Dallas Buyers Club made Hollywood sit up and take notice of Craig Borten.

In March he’ll share his tale with local writers as part of the Bermuda International Film Festival.

Dallas Buyers Club was a hit with filmgoers and was nominated for an Oscar in 2013.

Prior to that, Mr Borten was just another writer with a script.

It took him almost 20 years to get Dallas Buyers Club on the big screen. The film follows Ron Woodruff, a hustler who links AIDS patients with necessary medication after he’s diagnosed with the disease. Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for Best Actor in that role.

How did the opportunity come about for you to come to Bermuda?

I was a judge on a jury at Aspen Short Film Festival last March. While there I met someone who asked me if I would come to Bermuda to be part of the Bermuda International Film Festival. I said yes.

Why did you accept their offer?

There is something I learn in every festival where I get to watch young and current talent emerge. I learn a lot from those young aspiring filmmakers, writers and directors. So for me it’s not only giving back, but I get so much out of it. Some of the greatest finds in filmmakers emerge out of festivals.

While here you’re also going to be involved in a writing workshop. What’s that about?

I will be leading a workshop with screenwriter James Hart. We will be doing a writing workshop that breaks down some of Dallas Buyers Club.

What do you hope people will get out of it?

I think that people just get generally inspired by the process and breaking down the architecture of design on a film, a story and its characters and what goes into getting them made.

I read it was nearly two decades from the time you interviewed Ron Woodroof to the film’s release in 2013. What made you want to persevere with this particular project?

Well I try to persevere with every project. In the end this one had four different directors, incredible filmmakers and actors attached. It was just a really special personal story to me. I had experienced something similar with my father who had a terminal illness and just through my own experience in the medical industry and the doctors. My dad was dealing with cancer. It wasn’t the same as what Ron was dealing with but I saw some similarities in the way the medical industry works.

Did that 20-year process teach you anything about yourself?

I think that a lot of people focus on that one thing — how long it took to get the film made, but while that was happening, life continues going on and you make other plans. For me, there was this whole building up of 20 years from writing it to getting it shot, but in Hollywood that’s how it goes and in that time you are still getting educated. People think you go to Hollywood and get your film made every year, but there is so much more to it than that. There’s a learning curve in terms of how that happens, meeting people and developing your craft. For me it was 20 years. For others it may take them ten years to see their first script get to film and then another ten years for the second. Every film has its own story behind it.

Has it opened doors for you?

Yes, my career did change after Dallas Buyers Club. You could say it opened every door for me. It’s almost a windfall. Projects are being brought to me by studios. I have access to actors, directors and studio executives themselves whereas I didn’t have that kind of access before.

What inspired you to get into film in the first place?

I went to Syracuse University and had a bunch of friends making movies. I just loved it and decided I wanted to be in the film industry. It was something I really enjoyed. It was just incredibly fulfilling and I love film. Plus, it was just a great form of escapism. The first film I remember hitting a chord with me was probably The Godfather. I loved everything about it — the story, the acting, the directing. It was just so exciting.

I think film is just another art form of people expressing themselves and a way we get to personalise things that happened to us. The aim is to do it in a way where people can relate to the human experience, which is the only one we know.

Film is a great way for people to communicate with each other as artists.

What advice would you give to anybody starting out in film today?

Today is such a wonderful time because people actually don’t need a movie studio to make a movie and you don’t necessarily need an expensive camera to shoot a movie. You don’t even need a theatre chain to screen it. You can go out with your iPhone, shoot something, take it home, edit it and post it on YouTube. You have that kind of access and that continues to change through all these different online networks. My advice is don’t wait for a film studio or TV network, go out and make your movie yourself with your own resources. There used to be a time when you had to write a script and the only way to get it looked at was through hiring an agent. Now you can put it online and have thousands of people watch it in one day.

What would you say you’re most proud of accomplishing in your career?

I would probably say Dallas Buyers Club. I think it’s a beautiful story of endurance and speaks to so many things about life and talks about a time period that people don’t really know much about. I also think everyone did such a wonderful job with the film and people seem to be generally responsive to the story. There are people who have lived through it, yet were still educated about the time period through the film and that’s very rewarding. I feel very lucky to be able to transport the story to the screen in such a lovely way. I feel fortunate and grateful that people were able to enjoy it and learn something from it and have an experience from it.

Mr Borten will speak at a workshop as part of the Bermuda International Film Festival, which runs March 20-26 this year. The three-day workshop begins on March 20 and will be held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

Other presenters include Hook screenwriter James V Hart, award-winning writer Naomi McDougall Jones and Bermudian filmmaker Lucinda Spurling. Tickets are available at www.ptix.bm. For more information visit www.biff.bm.