Oscar The Academy Awards

Presenters include Destin Cretton, Ava DuVernay, Eva Marie Saint and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith

Actors Clancy Brown, Ansel Elgort, Jack O’Connell and Tessa Thompson will perform a live reading of selected scenes from the four winning scripts at the 2014 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Awards Presentation & Live Read on Thursday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m., at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.  For the second consecutive year, the event will be directed and produced by Rodrigo Garcia and Julie Lynn, respectively, whose credits include “Albert Nobbs,” “Mother and Child” and the upcoming “Last Days in the Desert.”

Multitalented performer Clancy Brown has appeared in such feature films as “Cowboys & Aliens,” “Starship Troopers,” “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Highlander.”  An accomplished voice actor, Brown has lent his talents to several television series, including “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” as well as such video games as “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”

Ansel Elgort can currently be seen in Jason Reitman’s latest feature, “Men, Women & Children.”  He also starred in this past summer’s “The Fault in Our Stars” opposite Shailene Woodley.  In his next film, Elgort reprises the role of Caleb in “Insurgent,” the sequel to “Divergent.”
    
Jack O’Connell recently appeared in the prison drama “Starred Up” for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award and a British Independent Film Award. His other feature film credits include “’71,” for which he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, and “300: Rise of an Empire.” He also starred in the television series “Skins.” O’Connell will next be seen as Louis “Louie” Zamperini in Universal Pictures’ epic drama “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie, which is set for a December 25 release.

Tessa Thompson currently appears in the Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions feature “Dear White People” for which she was nominated for Breakthrough Actor for the Gotham Awards. Up next she portrays civil rights leader Diane Nash in the Paramount Pictures film “Selma,” opening in December. Her credits include “For Colored Girls” and the BBC’s “Copper.”

Presenters for the evening’s program include filmmaker and 2010 Nicholl fellow Destin Cretton (“Short Term 12”), filmmaker Ava DuVernay (“Selma”), Academy Award®-winning actress Eva Marie Saint (“On the Waterfront”), and screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (“Legally Blonde”).

Three individual writers and one writing team have been selected as winners of the 2014 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition out of a record 7,511 entries.
 
The winners are (listed alphabetically by author):

Sam Baron, Cambridge, United Kingdom, “The Science of Love and Laughter”
Alisha Brophy, Los Angeles, CA, and Scott Miles, Austin, TX, “United States of Fuckin’ Awesome”
Melissa Iqbal, London, United Kingdom, “The Death Engine”
Sallie West, Charleston, SC, “Moonflower”

Each of the three individual winners and the combined writing team will receive a $35,000 prize, the first installment of which will be distributed at the event.  Since 1986, 137 Nicholl fellowships have been awarded.  Fellowships are presented with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year.  

Tickets to the 2014 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Awards Presentation & Live Read are now available at Oscars.org/NichollLive.