Film and television are inherently global media and channels for telling stories. Stories have always traveled. Long before streaming platforms and global box offices, myths, legends, and folktales crossed oceans and continents. Today, international storytelling is not just accessible — it’s essential.
From Hollywood, Bollywood, China, to the Arab region, the media industries have been (re)shaping what we watch, read, and value.
The Rise of Global Cinema and Television
In recent years, films from China, Tunisia, and Lebanon have reached the global festival circuit. This means that scripts and stories from such film centers are appealing to producers and financing is becoming global. Audiences today are more selective and mercurial than ever previously. They want authenticity. They want perspectives that reflect the complexity of our environments.
Why International Stories Resonate
1. Human Emotions, Local Context
Regardless of your genre as a screenwriter, you can thrive in this increasingly global ecosystem. You can write a script about any subject or theme worldwide and cater it to your home audience or even a global one. What you need is an authentic voice, the commitment to write, and networking to find financing and a producer.
2. Authentic Voice
The best investment you can make as a screenwriter is to “find” your voice and write to it, as is the case with other life endeavors. You can write about literally anything you like and / or can: horror, redemption, love, heroism, you name it. The only criterion is that you can write authentically and confidently.
3. Networking
After you the screenwriter complete the final draft of a script, you would need to start searching for a producer or simply for financing. Networking is vital because anyone in a production’s “value chain” would need to meet you, believe in you, trust you, and even like you to take a chance on you—producing your script. The process does not happen spontaneously or in a vacuum.
That is why discipline, diplomacy, respect, and having a roster or bag of work are vital. Having one completed script rarely leads to anywhere in the industry: You have to constantly write, refine your competencies, and network. You simply never know who or what company would take any serious interest in your scripts, let alone produce any. Thus, your job as a screenwriter is to treat networking and ongoing exposure as indispensable. If you write for the promise of fame and / or fortune, you would not “make it.” If you write because you love it and want to tell great stories, then you would have a chance. That is what producers, agents, and other stakeholders in the industry search for.
Immersion in Literature and Fiction
You the screenwriter find countless sources online and offline. There is literally no lack of books, podcasts, and instructors on screenwriting, especially the three-act structure. This structure has become the standard and books about it have become the Bible of screenwriting. The issue is that you as a screenwriter would enhance your competencies by reading fiction, literature, and famous stories to enrich yourself. You can learn more about strong, authentic characters, memorable dialogue, and twists on a genre not simply from (re)writing but also from combining ideas, themes, and tropes, characters, and other components of a script in your work. That is how many screenwriters write and even advance in their careers. Michael Mann got the idea for The Insider from a Vanity Fair article about whistleblowers. Brian Grazer, the Hollywood producer whose films have generated $billions in box office receipts, writes in his book that he meets people from many “walks of life” to enrich his imagination and transport audiences to different “places.” Thus, it behooves you as a screenwriter to expand your creative and fiction horizons.
Representation
Do not waste your own time seeking representation (that is, an agent) if you are not ready—and most scripts are not. At least one screenwriting instructor in Los Angeles has reported that 99% of scripts in the industry simply do not warrant a single, continuous read, meaning they do not motivate producers, agents, and / or executives to keep reading past the first page– if not the first scene. This is how hard, competitive, and ruthless the industry is. It is both a bane and boon to you as a screenwriter. The competition is so intense in Hollywood– and other media regimes– that every page you write needs to be a “page-turner.” Your goal should be not to simply “get an agent,” but to also work hard, very hard, be patient, and enhance your writing competencies. Furthermore, once you find any agent who can even consider you, they would expect, if not require, at least three professional or almost professional scripts, meaning ones almost ready for “shopping around” and production. That is why the journey to “Hollywood” is long and “bumpy.” There is no easy way “in.” Even when you get an agent, the pressure on speedy delivery, professional writing, and incorporating feedback is incredible. That is why you the screenwriter need to have a realistic perception of the industry and how much time and effort you would still have. As of February 2026, there is now a growing need to tell global stories, such as from China and the Arab region. Screenwriters can heed this advice very closely.
Why We Need Global Stories
You the screenwriter can use your own culture, identity, social experiences, and aspirations to weave a compelling story. With film and television globalization, you have increasingly more chances to write, network with producers, and distribute your own project. Stories and scripts with global resonance have such characteristics as:
- Giving voice to people who might have been “voiceless.”
- Cultural representations
- Encourages cultural dialogue
- Challenges stereotypes
You have a vital role to play as an emerging screenwriter, even as an “established” one, because of the enormous potential you have to challenge stereotypes and tell new stories. Stories remain a powerful bridge between societies, and film and television are global media or vehicles of storytelling. When you watch, read, and / or celebrate stories from anywhere in the globe, you are not simply consuming “entertainment,” but also partaking in a shared global human experience — one that reminds us of our ability to relate even when our languages and cultures differ.
The world is full of stories we would like to hear. The question is: Are you as a screenwriter ready to write them yourself? 🌍