READ MORE: Oscar Predictions 2016
Five individuals have won the 2015 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. The Academy is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the global competition which identifies and encourages talented new screenwriters.
This year’s winners are:
Elizabeth Chomko, “What They Had”
Andrew Friedhof, “Great Falls”
Anthony Grieco, “Best Sellers”
Sam Regnier, “Free Agent”
Amy Tofte, “Addis Abeka”
Each will receive a $35,000 prize, the first installment of which will be distributed at an awards presentation on Wednesday, November 4, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
For the third consecutive year, the event also will include a live read of selected scenes from the fellows’ winning scripts.
A total of 7,442 scripts were submitted for this year’s competition. Ten individual screenwriters and two writing teams were chosen as finalists. Their scripts were then read and judged by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee, who ultimately chose the winners.
The other finalists were Ghazi Albuliwi, “Arafat”; Jennifer Bailey and Max Lance, ”Best Funeral Ever”; Ryan Covington, “The Secrets We Keep”; Lynn Esta Goldman, “Angel on the Wall”; Murat Izmirli, “Grimwood”; Suzanne Kelman and Susannah Rose Woods, “Held”; and Augustus Rose, “Far from Cool.”
The Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee is chaired by writer Robin Swicord, and marketing executive Buffy Shutt serves as vice chair. The other members of the committee are writers Tina Gordon Chism, Naomi Foner, Eric Roth, Kirsten Smith, Dana Stevens and Tyger Williams; actor Eva Marie Saint; cinematographer John Bailey; executive Marcus Hu; producers Stephanie Allain, Albert Berger, Julia Chasman, Julie Lynn and Peter Samuelson; and agent Ron Mardigian.
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