Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry‘s film based on the Jonathan Safran Foer bestseller, will receive this year’s best literary adaptation honor from the Frankfurt Bookfair.
The film, which stars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and newcomer Thomas Horn, received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Supporting actor for Max von Sydow.
“The multifaceted nature and narrative concentration of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel makes it seem nearly impossible to film,” said Frankfurt Bookfair director Jurgen Boos, explaining the decision to award Daldry this year’s adaptation honor. “Stephen Daldry hasn’t created a classic literary adaptation. Instead, he has succeeded, through a concentration (of the material) and through his interpretation to create his own unique masterpiece.”
Daldry will receive the adaptation prize, which comes with a $13,000 (€10,000) cash bursary, in Frankfurt on Oct. 12. The British director will also take part in a cross-media conference, the Frankfurt StoryDrive and talk about the art and craft of adapting literature for the screen.
In addition to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Daldry has also adapted Bernhard Schlink‘s The Reader (2008) and David Hare‘s The Hours (2002) into Oscar-winning feature films.
