It's not quite an Oscar, but Aurora native Geeta Malik did get a major nod from the same institution that hands out those iconic golden statues every year. Malik is a 2016 winner of an Academy Nicholl Fellowship, an international screenwriting contest. She received the accolade for a script called "Dinner With Friends," which also won a 2016 Austin Film Festival Feature Comedy Screenplay Award. The script was inspired by her childhood in Colorado.
Past winners of the fellowship include Susannah Grant, who wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film "Erin Brockovich."
Malik, who lives in Los Angeles, has her own film company called Shetani Films -- shetani is Hindi for getting up to mischief.
Malik spoke with Colorado Matters host Nathan Heffel.
Watch Malik give her acceptance speech at the 2016 Nicholl Screenwriting Awards Ceremony:
Watch a reading of Malik's script "Dinner With Friends":
