Keir Pearson (born December 15, 1966) is an American Academy Award-nominated screenwriter notable for the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda .
Pearson graduated from Harvard University in 1989. During the 1990s, he also participated in the 1992 Summer Olympics with the American rowing team. [1]
In 2000, Pearson heard the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager living in Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide. Fascinated, Pearson interviewed Rusesabagina and wrote the script for Hotel Rwanda, sending it to director Terry George, who fell in love with the story. [2] The film was released in 2004 to positive reviews. George and Pearson shared an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. [3] Also securing Oscar nominations were Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo for their performances.
Pearson also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film Chávez , about the American labor leader César Chávez, who founded the United Farm Workers. [4]
The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include stage plays, musicals, short stories, TV series, and even other films and film characters. All sequels are also considered adaptations by this standard.
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand is a French Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. His film The Barbarian Invasions won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004. His films have also been nominated three further times, including two nominations in the same category for The Decline of the American Empire in 1986 and Jesus of Montreal in 1989, becoming the only French-Canadian director in history whose films have received this number of nominations and, subsequently, to have a film win the award. For The Barbarian Invasions, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, losing to Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation.
Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. is an American actor. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including two Grammy Awards, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also earned nominations for an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards and 11 Primetime Emmy Awards. His Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony nominations make him one of few black individuals to be nominated for the four major American entertainment awards (EGOT).
Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 drama film directed by Terry George. It was adapted from a screenplay co-written by George and Keir Pearson, and stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina and his wife Tatiana. Based on the Rwandan genocide, which occurred during the spring of 1994, the film documents Rusesabagina's efforts to save the lives of his family and more than 1,000 other refugees by providing them with shelter in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines. Hotel Rwanda explores genocide, political corruption, and the repercussions of violence.
Melissa Marie Mathison was an American film and television screenwriter and an activist for the Tibetan independence movement. She was best known for writing the screenplays for the films The Black Stallion (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the latter of which earned her the Saturn Award for Best Writing and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Sophie Okonedo is an English actress and narrator. Okonedo was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019, both for services to drama. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA TV Award, Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay! (1988), all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey(2000) wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar her directorial debut Little Zizou as well as her latest film Yeh Ballet (2020) A Netflix Original that she wrote and directed.
Paul Rusesabagina is a Rwandan human rights activist. He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide. None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks.
The Hôtel des Mille Collines is a large hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. It became famous after 1,268 people took refuge inside the building during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The story of the hotel and its manager at that time, Paul Rusesabagina, was later used as the basis of Terry George's film Hotel Rwanda in 2004.
Terence George is an Irish screenwriter and director. Much of his film work involves "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
The 57th Writers Guild of America Awards, given on February 19, 2005, honored the film and television best writers of 2004.
Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker, of both documentary and feature films. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and historical events. Peck was Haiti's Minister of Culture from 1996 to September 1997. His film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), about the life of James Baldwin and race relations in the United States, was nominated for an Oscar in January 2017 and won a César Award in France. Peck's HBO documentary miniseries, Exterminate All the Brutes (2021), received a Peabody Award.
Mark Boal is an American journalist, screenwriter, and film producer. Boal initially worked as a journalist, writing for outlets like Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Salon, and Playboy. Boal's 2004 article "Death and Dishonor" was adapted for the film In the Valley of Elah, which Boal also co-wrote.
Bill Guttentag is an American dramatic and documentary film writer-producer-director. His films have premiered at the Sundance, Cannes, Telluride and Tribeca film festivals, and he has won two Academy Awards.
Julian Barry is a retired American screenwriter and playwright, best-known for his Oscar-nominated script for the 1974 film Lenny about comedian Lenny Bruce. Barry adapted the script from his successful Broadway play of the same name. The film, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine, was nominated for the so-called Oscar Grand Slam, one of some 40 films to be so honored.
Lewis John Carlino was an American screenwriter and director. His career spanned five decades and included such works as The Fox, The Brotherhood, The Mechanic, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Resurrection, and The Great Santini. Carlino was nominated for many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Cesar Chavez is a 2014 Mexican American biographical film produced and directed by Diego Luna about the life of American labor leader Cesar Chavez, who cofounded the United Farm Workers. The film stars Michael Peña as Chavez. John Malkovich co-stars as the owner of a large industrial grape farm who leads the opposition to Chavez's organizing efforts. It premiered in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
Tatiana Rusesabagina is a Rwandan who with her husband Paul Rusesabagina, survived in Hôtel des Mille Collines during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and saved over a thousand people from being murdered. This story was used as the basis for the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, in which Tatiana was portrayed by Sophie Okonedo, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Tatiana.
The Promise is a 2016 American epic historical war drama film directed by Terry George, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Robin Swicord. Set in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the film stars Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale. The plot is about a love triangle that develops between Mikael (Isaac), an Armenian medical student, Chris (Bale), an American journalist, and Ana, an Armenian-born woman raised in France, immediately before and during the Armenian genocide.