Interview with Greek-American Evan Spiliotopoulos, writer of the 2017 remake of the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
By Anna Spyrou
Los Angeles, July 2017
Greek-American Evan Spiliotopoulos, screenwriter of the 2017 live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon and starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, spoke to SEEfest about the Disney hit movie and his writing career in Los Angeles.
SEEfest: Tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved in screenwriting.
Evan: I always wanted to be a writer and I always loved movies, so screenwriting was the natural combination. Growing up in Greece, I would write short stories and watch every movie I could get my hands on. When I finished high school, I attended the university of Delaware and then American University in DC where I got a degree in screenwriting.
SEEfest: What brought you to Los Angeles?
Evan: Greece has no competitive film industry and certainly no structure in place to cultivate screenwriting. Since I wanted to specifically be a screenwriter, my best option was to come to Los Angeles. For theater and some television, it’s New York. But for film and the rest of TV production, it is L.A. The move was intimidating since I didn’t know a soul, but I had won a few writing awards in festivals and had built a portfolio. So, in 1995 I made the trek to California. I was fortunate enough to very quickly get a job writing for the Sci-Fi Chanel, which launched me.
SEEfest: When do you know an idea is worth writing, and what is your process of getting it there?
Evan: If there is a great conflict, an interesting plot and a unique angle into a story – and if it is cinematic – it’s worth pursuing. My process consists of writing a paragraph of bios for the main characters to get to know them, then laying out the screenplay in a beat sheet. Usually I can see plot holes and structural flaws in an outline before I start writing. With this prep, a first draft takes me around three weeks.
SEEfest: How was your experience working on Beauty and the Beast with such a star-studded cast?
Evan: Fantastic. As thrilled as I was with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, it was being associated with the incredible supporting actors like Kevin Kline and Ian McKellen and literally everyone else that blew me away. It also made me feel very confident that with people of that caliber, the script and dialogue would sound golden.
SEEfest: Had you worked with Stephen Chbosky before? How did that writing partnership work?
Evan: I had not, but I loved his work in Perks of Being A Wallflower, which he also directed. We actually did not write Beauty together. But our work, and director Bill Condon’s contributions, overlaps throughout the film.
SEEfest: We get noticed because of our successes, but we create them on the back of our failures. What failures (of your own) have you been able to learn from? How did they change you and your process?
Evan: In film, failure is married to success. Getting a script produced and made into a movie is a success unless the film fails at the box office, in which case the entire experience is perceived as a failure. The catch with applying what I have learned in a bad experience is that there’s very little I can do to avoid it next time. Once the script is done, there are a thousand things that can go wrong that the writer has no control over. That’s why films like Beauty are a bit of a miracle.
SEEfest: Are you on social media and do you use it in your work? Why or why not?
Evan: Not really. I have yet to engage with Instagram and Twitter. Other writers have had bad experiences with social media where strangers will pop up out of the blue and try to push scripts on them. It’s happened a couple of times to me. So my social media presence is sparse.
SEEfest: We are all here because we LOVE cinema. How did your love for movies get sparked and what can we, as a Southeast European community, do to help others discover a similar pleasure?
Evan: As the story goes, my parents took me to see an Asterix and Obelix cartoon when I was three. I stayed absolutely silent during the film and started crying when it was over because I wanted more. That was my addict’s moment. As far as what Greece can do, well I think people have plenty of
opportunity to discover a love for cinema without help. There are theaters and DVD stores all over the place, plus Greece unfortunately has a big piracy problem. So the real question is how to cultivate film production and how to encourage foreign films to shoot in our country. Local film production explodes when both the state and independent producers have a lot of money to invest in films. The way they get a lot of money is by doing everything possible to attract foreign films and get them to spend cash in Greece. Since every consecutive Greek government regardless of political leaning has ignored or discouraged foreign film production, we will not be making a ton of movies in Greece and the success of our filmmakers overseas will be confined to rare examples.
SEEfest: Do you have a project in the works right now? Would you share some details about it?
Evan: I do have a science fiction thriller that seems to be in a good place. But the plot, as they say, is under wraps.
SEEfest: What words of wisdom would you share with an aspiring writer?
Evan: To quote Ray Bradbury: “Writers write”. Every day. Without fail. If it’s one page or ten, write.
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Anna Spyrou is an award winning writer-director passionate about storytelling and living in Los Angeles. She has been involved with SEEfest social media team since 2016.
