Sexual Violence in Spec Screenplays
Sex at the Movies charlie buhler Sex at the Movies charlie buhler

Sexual Violence in Spec Screenplays

I’ll never forget the worst script I’ve ever read. It came across my desk while reading for the Black List in the fall of 2013, and was classified as a comedy. It was a coming-of-age story about a young woman with dreams of stand-up stardom. It also had eight rape scenes in it, described a ten-year old girl as “teasing like a stripper,” featured multiple scenes of child abuse, torture, and incest, and blamed the multitude of abuses suffered by its heroine on her inability to wear underwear. I’ll remind you again that this script was classified as a comedy by its own (male) writer.

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Noemie Merlant + Celine Sciamma on PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
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Noemie Merlant + Celine Sciamma on PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

My favorite movie-going experience in 2019 may have been seeing Céline Sciamma’s exquisite PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE at the 105-year old Prytania Theatre in New Orleans as a part of the New Orleans Film Festival. Being in an ancient theater only added to my immersion in the film’s sumptuous, sensual world, created by Sciamma and her incredible lead actresses, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel. I spoke to Merlant and Sciamma about how they built a welcoming atmosphere on set, the power of the female gaze in narrative, secrets in cinema, and much more.

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