WRITER'S STATEMENT lucy.pawlak (@gmail.com)
As a screenwriter I’m passionate about collaborative writing and consider my special power to be working intensively with others to craft and develop their stories. My enthusiasm for improvisation and immersing myself in a fiction makes me a perfect candidate for the writing room context, for bouncing, exploding and expanding ideas and stories in unexpected directions. Narrative structures have always been a key element of my own work and research: I am particularly drawn to the array of storytelling strategies that exist beyond the conventions of the so-called “Hero’s Journey”. Studying cinematography at the Polish National Film School and painting at the Royal College of Art has contributed to an approach to writing that is firmly grounded in the discipline of screen writing: telling stories through images as well as words.
My artistic practice focuses on making room for improvisation and play within structure. I deploy a variety of mediums (filmmaking, screen-writing, workshops, games, performance, theatre, drawing) to design stories and structures that address how and why we adhere to systems and what the possibilities of breaking with patterns might offer. My approach is auto-theoretic: immersing myself in the narrative, using my-self, embodying. I have written and directed numerous short films, performance pieces and one feature-length film as well as co-writing 3 feature length films in collaboration with directors.
I am a Londoner mostly living in Mexico City, I was a member of the Lux Associate Artists Program 2011 (London), studied Painting at the Royal College of Art (London) and Cinematography at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School (Lodz, Poland).
COLLABORATIVE SCREENWRITING:
My recent screenwriting collaboration, The Hole In The Fence, co-written with director Joaquin Del Paso, premiered in Orizzonti at the Venice Film Festival 2021 where it was awarded Bisato d'Oro. The film is currently on festival circuits, screenings have included London International Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Morelia International Film Festival (Mexico), Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (Turkey).
Synopsis: At a secluded exclusive summer camp in the Mexican countryside, under the watchful eyes of their adult guardians, boys from a prestigious private school receive physical, moral and religious training to turn them into tomorrow’s elite. The discovery of a hole in the perimeter fence triggers a chain of increasingly disturbing events. Hysteria quickly spreads... The politics of privilege are brutally dissected in a striking coming-of-age tale that exposes the fault lines and schisms of contemporary Mexican society.
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
FULL SCRIPT (click to view PDF)
Maquinaria Panamericana, my previous collaboration with Del Paso, was awarded Best Script at the Mexican Ariel Academy Awards 2017 and at the Raindance Film Festival, London 2016. The film was on general release in Mexico as well as being screened in festivals around the world after premiering at the Berlin Film Festival. It won an array of awards including the prestigious Andrzej Munk Film Award for young directors.
Synopsis: At a run down construction machine factory in Mexico City the employees are happily winding down for the weekend, it seems like a typical Friday, until a shocking event breaks their routine: their beloved boss, Don Alejandro, is found dead in the back of a warehouse. This discovery soon leads to further revelations: the company is bankrupt, the workforce have no prospects of employment elsewhere and no hope for any retirement funds. In a state of confusion, fear and grief they agree to hide his death and lock themselves in their dusty workplace to play out an improbable solution.
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
FULL SCRIPT (click to view PDF)
Trailer:
Full Film:
More recently in 2020, I collaborated with director Gabriel Herrera on writing his first feature film, Ana Doesn’t Want to be Seen Dancing. Subsequently, we received funding from FIDECINE and EFICINE, the film will go into production in May 2022. Gabriel’s most recent short film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2021.
Synopsis: In late medieval Germany, Ana, an embarrassed teen, tries to cope with her mother’s sudden and unexplainable urge to dance. Somehow she feels represented by her parent's ridiculous behavior. The self and the other step into the picture: the childish need of a daughter to control her mother's image as if it were her own seems suddenly not so different from the relationship between colonizers and colonized in a post-colonial world. The problem feeds the question: where do I end, and where does the other begin? Or how do I end, to allow the other one to begin? This is a film about our relationship to the mysterious “other”: the impossibility of controlling other people's behavior and the moral imperative to identify ourselves with them.
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
Performances and screenings of my work include: Villa Merkel (Stuttgart), The Jumex Museum (Mexico City), Whitstable Biennial (UK), Videonale (Bonn, Germany) The Showroom, Hollybush Gardens, ICA and National Film Theatre (London), Art Metropole (Toronto), Fogo Island Arts (Canada), Karma International (Zurich), The Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens), Kettles Yard (Cambridge), The Palais Kabelwerk (Vienna), Zentrum Paul Klee (Switzerland), Jerwood Contemporary Painters Award, Jerwood Space, S.L.G./London, Focal Point Gallery/Southend, The Lowry/Manchester.
Recent Writing, Film and Performance Samples authored by ME:
Holding, short film, written and directed by Lucy Pawlak funded by The Stuart Croft Foundation
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
Lost Beat Officer, ongoing expanded narrative: #EXTRANGE online platform, Villa Merkel (Stuttgart), Whitstable Biennial (UK), SoFar online writing and art platform basted in Indonesia, TAJ (Bangalore).
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view online text)
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
We Eat The Earth / The Earth Eats Us, (film) selected screenings: Videonale/Bonn, Athens Digital Arts Festival, ArtVilnius’17 Contemporary Art Fair
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
Something in the Way Live Performance, Index Book Fair @ Jumex Museum/Mexico City
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
In addition I write short stories for children published by Cambridge University Press and distributed around the world for teaching English as a foreign language. The abundant restrictions and requirements built into writing these texts (language use, age level, censorship practices in certain countries, eg, on religious grounds) has given me ample experience in adapting and modifying narratives creatively, specifically aiming to sidestep censors and give a platform to that which is less visible - eg: a children’s story describing a female weightlifting champion for the Saudi Arabian market.
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
WRITING SAMPLE (click to view PDF)
I am also actively involved in ongoing facilitation of an array of screenwriting, filmmaking and creative workshops for young people, students and adults in universities, youth clubs, schools, prisons and independent settings.
Additional Writing, Film and Performance work (see website for details)
Arriving Without Leaving, (film) fogo Island, Arnolfini/Bristol, Kettles Yard/Cambridge, Videonale/Bonn, TAJ/Bangalore, Central St Martins, Obrera Centro, México City, S1 Gallery, Sheffield, T.A.P./Southend, Art Metropole/Canada, Tyneside Cinema/Newcastle During Action (film) ICA, London, Wysing Arts Centre Festival/Cambridge, Grand Union/Birmingham, Outpost/Norwich, The Minories/Colchester, Shortwave Cinema/London
The Inspection House (training for the family in how to act) (feature film) Edinburgh Arts Festival, UNAM/México City, National Film Theatre/London, Tyneside Cinema/Newcastle
How Do I Look? Workshop, Videonale/Bonn
W.D.U.L.R.E., digital art commission, Queens Hall/Newcastle
Timeshare performance for Art Licks Festival/London
HEADMOUNT, livestream performance, Tyneside Cinema/Newcastle
20 True Things Right Here, Right Now, performance, Waterside Contemporary/London
Artistic collaborators have included: Patrick Staff, Ghislaine Leung, Dawn Mellor, John Strutton, Massimiliano Mallona, Hazel Meyer, Joaquin del Paso, Gabriel Herrera, Martin Clark, Adam James, Marenka Gabeler.