Brett Morgen scores Writers Guild Award nomination for 'Jane'

Filmmaker competes with Alex Gibney, Barak Goodman and Theodore Braun for WGA honor

"Jane" director Brett Morgen participates in a Q&A after an IDA screening of his film. Los Angeles, October 4, 2017. Photo by Matt Carey

Jane director Brett Morgen continued his strong awards season run today, earning a Writers Guild Award nomination for his film about primatologist Jane Goodall.

Along with Morgen, screenplay nominations went to Theodore Braun for his film Betting on Zero, about hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman's crusade against Herbalife; Alex Gibney for his documentary No Stone Unturned about the unsolved case of a mass killing in Northern Ireland, and Barak Goodman for Oklahoma City, a documentary about the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in 1995.
​

It's quite refreshing actually to go out with a movie that inspires so much love and joy.

--Jane director Brett Morgen to Nonfictionfilm.com

The WGA nomination for Morgen is the latest in a string of honors for Jane. The film has made the Oscar documentary shortlist and won best documentary from the National Board of Review and the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Film critics associations in Chicago, Kansas City, Florida, Nevada, Utah, St. Louis and San Diego have also named Jane best documentary of the year.

Morgen has screened the film at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, IDFA in Amsterdam and the Hamptons Intentional Film Festival, among other major festivals. 

"I have to say that one gets quite spoiled touring with Jane but I feel in a way that it's compensation for the fact that my last film, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, had probably one of the bleakest endings of any film that I'll ever be associated with," Morgen told Nonfictionfilm.com. "So it's quite refreshing actually to go out with a movie that inspires so much love and joy. I think there's definitely a special energy, particularly when Jane [Goodall] is in the room and present."

Jane Goodall, subject of the documentary "Jane," with Nonfictionfilm.com editor Matt Carey at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. December 18, 2017. Photo by Jackson Gibbon