DECEMBER 2020

ONE-on-ONE
A Conversation with an Award-Winning Script Writer
Vanar Jaddou is a first-generation
Chaldean American
who recently won an award
for his original script. The Chaldean
News sat down and had a conversation
about the community, the arts,
and how he hopes to inspire other
young people to find their voice.
CN: How long have you been filmmaking/writing
scripts?
VJ: I started writing screenplays after
college. I was 22 when I started, so
it’s been 9 years now.
CN: Was this your first career choice?
VJ: I wanted to be a lawyer. I loved
to debate when I was younger—loved
anything that involved analytical reasoning.
But I was a creative at heart.
I started to realize that the one thing
I excelled at, the thing that I had a
competitive edge in, was telling stories.
Of course, law involves a lot of
writing to defend or justify a particular
point of view, but I never had a
deep passion for it. Writing fiction is
the first thing I think about when I
wake up in the morning and the last
thing I think about before I sleep.
CN: What was your childhood like?
VJ: It was highly exploratory. Traditional
in most senses, in all the
great ways that make us Chaldean,
but experimental in others. When
my brothers and I were in elementary
school, my mom wouldn’t let us
outside to play sports unless we either
drew something or wrote a short
story. We also didn’t have cable for a
number of years, but my dad owned
a small video store, and perhaps
that’s where some of the initial seeds
were planted—taking some of those
VHS tapes home on the days that I
worked. The best were the “not for
sale or redistribution” promotional
tapes that came to us while the movie
was still in theaters. Those were
the good days. Where this all started.
My father’s video store.
In high school, I became really
competitive when it came to grades.
All the people I was competing
against were my closest friends and
we had this running bet going of
which one of us was going to get into
Harvard. It was incredibly motivating,
and I wouldn’t have nearly the
drive I have today without them. But
Vanar Jaddou
they, like most of my extended family,
were all interested in business,
or law, or medicine, or engineering.
Consequently, I never viewed the
arts as something that was a viable
trajectory, especially because I went
to a specialized high school for math,
science, and technology, and because
I hadn’t seen people pursuing the arts
within our community.
CN: Tell us about the award you recently
won with the script “GOOD-
BYE, IRAQ.”
VJ: The Academy Nicholl Fellowship
is a once-a-year competition
administered by the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Five fellows are selected with a prize
of $35,000. 166 winners have been
selected since 1986. For the fellows,
there is normally a week-long event
where you’re wined and dined and
taken to studios and to networking
events that are all set up to help
you succeed. To cap it off there is an
awards ceremony at the Academy
headquarters crammed with industry
professionals and artists alike who
enjoy a night of speeches and live
table reads from renowned actors. In
light of COVID this year, everything
is virtual.
This year there was a record number
of entries—7,831. Any up-andcoming
artist in the industry will
tell you that we’re always crawling
to get in the door, pushing someone
else to read our work, or watch our
reel, or listen to some of our music
composition. It feels very humbling
to have studios and production companies
and agencies and law firms
calling and emailing you or your
manager asking to read your script
and wondering what you’re going
to write next. Even being a semifinalist,
which is about the top 2.5%,
or the top 150 scripts, can give writers
a jumpstart to their careers, so I
would encourage all aspiring, eligible
screenwriters to apply.
CN: Why Iraq? Were you born there?
What is your affiliation?
VJ: I’m first-generation. My parents
are both Chaldean and were born in
Iraq. Writing this script was an opportunity
to write something that
I knew no one else in Hollywood
could. The initial seeds were planted
by untold stories from my grandfather
and father. Undocumented
ones about life in a village that most
people outside our community have
never heard of. But inspiration is
never predicated on one thing. That
seed needs food, water, sunlight,
and many other things to grow and
blossom and flourish. Those ideas
often come from books, from movies,
from listening to current global
and human issues that have existed
Writing this script was an opportunity to write something that I knew
no one else in Hollywood could. The initial seeds were planted by
untold stories from my grandfather and father.
for decades. The script ultimately is
an action thriller about a paranoid
ex-soldier who tries to assassinate
Saddam Hussein, and when he fails,
he and his 13-year-old daughter
have to make a nightmarish trek
from Iraq to the U.S. while they’re
hunted by Saddam’s ruthless regime.
GOODBYE, IRAQ was a way to
subtextually introduce important
global and human issues in a new,
exciting theatrical way. But it also
became a binding contract between
me and readers—one that says that
I will do my best to engage you, to
inform you, and most importantly,
to entertain and enchant you.
CN: How did you end up in Hollywood?
36 CHALDEAN NEWS DECEMBER 2020