NYU's Black List-Inspired Purple List Reveals 2018 Winners (Exclusive)
1:15 PM PDT 4/5/2018 by Hilary Lewis
Courtesy of New York University
The annual selection of the most promising production-ready screenplays from Tisch's graduate film students and recent alumni has previously included Desiree Akhavan's 'Appropriate Behavior' and the James Franco-starring 'The Adderall Diaries.'
New York University's Black List-inspired annual selection of the best production-ready screenplays from its Tisch School of the Arts graduate film students and recent alumni, known as The Purple List, has revealed its 2018 picks.
The four screenplays, selected by a panel of industry professionals, are Eyimofe (This Is My Desire), Fish: A Boy in a Man's Prison, The Radioactive Boy Scout and Sleeping With the Dead.
Eyimofe, written by Chuko Esiri, is a drama following two Lagosians as they try to improve their families' lives when tragedy and fate intervene. Fish: A Boy in a Man's Prison is a coming-of-age story by T.J. Parsell about a kid who finds love and freedom in an unlikely place. The Radioactive Boy Scout is a dramedy by Eric D. Cohen about what happens when a teenage science prodigy builds a nuclear reactor in his mom's backyard to impress a girl. And Sleeping With the Dead is an historical drama by Dagny Atencio Looper that centers on a young girl in the Ozarks in 1910 who has to choose between her rationalist father and a charismatic preacher predicting the apocalypse.
This year's judges included actors Jennifer Beals, Alysia Reiner and David Alan Basche; writer-director-producer David Frankel; Kelly Carmichael of Jessica Chastain's Freckle Films production company; Riva Marker of Jake Gyllenhaal's Nine Stories production banner; director Eugene Jarecki; producer Michael Gottwald; CAA's Allison Hironaka; Gersh's Frank Wuliger; Cinetic Media's Alexis Galfas; Fox Searchlight's Apolline Berty; Anonymous Content's Chadwick Prichard; and additional actors, producers, writers, directors and editors.
All four screenplays are accessible on The Black List's script database.
Twelve Purple List screenplays have gone into production, eight of which were released theatrically, including the following titles: The Adderall Diaries, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Appropriate Behavior, Manos Sucias, Those People, Yosemite and Newlyweeds.
This year's Purple List selections join a diverse group. Over its seven editions, 21 of the 34 Purple List screenwriters are women; 19 are from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds; and four identify as LGBTQ. The list was founded in 2012 by classmates Ashim Bhalla and Shandor Garrison.
This year's Purple List winners will present a staged reading of excerpts from their screenplays next Wednesday at Tisch.
Hilary Lewis
THRnews@thr.com hilarylewis