IMA grad Adrian Morphy finalist for esteemed Nicholl Fellowship for screenwriting

Adrian Morphy, a ‘17 Film and ‘24 MFA Scriptwriting and Story Design graduate, landed an esteemed spot as a finalist for the famed Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.

The fellowship, offered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is “an international talent development program that supports non-professional screenwriters.” This year, the fellowship was available through partnered institutions, with Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)’s MFA Scriptwriting and Story Design being one of them.

Morphy said the fellowship had been on his radar for almost a decade, because it has “big lore in the filmmaking community, and definitely the screenwriting community.”

He didn’t have a script to submit until he refined one during his time in his Masters program. Titled “The 300 Year Old Man,” it tells the story of a high school senior diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) who moves into a house with a landlord who claims to be 300 years old — but looks like a teenager. When the city tries to seize the property, the student tries to help her landlord keep the house, by attempting to prove he is, in fact, 300.

“It’s inspired by my experience getting diagnosed with a chronic illness in my senior year of high school,” Morphy said.

He was diagnosed with Crohn's disease in Grade 12, a “coming of age” time for many.

“I hadn’t seen a lot of films that deal with chronic illness,” Morphy said. “I think when films do deal with illness, the stakes are life and death, and I really wanted to write a film where someone can get diagnosed with an illness, and it’s something that they're gonna live with for their entire life, and come to terms with.”

The script has a levity to it; it’s told through the eyes of a teenage filmmaker and features historical re-enactments of all the eras her landlord has lived through.

Morphy had started working on the script in 2022, but the seeds of the idea go back to his time as an undergraduate student — a film in his third-year had been about a man who never slept, and his Master’s script is about a man who does not die. A first draft of the script also won the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) Jim Burt Screenwriting Prize. He credits the mentorship of Karen Walton and TMU’s Karen Harnisch for getting the script to where it is today.

Morphy submitted his script to be one of two scripts to represent TMU for the Nicholl Fellowship. His script was chosen and then sent to be evaluated by members of the Academy to decide on finalists, and ultimately, the recipients of the fellowship.

Then, in February of this year, Morphy received an email while working his day job as a video producer. When he opened it, his eye caught on the Academy seal, and saw that he was a finalist.

“It was just super cool, and super exciting,” Morphy said. “It feels like such an honor to be read by people that have been nominated for Oscars, or won Oscars, and probably made movies that I have looked up to.”

At that time, he was still up for the fellowship. But after the results were announced, Morphy said he was honoured even to be among the finalists.

“It’s such a hard industry to break into, that there’s a feeling of relief [when you break through on an opportunity],” he said.

Since the announcement was made on the Academy website (external link) , Morphy has also been receiving emails from managers, agents and producers in LA who are interested in reading his script.

“My 16-year-old self, who was in the hospital, sick, receiving a life-altering diagnosis, would have loved to see [a film like this],” Morphy said.

Morphy said the biggest thing he's taken from his time at the School of Image Arts, and into his practice, is the process of giving and receiving feedback on his projects.

“A group of us from the MFA [have] started a writer's group, and we meet…and continue the same practice that we were doing in school, now out of school,” he said.

“The programs do a really good job at  facilitating that [feedback process] and having you learn that in kind of an expedited way.”

Morphy’s advice to emerging screenwriters and filmmakers is to persist through hurdles, and to know that no one gets the story right in the first draft — sometimes, it even takes up to 20 or more.

“The people that don’t get discouraged early and just keep at it — that’s how you create work that lasts, is if you’re willing and interested in putting in the hours.”