Samy Burch

Samy Burch is an American screenwriter. She is known for writing May December (2023), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Burch was raised in West Los Angeles and attended the Archer School for Girls.^[1][2] She was exposed to the film industry at an early age through her parents; her mother worked in film casting while her father worked in film development.^[3] Her sister is singer Molly Burch.^[4]

In 2009, Burch graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a bachelor's degree in Dramatic Writing.^[5]

Early in her career, Burch worked in casting, writing audition materials for actors.^[6] She also wrote and directed a series of short films with her now-husband, Alex Mechanik.^[7]

Burch completed the screenplay for May December, her first feature film, in 2019. The script was inspired by recollections of the 1990s tabloid culture of her youth, particularly the case of Mary Kay Letourneau. Director Todd Haynes first read the script in 2020 and the completed film premiered on May 20, 2023, at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.^[3]

Burch wrote the screenplay for the Warner Bros. family comedy movie Coyote vs. Acme, based on a 1990 Ian Frazier humor piece that first appeared in The New Yorker. It was shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery in November 2023, who reversed its decision a week later after public backlash, but in February 2024, was expected to be deleted and claimed as a tax write-off.^[8][9] On March 10, 2024, Burch told IndieWire at the 96th Academy Awards that the film might still be released and conversations were still ongoing.^[10]

In May 2024, Variety reported that Late Fame, a Kent Jones film starring Willem Dafoe and Sandra Hüller with a screenplay by Burch, would begin shooting that fall in New York City.^[11]

In 2023, Burch married Alex Mechanik, with whom she developed the story for May December. The pair met while studying film at NYU and currently reside in Los Angeles.^[1][12]

• Samy Burch at IMDb