Watch SEEfest movies online
Take advantage of one more week to watch the latest movies online. We partnered with Films2C to bring a great selection of this year’s festival films straight to your home. The selection includes features, documentaries and shorts – short fiction, short docs and animation shorts. Check out award winners and discover new, talented filmmakers. SEEfest films are available online for rental VOD, but only until June 3rd! Don’t miss out! Go to SEEfest on VOD and enjoy the wonderful selection of 2017 festival films. And please, send us your reviews and recommendations and post them on SEEfest facebook page (and while you’re there, please like and follow our page!) THANKS from all of us at SEEfest!
You can also catch online two acclaimed 2016 SEEfest films: Losers, an award-winning and irresistibly charming satire from Bulgaria; and Turkish unusual romance between two misfits, The Half.
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On “Defending Cinema in Los Angeles”, the Manifesto of Locarno in L.A.
Los Angeles, 22 April 2017 — Opening night of the inaugural Locarno in Los Angeles film festival at Downtown Independent needs to be recognized for its bold effort to rescue the city from the non-stop, wall-to-wall, suffocating onslaught of ever more commercial glut. We desperately need a revolution of our mental eating habits saturated with the sugary drinks of 80% CGI sprinkled with faux sentimentality that treats us as unsuspecting kindergarteners, an easy prey for inducing a life-long addiction to nonsense.
Los Angeles is at the cutting edge of the 21st century artistic frontier in many creative disciplines and we deserve better in cinema too. This is not a question of “liking” a film. It is healthy to dislike, to critique, to shout at the programmer who put you through the rigmarole of watching “slow film” that is so opaque that it makes you angry – and that provokes you to express your opinion and engage in a heated discussion with your next-seat neighbor, perhaps a nerdy cinephile who drives you crazy with haughty references to movies you have never seen or heard of. It is healthy! As it was healthy when the LA Phil embarked in 1992 on a bold adventure with the young conductor Esa Pekka-Salonen who pushed the orchestra, as well as the audience and sponsors, to experience avant-garde programming with contemporary, experimental, innovative composers. Today LA Phil is the envy of the music world, and a world-class orchestra.
Avant-garde gives new life to everything, even the standard, run-of-the-mill programs. We need cinema that will challenge us, enrage, puzzle and delight in ways we didn’t even know we could be stimulated. It gives health-food nourishment to our poor aneurism-clogged brains and nudges our cerebral power plant to awake from the stupor of the tiresome new age and science-averse pretentious spirituality. We need it to jolt us to a state of wonder by bringing bold cinema to our Hollywood shores.
Vera Mijojlic
Artistic Director of SEEfest
Two SEE films on the LoLA program on Sunday, 4/23: All the Cities of the North, with Serbian director Dane Komljen in person; and Scarred Hearts, by Romanian director Radu Jude.
Locarno in L.A. web site
We invite you to join us NEXT WEEK at the 12th edition of SEEfest, April 27 – May 4. Buy your festival pass today!
*NOTE: SEEfest Cine-Fan Members get a 20% discount on Festival Passes and tickets. Click here to join and get your promo code.
The Constitution Opens the 12th Annual SEEfest on April 27
Nebojša Glogovac. Photo by Hà Kin
The Constitution by Croatian director Rajko Grlic is the Opening night film of the 12th edition of SEEfest on Thursday, April 27 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, at 7:00 PM.
Winner of the Grand Prize of the Americas at the Montreal World Film Festival, and Best International Feature Film Award of the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2017, among other awards, The Constitution has enjoyed critical and commercial success wherever it was shown.
Tickets are now available for SEEfest Opening gala and screening of The Constitution.
April 27 at the Writers Guild Theater
135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly HIlls
Doors open at 6:00 pm
Film screens at 7:00 pm
Reception immediately following the film
Tickets – $20 includes screening and reception
*SEEfest Members get a 20% discount on Festival tickets.
Two SEE films at Locarno in Los Angeles – April 21-23
We are proud that out of 10 films specially selected for the inaugural presentation in Los Angeles of the 69th Locarno Film Festival two are by SEE filmmakers: All the Cities of the North (Serbia / Bosnia Herzegovina / Montenegro) by Dane Komljen, who will attend the screening on April 23 at 6PM; and Scarred Hearts by Radu Jude (Romania), also screening on April 23, at 8:30PM.
A collaboration between Acropolis Cinema, the Locarno Festival, and the Swiss Consulate General of Los Angeles, the inaugural edition of Locarno in Los Angeles will run from April 21-23 at the Downtown Independent cinema.
