Phil Lord and Byron Hamel | 2021 Nicholl Conversations

Writer/director/producer Phil Lord discusses story and screenwriting process with 2021 #Nicholl Fellow Byron Hamel who won his fellowship with the script “Shade of the Grapefruit Tree” (logline below).
“Shade of the Grapefruit Tree”: When a severely abused white boy befriends his sci-fi obsessed Black landlady, his fantasy of becoming a robot empowers him to recklessly confront his murderous stepdad.

About Byron:
Born in 1977 on a Canadian military airbase, Byron grew up in extreme poverty, severely abused by his mother’s boyfriend, convicted child murderer Michael Augustine Lopez.
Byron moved constantly as a child, mostly living in the slums of Southern California, including a deeply influential period of his life in the Guthries, one of America’s most dangerous projects in the 1980s, and an active Bloods and Crips war zone.

Surrounded by everyday extreme violence and exploitation, Byron developed a high-functioning condition of complex PTSD.

After escaping the hood, Byron made his way back to Canada, where he studied acting under his beloved friend and mentor, the legendary Pakistani Canadian theatre director Arif Hasnain. This was another heavily influential period for Byron, as it helped him reconnect with his own emotional core and taught him the value of deeper truth in character development.

Much to Arif’s dismay, Byron did not pursue acting, but instead formed a comedy music band and went on tour. When the band couldn’t make ends meet, Byron took a job with CBC Radio in northern Labrador. He worked there for twelve years as an associate producer and sound technician, learning the journalism trade under his producer Cindy Wall, while also independently producing promotional videos.

Living in Labrador, Byron reconnected with the traditional Inuit culture of his family. He was impressed by the resilience and toughness of the Inuit of Labrador, who survived the infamous genocide of residential schools, and still live off the land today.

Byron moved to Winnipeg Manitoba in 2013, where he produced unscripted documentaries and lifestyle series for TV. Calling on his strength in journalism, he produced his first documentary film “A Cycle Broken,” which is about tough bikers who protect abused kids. Clearly, Byron was invested in confronting child abuse. His next project was “If I Go Missing,” a short documentary film which won a 2016 BravoFACT award. The film is about Indigenous teen activist Brianna Jonnie, who brought to light the inequality of Indigenous children who go missing.

In 2019, Byron set aside his production company to exclusively focus on screenwriting. His genre-bending writing is darkly poetic, violent, trauma-informed, and weirdly humorous, while folding in hope and fantasy.
Byron has lived and worked in California, England, and nearly every Canadian province and territory. He is a loving father to three amazing girls.

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Phil Lord and Byron Hamel Collison | 2021 Nicholl Conversations

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