Lucy Alibar was raised near Monticello , Florida ; her parents are Baya M. Harrison III , a criminal defense attorney , and Barbara Harrison , an artist who taught painting classes in prisons . She went to high school in Tallahassee , Florida , where her mother worked , and began spending time reading in public libraries " until the library closed every day " . It was there that she discovered experimental theatre and aspired to become a playwright . She won a writing competition at the age of fourteen run by Young Playwrights Inc . When she turned eighteen , she legally changed her surname from Harrison to Alibar , a portmanteau of her mother and grandmother 's first names ( Barbara and Alice ) , since " they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness and I wanted to have that like an amulet . " Alibar attended New York University , where she studied under the Tisch School of the Arts ' experimental theatre program . After graduating from NYU , she continued to live on New York 's Lower East Side , working multiple jobs as a sandwich maker , bartender and waitress while writing plays in her free time . Around 2010 she wrote '' Juicy and Delicious '' , a play based on her own experiences in dealing with her father 's declining health . In the play , a young boy named Hushpuppy faces the illness and death of his father , which paralleled her reaction to her father 's cerebrovascular disease and coronary artery bypass surgery . She showed the completed script to her longtime friend , filmmaker Benh Zeitlin , who suggested that they adapt the play into a film . Alibar and Zeitlin began to develop a screenplay , which was chosen by the Sundance Institute to be developed with support from other filmmakers at the institute 's Screenwriting Lab . After the script was completed , Alibar moved to Louisiana to assist in the production of the film , titled '' Beasts of the Southern Wild '' , which was being directed by Zeitlin . It was selected for screening at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival ; in order to afford the travel fares to attend the festival in France , she raised money through the crowdfunding website Indiegogo . The film was released in June 2012 and Alibar and Zeitlin 's script received numerous awards and nominations , including a Humanitas Prize and an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay , while Alibar won the award for Woman of the Year at NYU 's Fusion Film Festival
2012 Cannes Film Festival
2012 Cannes Film Festival
Lucy Alibar