Spotlight Interview

Monte Albers de Leon

1. As someone who spent over two decades in the legal profession before embracing screenwriting, how do those years of law inform your craft as a writer — in structuring narrative, character, tension.
Well they definitely got me used to writing late at night; beyond that, the researching skills and critical thinking needed for developing scripts, as well as the lived experiences that provided fertile ground for content, proved invaluable.

2.You’ve described Hi: Part Two as both deeply personal and universally resonant. If the script itself were a living character, how would you describe its personality?
Sapient, and a little cheeky.

3. Many of your scripts explore identity, morality, and intimacy. Do you write to answer questions for yourself, or to provoke questions in the audience?
My hope is that my writing unlocks a bit of self discovery for the audience, a realization about the better nature within themselves, and within humanity, that only needed to be seen to be reminded. A hidden sermon in the sundae, as it were.

4. You’ve had your scripts recognized globally yet remain unproduced. Do you see this phase as frustrating—or as a space of incubation, where the work gathers strength before being realized?

Yes, I did. I am happy to announce that is no longer the case – Good, the first story in The Parables anthology, has begun production.

5. If a future filmmaker 50 years from now discovered your unproduced scripts, what do you hope they’d say about your voice as a writer in this moment of history?

That they strived to bring a little hope to a whole lot of people.

6. Festivals like this bring audiences from many cultures together. What do you hope international audiences discover in your work that they might not have seen before?

That just as human suffering is universal, so is the resilience of humanity’s ability to overcome it by relying on the best of what makes us alike; what makes us human.

7. Japanese aesthetics often embrace yūgen (mystery, depth) and mono no aware (the beauty of impermanence). Do you feel these ideas connect to your own way of telling stories?

Absolutely. What my stories hope to show is that nothing is permanent, and yet the mystery of the constant change of time holds the very beauty of our existence.

8. Do you envision moving from writing into directing one of your own works, or do you see yourself staying purely as a writer?

I would very much like to direct in the future.

9. If you could collaborate on your next project with one Japanese filmmaker—past or present—who would it be, and what kind of story would you want to create together?

Kōji Fukada. A family drama/thriller.

Spotlight Interview

Monte Albers de Leon

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