Ron Nyswaner

Ron Nyswaner is a screenwriter, playwright, activist, and author.

He wrote the screenplay for The Painted Veil, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination and the National Board of Review’s Best Adapted Screenplay Award.

He wrote Soldier’s Girl, which tells the true story of the murder of Pfc. Barry Winchell. The film had its world premiere at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, received the Peabody Award, three Golden Globe nominations, an Emmy nomination, a Television Critics Association nomination, and was named by the American Film Institute as one of the 10 outstanding television events of the year.

He wrote the screenplay for Philadelphia, the first major studio film to confront AIDS and homophobia, which won two Academy Awards and garnered for Nyswaner nominations for the Golden Globe, Writers’ Guild, BAFTA and Academy Awards.

He wrote the screenplay for Smithereens, which premiered in main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. He wrote the screenplays for Mrs. Soffel, Love Hurts, Gross Anatomy (co-author,) and wrote and directed The Prince of Pennsylvania. He is a co-producer of Star Maps, which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Nyswaner’s stage play, Oblivion Postponed, received regional and off-Broadway productions.

His first book, Blue Days, Black Nights, was published by Advocate Books in October, 2004.

He is a founding member of the Actors & Writers Theater Company in upstate New York, serves on the board of the Woodstock Film Festival, and as an advisor for the Sundance Institute. He has received numerous awards—including the Ryan White Youth Service Award—for his activism on behalf of peoples with HIV/AIDS. He is proud to sponsor the Nyswaner Film Archive/Salzman Collection at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center in Kingston, New York, the fourth-largest LGBTQ film archive in the United States.