MovieBytes Interview:
Screenwriter Ellen Gavin

An interview with screenwriter Ellen Gavin regarding the RIIFF/Rhode Island Writing Competition.

A: I wrote "Rebels and Roses" in the Graduate Department at UCLA while on sabbatical from my job running a theater in San Francisco. I take the Lawrence, Ma. Bread and Roses Strike of 1912, wherein women and children fought a bitter battle to end child labor in the U.S., and juxtapose it with the story of a Puerto Rican mom coming off welfare. Blanche, who is based on my grandmother, a real Lawrence child laborer, and Migdalia who cares for her, form a bond similar to the characters in Fried Green Tomatoes. It has glorious set pieces and presumes that history repeating itself can sometimes be a good thing.

A: It looked very reputable, and my feeling was that given it was an international festival, there would be more appreciation for a soulful script. Also that it was an East Coast contest gave me the sense that the nuances would be understood, given that it is set in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

A: Yes. It is a bit odd that the contest winners are announced after their festival and that winners were invited the following year. But the folks seem extremely diligent and responsible.

A: No feedback from this contest. It has placed in other contests as well, Moondance, Writer's Network. Notes from Slamdance were particularly helpful.

A: The contest gives you an Inktip.com registration as a prize. So I've received a number of requests for the script from that placement. But Inktip's membership on the producer side seems a bit limited.

I have three agents and one producer waiting on rewrites for "Santiago's Big Fish."

A: I run a theater company in San Francisco, the Brava Theater Center. I have written four plays and I'm working on my fourth screenplay. My most recent is Santiago's Big Fish, based on a true story I heard in Mexico. The set up: a gigantic block of cocaine falls out of the sky over the Mexican Riviera and nearly capsizes the fishing boat of the poor but ambitious Santiago Morales. The question is whether this will be opportunity or the curse of a lifetime.

A: I split my time between LA and San Francisco. I'll move there when I survive as a screenwriter full-time.

A: I've started a political thriller that is a cross between Z and Body Heat. I'm writing a fictional Henry Kissinger character who gets entrapped and brought to justice for crimes against humanity. His nemesis is a thrill-seeking lesbian journalist.

Posted Thursday, January 8, 2004