adam chanzit - screenwriter
Adam Chanzit is a Colorado-born, Los Angeles-based screenwriter and playwright. He has written scripts for U.S. and Chinese studios, independent producers, and theater companies. His original screenplay became the basis for the film 3 Nights in the Desert, which premiered at Palm Springs, and was bought and distributed by Monterey Media. Other screenplays include the co-written adaptation of The Piano Tuner, based on the bestselling novel, slated for a 2017 release. Adam sold a China-set pitch to Universal Pictures International and Marc Platt Productions. He also developed and wrote an English-language, Buddhist-inflected fantasy film for the Ningxia Film Group, a Chinese studio.
Stage plays include Down to This and The Great Divide, both premiering in the Bay Area. Honors include a commission from the Shotgun Players in Berkeley, a UC Berkeley Consortium for the Arts Playwriting Grant, a visiting artist residency at Sonoma State University, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and the 2011 San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Award which included a Djerassi Colony Residency.
Fluent in Mandarin, Adam was awarded a fellowship from Yale to study Daoist religion in China. While based at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, he traveled to and lived in Daoist temples in Shaanxi province. He has taught at UC Berkeley and with Prison University at San Quentin. Adam earned a BA in literature and theater at Yale and a MA in Chinese literature with a designated emphasis in film from UC Berkeley.