On Writing Bee Season

“I really saw the film as being about how families can become dangerous. I think BEE SEASON is a scary story in a lot of ways about how parents, even with the best of intentions, can become too attached to their kids’ successes and their own dreams for their kids. I was really fascinated by Eliza as a unique heroine, because she is a little girl who has been put in what might even be mortal peril but ultimately decides to save herself - and by extension she winds up saving her family.”

BIO
Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and received the PEN West Screenplay Award and the Golden Globe Award, for her screenplay RUNNING ON EMPTY. She also wrote and produced A DANGEROUS WOMAN, starring Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey and Gabriel Byrne and LOSING ISAIAH with Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. Gyllenhaal recently completed GRACE, a biography of Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place, for Sandra Bullock and Fox 2000 and is at work on a film about Victoria Woodhull.

Gyllenhaal was involved with the development of Sesame Street and The Electric Company at the Children’s Television Workshop and has an ongoing interest in progressive politics. She is actively involved with the Sundance Institute’s Writer’s Laboratory, has served on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, West and is currently a member of the WGA Screen Council. Her children Maggie and Jake are actors and her husband, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director.