Screenwriter Tory Kamen on the Confidence Sundance Institute Gave Her, Eleanor the Great, and More

By Bailey Pennick

Growing up in New York City, Tory Kamen wasn't sure what line of work she wanted to get into, but she knew she didn't want to be bored. As she observed the people in her life, she noticed a pattern emerging among the working world adults. They hated their jobs, she says. They were always bitching and moaning and all that. But my dad woke up every day and was excited to write. She pauses, a smile lights up her face as she reveals her origin story. She's undeniably funny, warm, and engaged. He was just a writer - not a director, producer, or any of that. He wrote and he loved it. Connecting with her father at the end of each day lit a spark in Kamen and continues to drive her as a screenwriter.

Even now, after getting her first feature-length script turned into a film directed by Scarlett Johansson - her directorial debut - which premiered at this spring's Cannes Film Festival, Kamen refuses to get distracted from the work. Right as we were meeting, the 33-year-old writer was locked in on her laptop working at a table in the back of a cafe in Silver Lake, California. There's a lot of front facing stuff [right now] and that's not really where I feel the most comfortable, she reveals with a laugh. Knowing that I'm really excited to get back to my computer when I touch down from France makes me feel so much better about the career path that I've chosen because if I were trying desperately to get to that moment of the premiere, or get to that moment of going to the fun party to justify all of the work that went into this, it wouldn't be right for me.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/screenwriter-tory-kamen-on-the-confiden...
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