BART 97A89 - Everybody's Autobiography-Creative Screenwriting Workshop

Though the terms “autobiography” and “autofiction” are considered mostly as literary genres, contemporary cinema offers many ways of working with one's autobiographical materials in fiction. Starting form Chantal Akerman's I, You, He, She and Bill Douglas's My Childhood – the workshop will first try to define what is an autobiographical work in cinema, what are its limits and possibilities. Mixing practical exercise, critical viewing and reading, students will have the opportunity to write their own autofiction screenplay and experiment with different ways of personal storytelling for the screen. Academic expectations - Familiarizing with basic language of screenwriting - Developing creative writing skills - Developing critical viewing skills - Experiment with narrative and storytelling

Aaron COHEN-YANAY

Atelier

English

Spring 2025-2026

- Participation in class discussion 10% - Submission of written exercises during the semester: 45% total - Final assignment, “self-portrait” screenplay: 45% Late work policy Late submissions will result in a reduction of the assignment grade. Late arrival policy Once the workshop has started, late arrival only with justification.

Session 1 : Reality vs. fiction? Introduction to screenwriting, basic terms and concepts. Looking at hybrid films, mixing documentary and fiction. Session 2 : The self-portrait How to create a self-portrait in film? Watching and discussing the film I, You, He, She by Chantal Akerman. Session 3 :  The self-portrait cont' Individual work: following the first part of Akerman's film, writing one “self-portrait” scene, a character alone in their room. Session 4: Filming memory Comparing between My Childhood, and Aftersun: approaches to visual narration of childhood memories. Session 5 : Filming memory cont' Individual work: choosing one of the two films (My Childhood, Aftersun) as inspiration for writing one's own scene, transposing a memory onto the screen. Session 6 : First person narration Watching and discussing I Killed my Mother by Xavier Dolan. Session 7 : Third person narration Comparing between Fanny and Alexandre, Syndromes and a Century and The Novelist's Film: three (very) different approaches of fictionalizing of the self and others. Session 8: Multiple perspectives Individual work: rewriting one's memory scene from another character's point of view. Session 9: The personal and the political Watching and discussing The Time that Remains, Elia Suleiman and The Headless Woman, Lucretia Martel : the autobiography contextualized. Session 10: The personal and the political cont' Individual work: contextualizing one's own self-portrait. Bringing the outside world into one's room. Session 11: The autobiography of another Watching and discussing Little Sister and Sugar Cane Alley. Comparing the autobiographical novel to the screenplay. Session 12: Presentations Reading presentations of personal work from the semester.