Aaron Sorkin, Steve McQueen, Sofia Coppola, Ramy Youssef and Radha Blank will be honored at the 16th annual Final Draft Awards, to be presented in a virtual ceremony on March 2, 2021.
Sorkin will be presented with the Final Draft zeitgeist award, honoring a writer whose work speaks powerfully to the culture and what’s going on in the world right now. His film “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is currently streaming on Netflix. Sorkin won an Academy Award for adapted screenplay for his “Social Network” script, and was nominated for his “Moneyball” and “Molly’s Game” screenplays.
Steve McQueen, whose latest project, “Small Axe,” debuts on Amazon Prime Video on Nov. 20, will get the storyteller award for TV. Academy Award winner Sofia Coppola will get the storyteller award for film for “On the Rocks,” her latest feature –currently streaming on Apple TV Plus.
The new voice award for TV will go to Youssef for his Hulu series “Ramy” and the film equivalent will be presented to Blank, who won the directing award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year for “The Forty-Year-Old Version” — now streaming on Netflix.
Newly appointed Final Draft president Shelly Mellott will preside over the ceremony. She is the first female president of the company in its 30-year history.
“2020 has been a year of cataclysmic change and has amplified the need and appreciation for voices like our honorees who are telling stories that illuminate our culture, history and humanity,” she said. “These are provocative storytellers from diverse backgrounds and perspectives sharing their vision of the world and bringing us together at a time when we need it most. We could not be more proud to honor them and their inspiring work.”
Previous Final Draft Award winners include Quentin Tarantino, Nancy Meyers, Lawrence Kasdan, Paul Schrader, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski, Callie Khouri, Steven Zaillian, Robert Towne, Oliver Stone and Sydney Pollack. The new voice award was introduced in 2017, and past recipients include Steven Canals, Lulu Wang, Liz Hannah, Issa Rae, Boots Riley and Tanya Saracho.