Hollywood Screenwriters Award Winners Are In The Oscar Race For 'Before Midnight'

Last night marked the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, where Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke received the Hollywood Screenwriters Award for their work on the indie drama Before Midnight.

The winners were announced earlier in September. The Hollywood Film Awards is the first awards show of the 2013 film awards season, an important indicator for who will take the Oscar awards in the same category.

Quentin Tarantino, last year's award honoree, went on to win the best original screenplay Oscar for Django Unchained. Other recent winners include Aaron Sorkin in 2010, John Patrick Shanley in 2008 and Christopher Hampton in 2007.

In a similar fashion, Linklater, Deply and Hawke are in the running to win the best adapted screenplay Oscar this year for Before Midnight.

The film, by Sony Pictures Classics, is the third in the sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). The Before series installments have all been directed by Linklater and stars Deply and Hawke. The team was nominated for a best adapted screenplay Oscar for Before Sunset.

The story spans 18 years, following a couple at different phases of their lives in different places. Before Midnight takes place 9 years after the end of Before Sunset, when Jesse and Celine live in Paris with their twin daughters.

As for the ceremony, Scott Feinberg wrote in his analysis for The Hollywood Reporter that the atmosphere was lighthearted and fun. Feinberg wrote,  "Jack Black presented the Hollywood Screenwriter Award to his School of Rock and Bernie collaborator Richard Linklater and Linklater's Before Midnight cowriters and stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. After noting that Midnight -- the third installment in the Before series, after Before Sunrise and Before Sunset -- is the best reviewed film of the year, so far, Black cracked, "I'm not a fucking award-winning writer, I'm just a dude who wants to be in the next installment, Before the Eclipse." As the honorees stumbled over each other's words at the podium, Linklater joked that this is why "People think that the movies are very improvised. They're actually entirely scripted." Hawke then got big laughs by joking that the film's success was owed less to the script than the actors, who he wished to thank."

For names of more recently-awarded screenwriters, check out the ScreenCraft post, "Academy Announces Nicholl Fellowship Winners."