“Something grotesque and specific to our time is blanketing us.” Eliot pairs his visceral portratis with words by everyone’s favorite existential screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.

This past September, in front an anxiously packed house, the inimitable Charlie Kaufman gave the keynote for the BAFTA 2011 Screenwriter’s Lecture Series. Über Content’s Eliot Rausch, who you might remember won the Grand Prize at the 2010 Vimeo Awards, paired some of his signature emotionally-driven images with excerpts from Kaufman’s lecture.

As Co:Create’s Teressa Iezzi points out, “It wasn’t exactly a knee-slapper, or a breezy lesson in getting your screenplay made. True to form, Kaufman likely caused an uncomfortable hush in that room by delivering something a little less expected, and a little more unsettling (As an indicator of tone, the lecture begins: “So you are here and I am here. Spending our time as we must.”)

“Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.” – Charlie Kaufman

Eliot, who won the Vimeo Grand Prize for his docu-short, Last Moments with Oden, recently finished LIMBO, a film he made using the grant for winning the Prize.  The jarringly emotional short follows the everyday of three undocumented LA students who Eliot equipped with camera gear as they live without legal status.