Hollyapolis?

Content is everywhere.

It’s in the books we read, the music we hear, the radio programs we tune into, the magazines we browse, the blogs we visit, the news we watch, the programs we download, the entertainment we consume — well, you get the picture.

But the most densely compressed form of content is film — the quintessential American art form.

The distillation of lights, camera, action. The weaving of story, character and place. The compression of events that drive a story, called “beats” in the screenwriting world. The use of technology that makes the fabulous seem so real. All these come together to capture the imagination in a single aesthetic experience that transports the moviegoer beyond the everyday into a welcome moment of self forgetting.

But to produce a film you need a screenplay. No easy task. Although a great how-to book, "Save the Cat," will lay out the process if you’re so inclined.

Enter three unlikely screenwriters from Minneapolis:

Diablo Cody, Nick Schenk and Ken Rance. Other than the Coen brothers, originally from St. Louis Park, these three talented writers have put the Twin Cities on the map out West.

Last year Cody won an Oscar for “Juno,” her coming-of-age story about a quirky teenager who handles her pregnancy with humor and grace. Currently, another Cody script is in production: “Jennifer’s Body.”

After working as a stripper by night and blogging about it by day, Cody was an overnight success. She’s currently the creative force behind a new Showtime series, the “United States of Tara,” a comedy about a woman with multiple personalities (played by Toni Collette).

This year it’s Nick Schenk, a former fruit truck driver and store clerk who penned the screenplay for “Gran Torino.” Schenk, who did not own a laptop, wrote the script with pen, paper and a little help from his friends at Grumpy’s neighborhood bar in Minneapolis.

A feel-good film directed by Clint Eastwood, “Gran Torino” has been snubbed at the Academy but is doing laps around the competition at the box office. In fact, it will probably be Eastwood’s largest grossing movie yet. Eastwood also plays Walt Kowalski, the protagonist, a crotchety and cantankerous Korean War vet — the character Dirty Harry might have become in his golden years.

Last but not least, Minneapolis-born Ken Rance is the screenwriter of “New in Town,” a romantic comedy about a hard-driving Miami businesswoman transferred from Florida to icebound New Ulm, Minnesota. Starring Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick, Jr., it’s a fish-out-of-water story that aims for simple emotions and big laughs — a few at the expense of those tortured Minnesota vowels — ya, you betcha, just like “Fargo.”

While content is everywhere, successful screenwriting isn’t. Yet it’s streaming from the Land of 10, 000 Lakes. Is there something in the water here?