The 34th annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards — which honors screen adaptations — itself adapted, putting on a virtual ceremony due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The awards ceremony pays tribute to the past year’s best film and television adaptations, along with the original works on which they are based. The ceremony has traditionally been held in the historic Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library on the USC campus.
For film adaptations, the Scripter Award winner was:
— Maggie Gyllenhaal for “The Lost Daughter,” based on the novel by Elena Ferrante.
The winner for television adaptations was:
— Danny Strong, for the episode “The People vs. Purdue Pharma,” from “Dopesick,” based on the nonfiction book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America,” by Beth Macy.
Barry Jenkins had been nominated in the TV category for the episode “Indiana Winter,” from “The Underground Railroad,” based on the novel by Colson Whitehead. During the virtual ceremony, Jenkins received the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award “for his contributions to cinematic storytelling, including his work adapting the 2017 Scripter winner “Moonlight’ and the 2019 finalist “If Beale Street Could Talk.”
Finalists for the Scripter Awards were chosen from a field of 69 film and 42 television adaptations.
Among those serving on the committee — which is chaired by Howard Rodman, USC professor and past president of the Writers Guild of America West — include film critics Leonard Maltin, Anne Thompson and Kenneth Turan; authors Janet Fitch and Walter Mosley; screenwriters Mark Fergus and Erin Cressida Wilson; producers Mike Medavoy and Gail Mutrux; and USC deans Elizabeth Daley of the School of Cinematic Arts and Catherine Quinlan of the USC Libraries.