27th USC Libraries Scripter Award goes to The Imitation Game

Screenwriter Graham Moore and author Andrew Hodges received the 27th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award for The Imitation Game. Selection committee chair Howard Rodman announced the winners at the black-tie event on Saturday, Jan. 31, at USC’s historic Doheny Memorial Library.

Moore based his adaptation on “Alan Turing: The Enigma,” a 1983 biography by Hodges of the brilliant British World War II code-breaker and computer pioneer who was later persecuted for his homosexuality. Rodman accepted the award on behalf of Hodges, who teaches mathematics at Oxford University’s Wadham College.

“Alan Turing never got to stand on a stage and hear people applaud his name,” Moore said in his acceptance speech. “And I do right now, and that is a profound injustice. All that I can do is spend the rest of my life endeavoring to repair it.”

The 27th Annual USC Libraries Scripter Award – finalists announced

Scripter honors the screenwriter or screenwriters of the year’s most accomplished cinematic adaptation as well as the author or authors of the written work upon which the screenplay is based.

The Friends of the USC Libraries established Scripter in 1988. Previous Scripter winners include the screenwriters and authors of 12 Years a Slave, The Social Network, A Beautiful Mind and The English Patient.

Chaired by Howard Rodman, USC professor and vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West, the 2015 Scripter selection committee selected the five finalists from a field of 97 eligible adaptations.

Serving on the selection committee, among many others, are film critics Leonard Maltin, Anne Thompson and Kenneth Turan; authors Michael Chabon, Michael Ondaatje and Mona Simpson; screenwriters John Ridley, Erin Cressida Wilson and Steve Zaillian; and USC deans Elizabeth Daley of the School of Cinematic Arts, Madeline Puzo of the School of Dramatic Arts and Catherine Quinlan of the USC Libraries.