Although the Sundance Film Festival may now be known as well for gift baskets and celebutante appearances in the press as for underground film, it’s always comforting to know that the Institute behind the festival continues to serve the goal of nurturing aspiring filmmakers, including those from UCLA.
Jonathan Wysocki, who graduated in 2004 with a master’s in film production, was announced as the recipient of the Sundance Institute’s prestigious Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship on Oct. 31 for his original screenplay “All Fall Down.” The Fellowship grants Wysocki a $2,500 stipend, two screenwriting advisers and a script reading sponsored by the Institute.
“It’s rare to get this kind of encouragement,” Wysocki said.
Wysocki himself is a member of that rare breed that completes both their undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA. Wysocki actually majored in theater as an undergraduate, completing his studies in 1998. He then took two years off before deciding to apply to film school. Taking time off between graduate and undergraduate is commonplace, but it doesn’t usually involve Africa.
Wysocki spent that interim period putting his degree in theater to humanitarian use by producing agitprop theater in Zimbabwe. Wysocki’s theater productions were meant to educate the public about the dangers and methods of prevention of HIV. After his two years in the southeast of Africa, Wysocki felt that he had reached somewhat of a roadblock that led to a switch of focus. “At a certain point I felt like I had exhausted what theater could do,” Wysocki said. “I applied to the top graduate (film) programs while I was in Zimbabwe, then I got into UCLA.”
After trekking back to the U.S., Wysocki completed his graduate degree. In June of 2008, Wysocki participated in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, which is a workshop of sorts where writers work for five days on perfecting their screenplays. After the lab, Wysocki had finished his first complete draft of “All Fall Down,” and he was offered the fellowship soon after.
“All Fall Down” is set in the aftermath of Sept. 11, but it deals less with the immediate victims of the tragedy than Oliver Stone’s grandly scaled “World Trade Center” or Paul Greengrass’ “United 93,” focusing more on the strange paranoid culture that resulted.
“I was pretty fascinated by how our culture had to change so quickly after Sept. 11, in just being so fearful of everything. Things that hadn’t been terrorist attacks before were now terrorist attacks,” Wysocki said. The actual events of the story concern a 9-year-old boy who dresses up as Osama bin Laden on the Halloween after the attacks and the consequences that result from it. “I found it funny that the first holiday after was Halloween, which is a holiday predicated on terror,” Wysocki said. “And I read a lot about the efforts to sanitize and whitewash Halloween … which kind of inspired me.”
Wysocki hopes that the story of a boy’s desire to shock will illuminate a greater truth about the state of the union post-Sept. 11. “We look back on that time and everyone has different feelings about it. I wouldn’t say people are ashamed of the choices they made during that culture of fear, but maybe they reconsider them,” he said.
The fate of the script itself is up in the air, but promising.
As part of the fellowship, Wysocki will be advised by Tom Perrotta, whose writing credits include “Little Children,” and Susannah Grant, the writer behind “Erin Brockovich” and “Ever After.” The fellowship also contributes a reading, which Wysocki believes will aid in the revisions to the script. In addition, there will be a reading with professional actors, mostly from the independent community. “It will be great to hear the script playing out with good actors, for what’s working and what’s not working,” Wysocki said.
While he continues to edit and revise his script, Wysocki currently works as a professor at Chapman University in the film studies department. While the fellowship plays out, Wysocki still has a lot of work on his plate, such as papers to grade.
“This semester I have an insane amount of students. I do think it’s hard (to balance writing and teaching),” Wysocki said. “On the flip side, and I think this a common thing for all writers ““ you can always find a way to procrastinate.”