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Former Saint Mary’s student Ryan Coogler was honored at the 2022  on Monday, Dec. 5, hosted at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. This special awards celebration was a homecoming for the Oakland-born filmmaker, whose  has spent four weekends in a row topping the box office. One of Coogler’s special guests for the event was Rosemary Graham, who taught creative writing and English at Saint Mary’s for three decades—and who encouraged Coogler to pursue writing for the screen.

As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, long before SFFilm backed Coogler’s breakthrough film Fruitvale Station for its debut at the Sundance Festival, Graham championed his work. For more of the story, here’s the Chronicle reporting on Graham’s remarks at the awards ceremony:

“It was 2004; he was 17,” Graham said. “He was on our football team, and his writing really stood out in my class. He wrote one particular narrative that I found to be really remarkable. It had all the visuals of screenwriting, and it had strong dialogue, and all the emotions of all those elements. I told him, ‘I think you should go to Hollywood and write screenplays.’ I hadn’t said that to anyone before, and certainly not since.”

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KQED shared an extended take as well:

One of Coogler’s guests for the evening, along with his wife Zinzi Evans, was one of his former college professors, who he thanked for having “a profound impact” on his life. “I didn't know I wanted to make movies seriously until my professor, Rosemary Graham, suggested it,” Coogler revealed. Graham retired this year after 30 years teaching English and Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, where she taught Coogler as a freshman in 2004.

After the event, Graham remembered the impression that 17-year old Coogler made on her. “His writing really stood out from the beginning,” Graham told KQED. “Very cinematic action, emotion, dialogue. It was all there.” 

Graham remembered telling Coogler that he should go to Hollywood to write screenplays, “and I don't know what possessed me,” she said. “I had never said it to anyone before, and I haven't said it to anyone since.”

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Coogler…got the audience on its feet—twice. Expressing his gratitude for filmmaking grants like SFFILM’s, and citing himself as living proof of their impact on an artist’s career, Coogler concluded his remarks with an acknowledgment of the influence he now has.

“I promise,” he said, “to continue to pay it forward.”

And here’s something special you won’t find in those stories: a photo Rosemary Graham shared with Saint Mary’s from the event.

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Professor Graham taught her final class at Saint Mary’s on December 2. But she isn’t using the word “retiring.” Instead, we’ll take to heart the message from this week to thank her for all she has done for students at Saint Mary’s over the years: inspiring. 

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In 2018, Ryan Coogler came back to talk with students and Rosemary Graham at Saint Mary’s. Read that story here.

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Date of Mention: Tuesday, December 6, 2022