Film Courage: Do you remember something that was said to you in one of these UCLA writing classes which you never forgot?
Patricia Vidal Delgado, Writer/Director: Yes, definitely. Richard Walter [recently retired Professor and Associate and Interim Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television for 40 years] said Nobody wants to see the film of the village of the nice, happy people. I remember that one because it’s so true.
And also he said something which is in Hollywood all you do is graduate to the next level of disappointment. I think he used the example that you write the script but it doesn’t sell. It’s shot but it’s not distributed. It’s distributed but not in great venues. So you basically just graduate to the next level which is very grounding advice that you are always going to be walking the tightrope in this industry no matter how well you think you’re doing.
Film Courage: Also how we were saying the European Mindset of “Just try it and see what happens.” Do you think that coupled with that piece of advice has helped you to be like “You know what, I’ll try it and submit to Sundance.” For someone’s first feature film, what a major accomplishment! [Patricia’s first feature film La Leyenda Negra premiered in the 2020 Sundance Film Festival NEXT program].
Patricia: To always keep your feet on the ground because that was something that he would say to us as a screenwriter, the secret to success is self-motivated speculative writing. If you just sit around and wait for people to come to you that’s not going to happen. You just need to have your own engine and you have to keep moving forward regardless…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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