Guillermo Arriaga: Screenwriters' Lecture

Guillermo Arriaga, Mexican novelist, screenwriter and director, behind films including 21 Grams and Babel has shared that he thinks “the first rule of screenwriting, or any art, is having no rules”.

Speaking as part of BAFTA’s 2011 Screenwriters’ Lecture series Arriaga said: “Why do we think that we have to put rules on storytelling?… I think that every story has a different way to be told; each one of them”

Read the full transcript from the event

One of the contemporary kings of non-linear narratives, Arriaga’s passion for the human condition runs through all his films, including Amores Perros, Babel and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

He came to screenwriting relatively late in life, having been a university teacher and novelist before meeting his collaborator Alejandro González Iñárritu, with whom he made some of his better-known films – Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel. His work is famous for utilising a fragmentary, non-linear approach to plot, which contributed to Amores Perros‘ winning a BAFTA Film Award in 2002.