“Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” director Quentin Tarantino, “The Farewell” director Lulu Wang and “Pose” co-creator Steven Canals will be honored at the 2020 Final Draft Awards, which recognizes achievements in screenwriting.
Final Draft, a screenwriting software and a Cast & Crew Company, announced the news on Thursday as part of its 15th annual awards ceremony, which will be held on Jan. 21 at the Paramount Theatre. It will be hosted by Randy and Jason Sklar.
Tarantino will receive the Hall of Fame Award for his prolific contribution to the art of screenwriting. His latest film “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” which he wrote and directed, has grossed over $372 million worldwide.
Writer-director Wang will receive the New Voice Award for Film for her sophomore feature “The Farewell,” which landed on AFI’s Top 10 films of the year and has two Golden Globe nominations.
Canals, the co-creator and executive producer of the FX series “Pose,” will receive the New Voice Award for TV. “Pose” also landed on the AFI’s Top 10 list for the best shows of the year, and it will return for its third season in 2020.
“Quentin Tarantino is an iconic filmmaker whose bold and imaginative storytelling has been thrilling audiences for almost three decades,” Scott McMenamin, president of Final Draft, said in a statement. “He’s left an indelible mark on cinema that is distinctly his and it’s our honor to recognize him. We are equally thrilled to be honoring two brilliant, groundbreaking new voices in film and television that are telling fresh, thought-provoking stories. They perfectly embody the tenets of the New Voice Award with their original and provocative storytelling with narratives that focus on the universal journey of the human experience. We can’t wait to see what stories this year’s honorees will choose to tell next.”
Final Draft will also soon announce the winners of its 2019 Big Break Screenwriting Contest and they will also be honored at the event.
In 2019, Boots Riley, Tanya Saracho and Callie Khouri were honored at the ceremony. Other past Hall of Fame Award winners includes Aaron Sorkin, Nancy Meyers, Lawrence Kasdan, Paul Schrader, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski, Steven Zaillian, Robert Towne, Oliver Stone and Sydney Pollack.