How an untested screenwriter became Luca Guadagnino’s ace film collaborator

“Justin is a wunderkind,” says prolific Italian director Luca Guadagnino about on-the-rise screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes during a joint interview at a Los Angeles hotel. Kuritzkes penned both of Guadagnino’s films released this year: “Challengers,” the sleek drama chronicling a love triangle amid the competitive world of professional tennis, and “Queer,” an adaptation of legendary author William S. Burroughs’ postwar, Mexico City-set novella about a gay American expat and his drug-infused relationship with a younger lover. “Having known Burroughs’ other work, I was really shocked to find that ‘Queer’ was this very linear, straightforward love story between these two very complicated people.” “I knew that my task was to write Luca this movie he had been dreaming about,” Justin Kuritzkes says of “queer,” starring Daniel Craig. “The book is also a comedy, and there is a picaresque quality to it that Justin made a brilliant adaptation of, because it’s a romantic movie, but it’s also very funny.” Director Luca Guadagnino Los Angeles, CA - November 13: Director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes who collaborated on two films this year: The tennis-set love triangle Challengers and the William S. Burroughs adaptation, Queer.