Award Winner: Opening pages of Margaret Nagle's THE GOOD LIE

Today the WGA-West announced Margaret Nagle will receive its 2015 Paul Selvin Award for THE GOOD LIE, her script about The Lost Boys of Sudan. The film, an eleven-year labor of love for Nagle, depicts the journey of four Sudanese orphans who relocate to the United States. Here are four small chunks from the opening pages of Nagle's script, where we see one of the main characters, Mamere, witnessing the attack and destruction of his village. The terror begins right on the first page, as Mamere sees a plane - but isn't familiar with what he's seeing.

Mamere searches for someone to tell about what he's seen, but can't find anything. Later, his excitement dies down and he plays with his friend Theo. But then more aircraft arrive, more ominously this time:

Finally, the horror occurs. By the end, Theo is alone with a few other survivors.

The script only gets more heartbreaking and compelling from there; in the following pages, the refugee kids chase a cheetah away from its kill just so they can eat.

THE GOOD LIE is available in the Writers Guild Foundation library. If you'd like to read it, just come in and ask.