FEATURE SCREENPLAY – FINALISTS
GOLDFEATHER (Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Mark Dylan Brown
Sentenced to the desert to convince a Native American tribe to sell their sacred land for a theme park project, a down-on-his-luck L.A. real estate agent encounters opposition in the form of a beautiful Tribal Leader and a town full of loony locals whom he must close or else lose his job.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THADDEUS THACKERAY (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Adam McDaniel
Award-winning buddy comedy set in 1943, where 14 year-old Judson Conover dreams of sharing adventures with his favorite cartoon movie hero, Dublin McGinn. But when he mysteriously switches bodies with McGinn’s comic sidekick, diminutive English teenage genius Thaddeus Thackeray, Judson realizes that surviving animated serials is MUCH harder than it looks. Meanwhile, Thackeray’s lost within an all-too-real world at war and must figure out how to set things right. And the only one who can possibly help him is Judson’s best friend, Kenny, who isn’t quick to believe Thaddeus’ rather fantastical story.
MENDOZA THE JEW (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Robin Russin
1782: When the boxing coach to the Prince of Wales spots a Jewish boy dominating in a street fight against a bigger man, one of the great boxing rivalries in history is born as young Daniel Mendoza becomes first the protege and then bitter adversary of Gentleman Richard Humphreys, rising to be the first Jewish boxing champion of England, an underdog who fights as “Mendoza the Jew,” but is known as “The Lion of Israel” to his people.
FEATURE SCREENPLAY – SEMI-FINALISTS
EMMA WHO? (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Laura Edmundson
A daughter returns home to discover her father in the early stages of dementia. However, given their tumultuous relationship, she is torn between caring for him, leaving him to his own devices, or finding a nursing home that will take him in.
FEATHER AND BONE (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Robert Browne
In China, a young mother suffers the kidnapping of her only daughter. Twenty years later, in San Francisco, she believes she has found her child. The daughter may be part of a human trafficking operation from China to the San Francisco.
HEROES AND VILLAINS (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Timothy Burgess
At the dawn of World War II, three mystery authors stumble upon a Nazi conspiracy to assassinate Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt at the White House on Christmas Eve, 1941.
MOKSHA (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Saurin Lakhia
In the late 22nd century, a queer Indian-American man uses psychedelic science to lead humanity to its new interstellar home, but must first confront his past after receiving a dark message from Earth involving his long-estranged mother and her mass ritual suicide cult.
NACELLE (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Josh Erenberg
Ivy, a rambunctious senior caretaker, takes Danny, an old newly-converted Jewish man, to see the windmills in Palm Springs, California.
ROUGH CUT (Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Mitchell Slan
On Halloween night, an isolated video editor/streamer is hired to cut together a horror movie by a masked killer, only to discover that the cinematic “scenes” are real.
SIX SHOTS FROM NOW (US, Feature Screenplay)
Writer: Mike Barroga
With only six bullets, a recovering drug addict seeks revenge on the six men that murdered the counselor who saved his life.
SHORT SCREENPLAY – FINALISTS
KATE’S BALLAD (US, Short Screenplay)
Writer: Rory O’Connor
This is a play within a play within a play where two actors grapple with their feelings for one another through the text’s ambiguity.
OKORO (Short Screenplay)
Writer: Gregory Earls
A scientist explores the choice between benevolence and hostility as he tries to guide his artificial human toward humanity.
THE REVVER (US, Short Screenplay)
Writer: Mike Hanson
Iris can’t eat, sleep, or finish drawing her masterpiece when her macho neighbor constantly revs his mammoth truck — but now it’s time she takes matters into her own hands.
WATCHING WALTER (Short Screenplay)
Writer: Mark Dylan Brown
When a random customer drops off a gold pocket watch for repair, the watch sets off a series of haunting memories for an elderly watchmaker and Holocaust survivor.
WINTER: LABORATORY OF LAMENT (US, Short Screenplay)
Writer: Stephen Gillikin
Winter is a child who lives at home with her parents and two dogs, Scruffy and Luna. But unbeknownst to the family, Scruffy and Luna are also powerful super heroes who must stop an evil scientist fox from stealing the power from the sun and destroying the solar system.
