‘Sentimental Value,’ ‘Blue Moon,’ ‘Sorry, Baby’ Among Ineligible Screenplays for WGA Awards
Some very high profile screenplays from award-winning films won’t be able to check off a WGA Award this season as the Writers Guild of America’s strict eligibility rules will be leaving many off the list.
Cannes winners It Was Just an Accident from Jafar Panahi (who this weekend turned himself in for sentencing in Iran and could face years in prison), The Secret Agent, Sirāt and Sentimental Value are ineligible for original screenplay as their country of origin are not a part of the WGA and WGA sister orgs across the world.
Rules put out by the Writers Guild of America state the following: “Screenplays must have been written under a WGA collective bargaining agreement or under a bona fide collective bargaining agreement of the Writers Guild of Canada, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Writers Guild of Ireland, Writers’ Guild of South Africa, New Zealand Writers Guild, ALMA Sindicato des Guionistas, Screenwriters Association (India), Screenwriters Guild of Korea (SGK), La Guilde Francaise des Scénaristes (France), Scriptwriters Guild of Israel, the Société des Auteurs de Radio, Télévision et Cinéma (Québec) or Verband Deutscher Drehbuchautoren (VDD/Germany) (collectively, “affiliate guilds”). Please note that an affiliate guild may impose additional requirements for a writer to be considered covered by its collective bargaining agreement.”
Eva Victor has earned the lion’s share of first-time director critics’ prizes and nominations from Critics Choice and the Spirit Awards, and at Sundance in 2024 won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award, but their screenplay for Sorry, Baby is among the ineligible along with Blue Moon, Dead Man’s Wire, Father Mother Sister Brother, A Private Life, Rental Family and Rosemead.
Adapted Screenplays not on the ballot included South Korean Oscar entry No Other Choice from Park Chan-Wook (who was recently admonished by the WGA for writing during the 2023 writers strike), Cannes Un Certain Regard and Gotham Awards-winning screenplay Pillion, as well as The History of Sound, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Ballad of a Small Player, and The Chronology of Water. Also ineligible is Peter Hujar’s Day, which was recently nominated for the USC Scripter Award.
This stage of voting for the WGA Awards ends January 20, 2026. Nominations in film and television categories will be announced on January 27. The WGA Awards will take place on Sunday, March 8.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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