For full line up of films and tickets please visit Locarno in Los Angeles web site.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: SEEfest 2017 opens on April 27 at the Writers Guild Theater – get your festival pass now! We have eight days of screenings, panels, events, parties, and special guests.
Drumroll Please – Cover Art Unveiled for 2017 SEEfest
SEEfest has chosen exuberance as the theme for the 12th edition of the festival. Long time art director Elyas Beria has created the poster and cover art inspired by the high energy dances and music of the region. The poster features the contours of a dancer leaping into the air with the shape of the body laid over a transparent backdrop of Los Angeles beaches.
Southeast Europe is the cradle of many dance variants and energetic folk dancing often expresses an undying desire to overcome one’s circumstances. This year SEEfest pays homage to this spirit of exuberance with films about beautiful music, delicious food, self-deprecating humor and undying defiance.
Festival passes go on sale on March 14. Become a member to get discounts and enjoy member privileges!
Serbian-American VR Wunderkind at Tribeca
Only a year ago at Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier did Milica Zec present a short narrative piece called “Giant.” By this Spring she, together with her partner, Winslow Turner Porter III, has become a fixture on the festival circuit with stops at Cannes and now Tribeca. At Tribeca Milica will present “Tree,” which premiered earlier this year.
“See and feel what it is like to become a tree in this haptically enhanced VR experience. With your arms as the branches and your body as the trunk, you experience the growth from a seedling to its fullest form, taking on its role in the majestic rain forest and witnessing its fate firsthand.”
If you live in New York City, don’t miss the opportunity to experience Milica’s work and meet her in person. She’s quite charming!
More about the Virtual Arcade at Tribeca
More about Milica Zec and TREE
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TWO PROJECT AWARDS IN BERLIN TO DERYA DURMAZ, AND VLADIMIR PERISIC
SEEfest Staff Writer | February 13, 2017, 10:35 AM
News flash from Berlin 2/13/2017: The project by Derya Durmaz, Bus to Amerika, which got its start at SEEfest Project Accelerator in 2016, just won the “VFF Talent Highlight Award” at the Berlin Film Festival! We congratulate Derya on this success, and share with her this great joy.
Vladimir Perisic, LOST COUNTRY
Serbian director Vladimir Perišić won the prestigious ARTE International Prize for is project Lost Country. ARTE Prize is given for an “artistically outstanding project” from the Berlinale Co-Production Market. Big congrats to Vladimir!
SEEfest will continue to support new projects, especially first films, and nurture talent. If you have a story to tell and a new project you are working on, submissions for 2017 Project Accelerator are open till March 26, midnight Pacific Standard Time. Go to review Guidelines, and to submit, go to https://filmfreeway.com/submissions .
Berlinale press release can be viewed here.
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A LOOK AT…INTERNATIONAL FILMS AT U.S. SPECIALTY BOX OFFICE
SEEfest Staff Writer | February 12, 2017, 12:13 PM
Hindi-language comedy/satire Jolly Llb 2 was leading at the specialty box office this week with $800,000, ahead of Oscar-nominated shorts compilation which took second place with $660,000. Iranian drama The Salesman, frontrunner among the five nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film, grossed $725,000.
The box office numbers are well below mainstream films, but for non-English language movies these are excellent results. Specialty (arthouse) audience is very much alive and proves that there is a market in the U.S. for international cinema and American independents.
Among English-language independents Oscar-nominated Moonlight grossed $20 million, while A United Kingdom, about a real-life romance between Prince of Bechuanaland and an English woman grossed $70,000. To put everything in perspectiv
e, Danish film Land of Mine, WWII drama nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar and distributed in the U.S. by Sony Classics, grossed $23,510.
Finally, if you’re looking at the big picture, La la Land which tops all other movies with 14 Oscar nominations, grossed $126 million domestically which puts it in the 23rd place in 2016. The top-grossing film of 2016? Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, with over $527 million domestically (over $1 billion worldwide). They don’t call it show biz for nothing…
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THE OSCARS: HOLLYWOOD STREET CLOSURES
The Academy released this week the plans for street closures leading to the Oscars® on Sunday, February 26 at the Dolby Theater. First to close on February 5 (21 days prior to the Oscar show) was Orchid Alley. Subsequent closures will gradually encircle the Hollywood & Highland Center to accommodate the construction of press risers, fan bleachers and pre-show stages along the Oscars red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard. Read more about maps, closures, and metro train schedule.
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