Wednesday, March 28------David Freeman has been selected as the winning screenwriter in the Tribeca/Sloan Screenplay Development Program, a joint project of the Tribeca Film Festival and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, whose purpose is to support film and video projects that educate and inform the public on matters of science.  Freeman's project A FIRST CLASS MAN, a fictional examination of the life of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan, will receive financial support over the course of a year as he works on the script's development. He will also receive the assistance of "experts" in screenwriting and mathematics selected by the program. "We are delighted to partner with Tribeca for the fifth year of this pioneering screenplay development program, Sloan Foundation program director Doron Weber declared in a prepared statement. “The life of Ramaujan is a testament to the richness and complexity of the human beings whose remarkable achievements have changed modern culture and society. Science and technology offer new and unparalleled creative opportunities for filmmakers and screenwriters and the Tribeca/Sloan program remains in the forefront of this wave.” 

David Freeman is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and journalist. His books include “It’s All True,” a Hollywood novel, “One of Us,” a novel of Egypt and England, “A Hollywood Education,” a collection of stories about the daily life of the movie business and “The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock,” a memoir of his time writing a script with the great director. His play, “Jesse and the Bandit Queen” played for 200 performances at The Public Theatre in New York and has since been performed around the world.  A stage version of “A First Class Man” played this past October at the 46th Street Theatre in New York.  Among the movies he’s written are STREET SMART directed by Jerry Schatzberg, starring Christopher Reeve and Morgan Freeman, and THE BORDER directed by Tony Richardson, starring Jack Nicholson. During the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, the winning screenplay will be showcased with a reading of excerpts and a panel discussion on Sunday April 29 at 2:00pm at New York's Soho Playhouse. 

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor