SCREENWRITING SEMINAR
The Woodstock Film Festival’s annual Screenwriting Seminar is a multi-week screenwriting course taught by filmmaker and educator Alex Smith.
Open to writers of all levels, the seminar empowers participants to distill their story ideas into a cohesive screenplay ready to be adapted for film or television in a highly collaborative environment. For a recap of the 2020 course, which was titled “Inducing the Athena” and held entirely online due to COVID-19 restrictions, please visit our blog.
Registrations for the 3rd annual Screenwriting Seminar in 2021 will open in the spring. Stay tuned for further announcements by signing up for our newsletter or following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
2019 seminar students with instructor Alex Smith at the WFF offices.
ABOUT THE INTRUCTOR:
Alex Smith is a screenwriter, filmmaker, fiction writer & educator. He and his twin brother Andrew premiered their latest feature film, WALKING OUT at the Sundance Film Festival. WALKING OUT stars Golden Globe winner Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman & Lily Gladstone. The film was distributed by IFC Films.
The Smith's also wrote, directed & produced WINTER IN THE BLOOD, a feature film based on the landmark First Nations novel. The film won numerous awards and was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival. They also wrote/directed Sundance darling THE SLAUGHTER RULE, starring Ryan Gosling, David Morse, and Amy Adams.
Alex has, with his brother, written over 15 professional feature film scripts and television pilots for HBO, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony, FX and more. They adapted the graphic novel, SON OF THE GUN by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for Fox Searchlight. They also adapted a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel for filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. Alex has worked with Lars Von Trier, Jodie Foster, Robert Redford, Brian De Palma, David O. Russell and adapted Chekhov’s THE DUEL for Terrence Malick.
Alex has taught Screenwriting & Filmmaking at Columbia University, NYU/Tisch, the University of Tulsa and the University of Texas, Austin, where he was the Creative Director of the UT Film Institute. He is a current mentor for the Sundance Co//ab online program. Alex is a Michener, Sundance, and Rauschenberg Fellow and is a published writer of fiction. Multiple Nicholl Fellowship/Black List screenwriters count as his students. A resident at the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, Alex is based in Woodstock, NY.
