The Praxis Centre’s mentors have helped create over 30 feature films
The Praxis Centre has announced that it will introduce a new workshop, Introduction to Screenwriting: Surrey, as a place to start for those who have an idea for a film, or have already started a screenplay and need assistance.
Formed in 1987, the Praxis Centre at the SFU School for Contemporary Arts has helped aspiring screenwriters and filmmakers make their mark on the cinema landscape for the last 25 years. More than 30 feature films have been made from scripts that received guidance from Praxis’s experienced mentors.
Students enrolled in the five-week Introduction to Screenwriting course can expect to develop skills in structuring story, developing character and dialogue, and properly formatting a screenplay. Students will also receive tips on getting their work produced and learn how to develop a script beyond the Hollywood model. With a class capacity limited to 15, and a focus on constructively receiving and offering criticism, students are hoped to ingrain some valuable skills into their screenwriting habit.
The course, offered on Tuesday evenings at SFU’s Surrey Campus from Oct. 23 to Nov. 27, will be lead by screenwriter Belle Mott, whose feature Pink Ludoos was produced by Brightlight Pictures for Citytv. The film, set in an Indo-Canadian community, won the Best Canadian Feature award at the Reel World International Film Festival in Toronto. A current Mott script, Dowry Kings, is being developed by Submission Films.
Praxis Centre Director Patricia Gruben is excited by the “distinctive cultural differences in storytelling styles” brought to the Praxis Centre by filmmakers like Belle Mott and Anjum Rajabali, a well-regarded Indian screenwriter whom Praxis featured in a series of screenings and talks last spring.
“We’ve found Belle Mott to teach a course that will be for everybody, but is sensitive to the distinctive cultural differences in storytelling styles,” said Gruben. “This is valuable even for people who aren’t particularly writing for an international audience, because it makes us look at stories from a different angle, not just slavishly following the Hollywood formula that’s been described in so many books and seminars.”
Patricia Gruben herself is an accomplished Canadian filmmaker whose work has been screened at Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival, among many other notable festivals. She has written and directed two feature films: Low Visibility and Deep Sleep.
In addition to her duties as the director of Praxis, Gruben directs SFU’s field school in Contemporary Art & Culture of India, and is an associate professor of film at SFU.
The Praxis Centre also runs a yearly Feature Screenplay Competition judged by eight accomplished filmmakers. The prize is entrance into a small and intensive fall writing workshop where successful competitors are paired with veteran screenwriters who will assist in the revision and development of a polished draft.
Telefilm Canada, Movie Central, and the Writer’s Guild of Canada, among other supporters, sponsor the Praxis Centre. The Centre plans to hold another event at Harbour Centre, produced in partnership with the Writer’s Guild of Canada.
