Interview: Amy Tofte (2015 Nicholl Winner)

Amy Tofte wrote the original screenplay “Addis Abeka” which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Amy about her background as a writer and her award-winning screenplay.

Here are links to the six installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I think that’s also something a lot of screenwriters have in common, you go through that period where you love film so much, and you love the process so much, you just can’t get enough of it.”

Part 2: “ I was meeting a lot of natives of Ethiopia who had never left the country, and I thought about writing a story about a person from there who simply has hopes and dreams. That’s all. There’s nothing different about this kid than a kid growing up in South Dakota who wants be a screenwriter, as far as I’m concerned.”

Part 3: “ I think the smartest thing you can do as a writer is to get smart people in your circle willing to read your work and be brutally honest with you. And some willing to be in your corner.”

Part 4: “I knew I wanted Abeka to be gifted and unusual in an active way, not just, “Oh, he’s wonderful and we root for him because he’s wonderful,” but that there was something else that you could really point to on the outside and say, “This.” It was ping‑pong.”

Part 5: “It’s strange to call yourself a Nicholl Fellow and feel like now you’re doing this thing that you’ve thought about, that you’ve known about for so long, and you’ve admired so many of the people who’ve done it and read their scripts — it’s a little overwhelming.”

Part 6: “That’s the one thing that screenwriters all understand, I think. There have been people who say, “It’s the hardest kind of writing to do in the world.” I think all writing is hard, but there’s a strange intersection of journalism and poetry in dramatic writing.”

Twitter: @AmyTofte.