thinks I might have something good to say.’ ”

An excerpt fromDinner with Friends

Dinner with FriendsNicholl Live Read

Geeta Malik Nicholl Acceptance Speech

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