E24 • Transforming Adversity into Powerful Storytelling • SCANDAR COPTI, Oscar-nominated dir. of ‘Happy Holidays’, Best Screenplay Winner at the Venice Int. Film Festival + TIFF

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle

In this conversation, Oscar-nominated Scandar Copti discusses his latest film 'Happy Holidays', which just won the Orizontti Award for Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival. His past inspiration includes Alexander Nanau’s 2014 Docu-drama ‘Toto and His Sisters’ and Brazilian doc ‘Bus 174’.

Scandar shares the creative process behind his film and the unique approach he takes in filmmaking, such as casting non-professional actors, and filming chronologically, which allows actors to experience deeper emotions as their characters would.

Scandar emphasizes the need to understand the human experience in storytelling, the value in embracing imperfections, and how the normalization of suffering is a central theme in his work.
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1. E24 • Transforming Adversity into Powerful Storytelling • SCANDAR COPTI, Oscar-nominated dir. of ‘Happy Holidays’, Best Screenplay Winner at the Venice Int. Film Festival + TIFF (00:00:00)

2. Past Present Feature, Hosted by Marcus Mizelle (00:00:01)

3. Introducing Scandar Copti, Oscar nominated director of 'Happy Holidays' (00:00:19)

4. The Creative Process: From Inspiration to Script Development (00:03:44)

5. Unique Casting and Pre-Production Techniques (00:06:39)

6. Filming with Non-Actors: A New Approach (00:09:32)

7. Editing: The Art of Killing Your Darlings (00:12:46)

8. Documentary Inspirations and Philosophical Reflections (00:15:37)

9. Navigating Success and Failure in Filmmaking (00:18:29)