Film Studies alumna is finalist for screenwriting fellowship

Stack of screenplays with titles showing

September 26, 2016 by Leslie Reed | University Communications

Because she’s a storyteller at heart, Beanie Barnes knows a well-told tale sometimes circles back to its beginning. That’s why it is so sweet that she recently was shortlisted for a prestigious screenwriting fellowship, 16 years after she collected a journalism degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and headed off to Hollywood to make her name in the movies. [...] 

Barnes’ screenplay, “Little Toro,” was one of 12 finalists chosen from among 6,915 scripts submitted for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting this year. The Fellowship Committee, composed of 18 writers, producers and other film industry professionals, will meet later this month to select up to five fellows, who will each receive a $35,000 prize. The first installment is to be distributed at a Nov. 3 awards ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. [...]

KaLena 'Beanie' Barnes
KaLena "Beanie" Barnes

“Gwendolyn Foster (English and Film Studies) had a huge impact on me. I wrote my first screenplay in her class. She and (Wheeler Winston) Dixon introduced me to what is possible with film, especially as an artistic expression” Barnes said. “...And Judith Slater (English emeritus) – I took her fiction-writing class and I just never forgot it because I learned so much about story. The most important thing about screenwriting is not that you’re writing for the screen – but that you’re writing to tell a story.”

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