Oscar-nominated Screenwriter Ron Nyswaner to Screen Soldier's Girl at Pitt April 5

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh alumnus Ron Nyswaner, who was nominated for an Academy Award in screenwriting in 1993 for the film Philadelphia, will screen his Peabody Award-winning film, Soldier's Girl, on Tuesday, April 5, at

7 p.m. in the Seventh-Floor Auditorium of Alumni Hall, 4227 Fifth Ave., Oakland. Admission is free.

Presented by Pitt's Film Studies Program and Pitt in Hollywood, the event will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Nyswaner. He also will autograph copies of his autobiography, Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir (Advocate Books 2004).

Soldier's Girl won a Peabody Award in 2003 for its portrayal of the brutal murder of a soldier, Pfc. Barry Winchell, who fell in love with a transsexual nightclub dancer. The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious service by radio and television networks, stations, producing organizations, cable television organizations, and individuals. The Peabody Web site praises Nyswaner's "delicate but uncompromising efforts," which "never exploits or sensationalizes its subject matter. But neither does it flinch from realities of the pain and violence that accompany it…His script laid bare larger social patterns of homophobia and the folly of a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy."

Nyswaner, who earned the Bachelor of Arts degrees in both English writing and psychology at Pitt in 1978, also wrote Mrs. Soffel (1984), Gross Anatomy (1989), and Love Hurts (1991).

For more information, contact Vladimir Padunov at padunov@pitt.edu or Andrea Campbell at acamp@pitt.edu.

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3/30/05/tmw