Unveiling Secrets: Renee Pillai’s Unexpected Journey Behind the Story

Renee Pillai wrote the original screenplay “Boy With Kite” which won a 2019 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. I had the opportunity to chat with Renee about her background as a screenwriter, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to her.

Scott Myers: You’re from Malaysia. In the Nicholl Ceremony in Beverly Hills, Tyger Williams who was your presenter, talked about the rigors you had to go through to get to the event on time. Can you talk a little bit about what that process was like?

Renee Pillai: When I found out I had become a finalist, I immediately thought, “Oh, no. I have no travel documents.” Then I found out that only Fellows attend Fellowship Week. So I thought, “OK, not a problem because I don’t know that I’ll become a Fellow.”

Then when I found out I’d become a Fellow, that started the whole thing off again, “Oh my God, I have no travel documents!”

I told the Academy I had to get a passport. And that freaked everyone out, because I understand here in the US, it takes a month to get a passport.

Scott: A month or more, yeah.

Renee: So everyone thought, “Oh my goodness, it’s going to be the same for Malaysia.” At that point, the award ceremony was just over a month away.

So I needed — Passport. Visa. Clearance to travel.

Once everything cleared, I applied for a passport and US travel visa. You can only apply online, and it costs quite a lot. By that time, I had used up my savings figuring everything out.

So my friends showed up. Everybody brought their piggy banks, not literal piggy banks but all their small change, whatever they had. We ended up with $160 in a pile of coins. We thought we’d go to the bank to change it to paper money. But we found out you get charged for the conversion and realized, “OK, we’re losing out here.”

So I ended up paying in coins. And bless them, the officers there, they just took that. They closed six counters, and they all counted coins. No complaints.

That wasn’t the problem. The problem started the minute I applied for my US visa. I’d already created the online account on October 4th when I got told we’d…