Samy Burch has been on a roll this year. It all started at the Cannes Film Festival where her first produced screenplay, May December, landed in competition at the world’s most prestigious and glamorous film festival. Then it was bought by Netflix in one of the biggest acquisition deals out of Cannes.
Following its debut this fall, the film has brought numerous awards to Burch including from the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics and other screenplay awards. She is nominated for Best First Screenplay at the Indie Spirit Awards, and now is a nominee for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, the only nomination for the Todd Haynes-directed film that has won much critical acclaim ever since that Cannes debut. Burch’s now-husband Alex Mechanik, who wrote the story of the film with her, is nominated with her.
Burch joins me for this week’s edition of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens, where we talk about the whirlwind of action this film has brought to her life and budding career (she previously had been working in casting while writing scripts on spec). We talk about how this good fortune came about, how no less than Natalie Portman optioned the script and produced and stars with Julianne Moore, the real-life inspirations for the story of a married wife and mother who strikes up an affair with a young teenager, and what the film is really about.
(L-R) Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in ‘May December’
Netflix
We also talk about yet another movie she has written that has been a bit controversial. That would be Coyote vs. Acme, the Warner Bros live-action/animation hybrid that the studio decided it was going to send to the vault, rather than spend the money it would take to release. After screenings took place to excellent reaction, an outcry was heard from many top people in the industry — so much so that Warners had to reverse its decision and put the movie up for sale to other studios and streamers, where it is still trying to find a home.
Quite a year indeed for this writer, so to watch our conversation and to go “behind the lens”‘” with Samy Burch, click on the video above.
Join me every Friday during Oscar season for another episode of Behind the Lens.