The Academy has announced the five winners of the 2023 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting who each win a $35,000 prize and mentorship from an Academy member throughout their fellowship year.
The recipients will also be featured at the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Awards and Live Read on April 25 at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater (pictured), where an ensemble of actors will read selected scenes from the 2023 winning scripts.
The 2023 winners appear below listed alphabetically:
Brent Delaney (Toronto, Canada), Brownie Mary
At the height of the AIDS crisis, Mary Jane Rathbun illegally distributes cannabis-infused brownies to heal thousands of gay men in San Francisco and inadvertently becomes the face of the first medical marijuana movement in US history;
Harris McCabe (Los Angeles), Nat Cady’s Boys
Two young boys seek bloody vengeance on the posse that hung their outlaw father in 1882 Wyoming;
J. Miller (Burbank), Slugger
Abandoned by her mother and coached by her unloving father, a high school baseball prodigy with a hot temper and thunderous bat must confront old-school coaches, jealous teammates, injuries, and her own sexual identity on an inspirational quest to be the first woman to play in the Majors;
c. Craig Patterson (Los Angeles), Tah
The black sheep of the family comes back home to live with the most difficult matriarch in New Orleans; and
Kayla Sun (Los Angeles), Boy, Girl, Fig
Aden was born with a rare condition where he becomes invisible to people who love him. He struggles when he falls in love with his childhood best friend.
The Academy received 5,599 script submissions from 83 countries. The first and quarter-final rounds were judged by industry professionals including graduates of the Academy’s Diverse Reader Training Workshop; and the semi-finallists were judged by Academy members across the industry.
Thirteen individual screenwriters were selected as finalists. Their scripts were read and judged by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee who voted on the winners.
The 2023 finalists besides the winners appear below listed alphabetically:
Agata Alexander, Emocja;
Michael Bucklin, Signature Photo;
Des Burnison, Barbara The Barbarian;
Leonard Johnson, The Funny He-She Ladies!;
Stephen J. Johnson, The Migrant;
Victoria Male, Showstopper;
Michael Noonan, Gobbledygook; and
Mike Powell, The Pink Triangle.
The five fellowships are awarded with the understanding that recipients will complete feature-length screenplays during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially with their completed scripts.
The Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee chaired by Eric Heisserer (writers branch) includes: Aldis Hodge (actors branch); Susan Shopmaker (casting directors branch); Marcus Hu and Stephen Ujlaki (executives branch); Jason Michael Berman, Julia Chasman and Peter Samuelson (producers branch); James Plannette (production and technology branch); Sue Chan (production design branch); and Ehren Kruger, Adele Lim, Justin Marks, Zak Penn, Katie Silberman, and Dana Stevens (writers branch).
The global competition has awarded 181 fellowships since 1986 and was established in 1985 with the support of Gee Nicholl in memory of her husband Don Nicholl.
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