APRIL 22 • 2021 | 39

original screenplay Oscar says: Screenplay 
by Will Berson and Shaka King [who also 
directed the film]; Story by Berson, King, 
Keith and Kenny Lucas.
Berson, who has several minor writing 
credits, began “shopping” a script about 
the death of Hampton in 2014. The Lucas 
Brothers, identical African American 
twins, began shopping their own Hampton 
script around the same time and got Shaka 
King interested. In 2017, a black friend 
of Berson told King about Berson’s script 
and everybody “joined forces.” Berson, 
43ish, a Manhattan native, is described by 
Variety as a secular Jew. His parents are 
both Jewish.
As noted above, Aaron Sorkin wrote 
the Chicago 7 script in 2007, but the pro-
duction was long delayed. Sorkin is very 
famous, so I won’t say much here. I am just 
hoping that the success of Chicago 7 will 
lead, fairly soon, to a film version of a new 
play Sorkin wrote (2018) based on To Kill 
a Mockingbird. It was a huge Broadway hit 
and many say it ranks with his best work.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, an Amazon 
Prime film starring Sacha Baron Cohen 
as Borat, is nominated for best adapted 
screenplay. Nine Moviefilm writers are 
nominated. I am sure four of the nine 
nominees, including Cohen, are Jewish: 
Jena Friedman, 38, a comedian and 
TV show producer. She grew up in a 
Conservative Jewish household in New 
Jersey; Dan Mazer, 49. He met Cohen 
when they went to the same “fancy” 
U.K. private school. Like Cohen, he’s a 
Cambridge grad, and he shared, with 
Cohen, a best original screenplay Oscar 
“nom” for the first Borat movie (2007); and 
Dan Swimer, 48, a veteran U.K. comedy 
writer.

Nomadland, now streaming on Hulu, 
is also up for a best adapted screenplay 
Oscar. The nominee is Chloe Zhao, who 
also directed the film. The nomination 
notes that Zhao’s script is based on the 
book Nomadland by Jessica Bruder. While 
Bruder isn’t up for an Oscar, I’m sure she’ll 
be thanked from the stage if, as expected, 
Nomadland picks up awards.
Bruder, 44, has written for the N.Y. 
Times since 2003. For several years, she 
traveled thousands of miles to follow 
people, mostly older, who were displaced 
by the Great Recession and took to a life 
on the road. In 2017, Bruder’s nonfiction 
book Nomadland was published to great 
acclaim. Chao’s film script has some fic-
tionalizations.
Bruder’s father, a major businessman 
and philanthropist, is Jewish. Her mother 
is Catholic. It’s pretty clear she was raised 
Jewish or secular. In 2011, Bruder wrote 
a Times article describing how the 5% of 
the American population who do not cele-
brate Christmas, in any way, keep busy on 
Christmas day. Bruder included herself in 
that 5%.
White Eye, directed and written by 
Israeli filmmaker Tomer Shushan, 40ish, 
is nominated for best short live action 
film (producer Shira Hochman shares the 
nomination). It’s a poignant story about a 
Tel Avivian who finds his stolen bicycle in 
the street. In 20 minutes, he has conver-
sations with 10 Israelis of different ethnic 
backgrounds. These conversations reveal a 
lot about the biases and class structure of 
Israeli society.
The original Netflix documentary My 
Octopus Teacher is nominated for best 
documentary feature. It was co-directed by 
South African Pippa Ehrlich, 33. This film 

has become almost a phenomenon — huge 
viewing numbers and even parody videos. 
Here’s the capsule plot: a (real) “burned-
out” documentary maker returns to South 
Africa and “heals” via snorkeling in an 
ocean kelp forest, where he encounters an 
octopus that, in effect, befriends him and 
demonstrates astonishing intelligence (this 
is all real!). The photography and dramatic 
storytelling are just superlative.
Ehrlich is the secular daughter of a 
Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. 
A (South African) Jewish Report article 
says that Ehrlich is close to her Jewish 
grandmother and that Ehrlich’s happiest 
moment (since the film opened) came 
when her “bubbie” said how much nachas 
she was getting from the film’s reception. 
Ehrlich’s filmmaking has been supported 
by the South African ORT.
Including this year, James Newton 
Howard, 69, has been nominated for seven 
Oscars for best score and two more for 
best song. He hasn’t won yet. He’s nomi-
nated this year for his score for the Tom 
Hanks’ film News of the World. Long after 
his father died, Howard discovered his 
father was born Jewish. This led to him 
embracing his Jewish background and he 
is a practicing Reconstructionist Jew.
Diane Warren, 64, is another “always 
a bridesmaid” story. Including this year, 
she has been nominated 12 times for best 
song and hasn’t won yet. She’s nominated 
for co-writing the song “Seen” from the 
film The Life Ahead (in which Sophia 
Loren played a Holocaust survivor). Every 
time she’s nominated, some writer says, 
“It is Warren’s year.” I won’t repeat that 
here. As my mother would say, Kinehora! 
(Meaning, don’t say it aloud and invite bad 
luck!) 

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

IMDB

A scene 
from Mank
A scene from 
Nomadland
A scene from 
My Octopus 
Teacher

IMDB

