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Ronald Harwood: Screenwriters' Lecture

20 December 2011

Watch the BAFTA Guru video of Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, The Pianist) speaking as part of the 2011 BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series.

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The full length Ronald Harwood lecture video is available to watch now on BAFTA Guru.


Harwood has an award-winning body of work as a playwright, screenwriter and author that spans five decades. In the 60s and 70s his work for television was highly acclaimed, and his breakthrough film project The Dresser (1983) earned him his first BAFTA nomination.

He collaborated with Roman Polanski on the BAFTA-nominated The Pianist (2002), and again on Oliver Twist (2005). He enjoyed international acclaim once again after adapting Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007). The moving story of a paralyzed man who can only communicate through his left eye gave Harwood his first BAFTA win.

William Goldman... famously came to the conclusion that 'nobody knows anything'. I wholeheartedly subscribe to that view.

In the full video, available to watch now on BAFTA Guru, Harwood describes the intense script revision process with Roman Polanski for The Pianist, rejects the traditional dominance of the director in a film's marketing, and takes questions from the audience in a session hosted by Tanya Seghatchian.