Filmmaker Guillermo Arriaga said he always knows when he’s finished with a screenplay.

“When I see the movie come out,” said Arriaga, who is the first artist-in-residence for the newly launched Institute for the Advancement of the Arts.

The University of North Texas institute will bring in professional artists to study and produce a project of their choice while engaging students who are studying music, art or writing. The institute also will award fellowships to university faculty, giving them a semester to a school year off to focus on a project of their choice.

DRC/David Minton

Screenwriter and director Guillermo Arriaga poses for a portrait at the University of North Texas’ new UNT on the Square facility in Denton. Arriaga is the first artist-in-residence for the Institute for the Advancement of the Arts at UNT.

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Arriaga, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Babel, took questions from a steady line of reporters Tuesday afternoon at UNT on the Square, the university’s 2,400-square-foot gallery and performance space. It opens today.

Melinda Levin, chairwoman of the UNT Department of Radio, Television and Film, said the university scored big by getting Arriaga to spend this week on campus, with plans to return for about five weeks during the spring semester. Arriaga still is attending press junkets promoting his directorial debut, The Burning Plain, starring Kim Basinger and Charlize Theron.

“I think people are going to notice he’s here at UNT at a really high level,” Levin said. “Our hope is that it sets the stage for other filmmakers who would be open to doing something like this. The artist-in-residence program isn’t going to be limited to filmmaking, but his being here sets the stage for others.”

“I didn’t just come to any university,” Arriaga said. “I came to the University of North Texas. It has a serious academic reputation. I was just in Madrid, and while I was there I said that I was an artist-in-residence at the University of North Texas.” 

Arriaga is a critical favorite. He earned praise for his script for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Fort Worth native Julio Cedillo, as well as 21 Grams, starring Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts.

Arriaga brought attention to Mexican cinema with Amores Perros in 2000.

“People think you get to these places by magic,” Arriaga said. “It isn’t so. But to see that a person can do the work, that a Mexican can do this, it shows them that it is possible.”

Arriaga could probably give UNT students more tips than he can count about screenwriting, directing and producing film. More important, though, are the years he’s been in the business and in the classroom.  

“I’ve been around,” Arriaga said. “I bring the experience I’ve had to the students. I bring experience as a writer in radio, in television and in film. I’ve been a full professor. In my heart, I’m a teacher.”

Arriaga began his career as a journalist and was a Mexican university communications department chairman at 22. He groomed his writing skills working in radio, television and print. He’s written novels — The Guillotine Squad, A Sweet Smell of Death and The Night Buffalo — and a book of short stories, Retorno 201.

He made his first trip to UNT last year, as a result of the relationship between UNT and the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Mexico, where Carlos Arriaga, his brother, is an administrator.

“UAEM is a sister school of ours in Mexico,” said Wendy Wilkins, provost and vice president for academic affairs at UNT. “Through our relationship with Carlos Arriaga, we were able to bring Guillermo to campus to speak earlier this year. That’s how this started. We’re very pleased to have him here as the institute’s inaugural artist-in-residence. I think our students are going to really enjoy working with him.”

Levin said Arriaga has a broad range of experience to teach from during his time at UNT.

“When we were sure that he’d be coming, we really tried to make sure we had certain classes scheduled with him in mind,” she said. “He’s already been in the classroom and he’s only been here 24 hours. He’s spoken to students in Acting for the Camera and Directing for Narrative Film. It’s impressive to see him teach from those different angles.

“A lot of people don’t know he’s also an actor. So to see him talk to acting students and film students, and to get them to start thinking about what they do from both of those perspectives, well, it’s impressive.”

Arriaga hasn’t decided what project he’ll focus on as an artist-in-residence.

“I’m undecided at this time. I am working on several projects, but I’m thinking of a novel,” Arriaga said.

In the spring, he’ll work with film students, he said.

Arriaga’s reputation in cinema is as a writer. He wrote the screenplay for The Burning Plain.

His scripts typically use a crisis or a death to bring characters together. Often, his characters cope with barriers of language and culture.

“I’ve been obsessed with borders and issues around the idea of borders,” he said. “I’ve been obsessed with rights. I’ve been obsessed with love.”

His process is a mix of discipline and dogged revisions. He said directing hasn’t influenced his writing.

“I think the writing is geared for the cinema, not vice versa. As a storyteller, my commitment is to the story. You know it’s going to be interpreted. Just like for a composer, he knows his music is going to be interpreted. And a novelist knows his book will be interpreted. A house will be interpreted. But my commitment is to the story. It’s not my job to make it easy for anyone to make a film. The director has to interpret.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.