David Barbeschi is an award-winning screenwriter with fifteen-plus produced projects and recent festival screenings at FirstGlance, Newport Beach, and Las Vegas.
The short film you co-wrote, Kadama, recently screened at the FirstGlance Film Festival. Can you tell us more?
Sure! It’s a short film in which, after being detained in connection with the murder of her husband, a criminal psychologist must convince two skeptical detectives of her and her granddaughter’s innocence. A film that asks the question: What are our duties to each other and how do we fulfill them?
Before our talented director Charlie Roth applied his finishing touches, I was approached to write a few drafts of this project by Vee Kumari, with whom I’ve collaborated on her multimedia IP “Yatra.” The feature script for “Yatra” was a selection for the 2024 Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship and a finalist in the 2025 edition of the prestigious Tasveer Film Fund, among other screenplay contests. The short film “Yatra – The Journey” premiered at FirstGlance back in 2023.
So, in a way, “Kadama” screening at FirstGlance was a return to my roots. It also marks the project’s fifth official selection laurel.
What’s the most challenging part of being a screenwriter? And the most rewarding?
Most of the time… the screenwriter is at the bottom of the filmmaking food chain.
We’re considered replaceable by the studios – to a point where, during the 2023 WGA strikes, they were willing to lose money rather than even consider negotiating in good faith – and by industry newcomers who say that “anyone can write a script.”
Note, however: anyone can type a script. Writing a script is something entirely different. And getting that script turned into a film is an even greater challenge.
I’m lucky to be one of a few screenwriters without a literary manager (yet!) who has had over 15 of his script projects get produced and awarded. So, for me, the most rewarding part comes in the small moments, such as when I attend a festival because a short film I wrote earned an award and is nominated for a category, like with “Kadama” or my Brazilian film “Lollie” directed by Agnès Shinozaki.
The reward comes when I see actors delivering lines I wrote in the cadence and rhythm they were meant to be delivered, or when I read the 3,000+ positive messages in the comments of my 2017 World War I short, “Pawns.” It’s nice to know a tale I wrote made an emotional connection with a viewer.
What inspires your storytelling? Are there particular experiences or sources of inspiration?
When you come from everywhere, it’s just as well as coming from nowhere.
There are some experiences that everyone’s gone through, in some form or another. Sibling bonds, parent drama, bullying, xenophobia, unrequited loves, etc. These things obviously have an impact on how I’ll write certain characters or stories.
That said, my international upbringing renders drawing from personal experience a zero-sum game, so instead I try to give my stories a more universal appeal, like the stories that inspired me growing up; swashbuckling adventure like “Zorro,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” or even more fantastical tales like “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings.”
Despite coming from Europe, I was raised on Hollywood blockbusters rather than arthouse auteur films, so I always look for a way to inject that same excitement into my stories, even if the script itself is more contained, character-focused or subversive in nature.
The moviegoer paid for the ticket, giving them a good show is the least you can do. Same goes for the film investor. They paid for the whole movie, least you can do is make sure enough moviegoers watch it so they make a return on their investment.
For more info on David’s screenwriting services, visit davidthescreenwriter.com
