All of the screenwriters participating in this year’s SBIFF Writer’s Panel have created films nominated for an Academy Award, and each discussed their pathway, process and recent work. This is consistently one of the best panels at the festival and the Saturday morning event filled the Arlington Theatre.

The literary line-up included: best director nominee Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Oscar nominated, Nobel winner Kazuo Ishiguro (“Living”), best director nominee Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), adapted screenplay nominee Rian Johnson (“Glass Onion: Knives Out Mystery”), best director nominee and Palme d’ Or winner Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”), Lesley Paterson (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”), Pulitzer winner Tony Kushner (“The Fabelmans”), and best director nominee Todd Field (“Tár”). Daniel Kwan who co-wrote and directed “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was unable to attend. IndieWire’s Anne Thompson moderated.

Each started with a short resume of how they got started as screenwriters. Ishiguro, who received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, said that he spent 40 years thinking about novels nearly every day of his life (he’s written eight including Booker prize winner “The Remains of the Day”). For his latest screenplay he adapted Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film “Ikiru” because it had a profound impact on the writer when he was 11-years old. 

“I’ve been consumed with the same question most of my life: If life is short, then what really matters?” he said. “You don’t have to lead a grand, heroic life for it to have meaning.” It’s an important, universal idea that transcends particular settings and it was a message that resonated with Ishiguro.  

Professional triathlete Lesley Paterson credits her distance training runs for inspiring her latest screenplay. “I create a superhero alter-ego while running for hours and hours and this unleashes an imaginative world.”  

Paterson likened the endurance and resilience needed to succeed in sports to filmmaking. In fact, if it weren’t for running, she might not be writing. She credits race earnings for enabling her to afford the rights to “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which she started pursuing 16 years ago. Paterson competed with a broken shoulder, incredibly winning the race that paid for the movie rights.

For former child actress Sarah Polley, it was the realization at age 20 that she did not enjoy acting, and the influence of a powerful film (“The Thin Red Line”), that inspired her to pursue her true love — writing. 

With three children under the age of 10, Polley writes when she can, making the most of ten uninterrupted minutes. “Motherhood has become the best training, teaching me to become a different kind of writer,” she said. “There’s no routine and no process — it’s chaotic but effective.”

Daniel Scheinert met his writing partner Daniel Kwan as college students in Boston. Together they created music videos, and Sheinert said Kwan was “the best writer I’d ever met but he never finished anything.”

The Daniels stumbled into their collaborative writing partnership from those music videos, and “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” was their Marvel-like movie – a mix of their favorite action movies, Kung Fu films, the Matrix and their own family dynamics. 

Sheinert said their writing process is a collaborative, messy, try-anything journey, and the story was improved with the addition of many actors who injected their personal experiences, adding depth and authenticity. 

Tony Kushner joked that he is the Garfunkel to Steven Spielberg’s Simon, but of course Kushner is best known for his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play “Angels in America.” It was after editing an anthology of progressive Jewish essays more than two decades ago that Spielberg hired Kushner to write “Munich” and the two have collaborated ever since.

The Fabelmans was a terrifying film for Spielberg to make, admitted Kushner who co-wrote the script. “There’s this feeling of breaking a taboo and revealing family secrets, yet Spielberg has a gift for taking the things that scare him the most and turning them into profound, intimate moments.”

Ruben Östlund often relies on his personal moments to enhance his films, turning real-life situations into movie scenes. There is a scene in “Triangle of Sadness” pulled directly from details of his courtship with his wife which he shared with audience members.

Östlund said his process drives the script. “I always start by pitching my project and sharing ideas with everyone,” he said, often generating valuable feedback from others that helps to refine his story. He pitches before putting pen to paper, never worrying that people will criticize or steal his ideas. 

On the contrary, Todd Field fills notebooks with ideas before he starts. He started thinking about Lydia Tar 10 years before he began the script. She stayed in one of his notebooks, sitting atop a power structure at first — not necessarily a symphony.  Although he rarely writes with actors in mind, Cate Blanchett appeared in his head and the rest is Oscar-worthy history.

As for process, Field still follows advice that his father-in-law, Bo Goldman, gave him years ago: unplug the phone, get up at the same time every day, and write at the same hour every day. He said the hardest thing for him is knowing when to start.

Martin McDonagh started as a playwright although his dream was always to make movies. His first short film, “Six Shooter,” earned him an Oscar and set the stage for screenwriting success. He struck gold working with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on “In Bruges,” and has been working for the past three years on “The Banshees of Inisherin” and an opportunity to reunite the actors. 

McDonagh created intentional silences in this film, leaving room for the actors to show their depth in those quiet moments. As for process, McDonagh prefers the surprise of one dialogue leading the next, leaving way for twists and turns he can’t foresee. 

Rian Johnson relies on structure when writing his screenplays. It’s a lesson he learned as a teenager from a Robert McKee seminar he attended, and it’s a practice that persists today.  He got his start in movie-making as a teen, making movies with friends for fun. The craft of writing is a process he has fallen in love with and perfected over the years.  

It is Johnson’s love of the who-dunnit genre that inspired “Knives Out” and its sequel, “Glass Onion.” He wanted to modernize the mystery genre which had traditionally been period pieces set in England.

The panel ended with each writer sharing their most difficult scene to write from their recent work.

The SBIFF continues this week, concluding on February 18 with its closing film, aptly titled, “I Like Movies.”