The Script Market 2026

Country star DAN STEELE, recovering from a life of excess, and his band regroup for a 2026 make-or-break reunion at the LA Biltmore Hotel. But when the mysterious hotel manager, PEARSON PARKS, takes Dan to a magical mirror hidden deep in the bowels of the hotel, the mirror sends Dan to the silver screen realm of 1928 Hollywood. Unwittingly he finds himself cast as MGM’s new singing cowboy of the talkies, the Kaleidoscope Cowboy, and he struggles to live a dual existence. At MGM, LOUIS B. MAYER and costume designer PEGGY HAMILTON groom him for stardom. But when he meets Peggy’s fellow designer PEARSON PARKS, he realizes Pearson is also a time-traveller! Dan falls in love with Peggy while, at the same time, Pearson falls in love with him! Meanwhile, Dan’s band is convinced that Dan has left them high and dry again, and they are ready to give up on him. But Pearson remembers Dan all too well - the man who rejected him and made him look a fool. Pearson shreds Dan's reputation and Dan loses both Peggy and the respect of MGM. He returns despondent to the present only to find his band was fired because of him and they’ve checked out. It’s then he realizes Pearson set him up. With newfound purpose, Dan confronts Pearson and reunites with Peggy. With Pearson on their tail, Dan and Peggy jump through to the present, where the band finally sees the astonishing truth. Dan discovers how to control the mirror, and he stops Pearson from returning. He convinces Peggy to return to her time, knowing he’ll see her again, and he and the band reunite with all forgiven and a secret sworn. Redeemed at last, he is free to live in both worlds, and, in the end, he rides the ridge as the Kaleidoscope Cowboy once again.

CO-WRITERS:

DEBORAH GREEN A native of Montreal, Deb followed in her family’s creative footsteps - her father was an animator with Disney, her grandfather a producer, and her grandmother a poet. For 35 years she was an internationally recognized casting director, casting actors from across North America, the U.K. and Europe since 1991. She has cast such films as Shanghai Noon, Brokeback Mountain, Tideland and November 1963. Along with casting, Deb has written several stage plays and screenplays, including an award-winning feature, Right of Inheritance, and the produced stage play The Big Shock. She has also written treatments and pitches for several TV pilots and has produced two short films, Water Under The Bridge and The Trouble With Destiny with her production company Earthwave Entertainment. Deb is a member of the Casting Society of America (CSA) and the Casting Directors Society of Canada (CDC), and she currently lives, works and writes in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada. IMDbPro: https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0337778.

WIZ BRYANT A native of Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Wiz is a theatre graduate of Studio 58 Langara College Vancouver. His grandmother was a professional classical guitarist and co-founder of the Nellie Cornish School of Performing Arts in Seattle Washington. Wiz has acted in film and many stage plays, including the lead in Peer Gynt, but his first love has always been music. As a professional country folk singer/songwriter, he has recorded five LPs of original songs and toured Canada, opening shows for Stompin’ Tom Connors and Ronnie Hawkins. A gospel singer on 100 Huntley Street, he was a producer and featured singer on The Salute To Canada. Wiz Bryant Productions Inc. has produced documentary series hosted by Wiz and featuring his music, including CBC’s Wandering Canada. His screenplay credits include Eyes Of A Cowboy, broadcast on CTV Network where he received a Gemini Nomination. Website: www.wanderingcanada.com.

Inspired by tales of crime and revelation, the story of Solomon – The Keymaster – brings elements of detective mystery and adventure thriller into the tradition of classic horror.

Solomon, a fifth-generation warlock, attempts to escape the family demon that haunts him but becomes trapped inside an isolated hotel surrounded by black magic and the vengeful spirit of the forest. Inside, illusions blur with reality, demons lurk behind every door, and Solomon's protective "keys" grow weaker with each passing night.

When Jacob, a bounty hunter driven into the woods, seeks refuge in the cursed hotel, the two men are forced into a dangerous alliance. Their only hope lies in confronting the ancient evil awakened within the walls – the Whisperer, a demonic ancestor bound to Solomon's bloodline.

Dr. Victoria Polzer is a German award-winning screenwriter, director, and philosopher, and a member of the German Screenwriters' Association (DDV).

Her work, including music videos, documentaries, a short horror film, and screenplays, has received recognition at over 50 international film festivals worldwide.

She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Heidelberg University and studied screenwriting and directing with Alexander Mitta, as well as completing masterclasses with Mark Travis and Neil Landau.

In 2012, she wrote and directed the short film Naiads, created as part of Michel Gondry’s Film Factory project and later exhibited at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.

Her screenplay Once Upon a Town (Es war einmal eine Stadt), about the destruction of Mariupol, was proposed for the German Screenplay Award by DDV.

Her creative screenwriting portfolio spans numerous works across science fiction, horror, drama, and dark mythological fantasy.

Alongside her filmmaking, she continues her research in the aesthetics of ancient theatre and visual perception, integrating these concepts into her screenwriting practice.

Retired Marshal Del Dodge is recruited by Pinkerton Agent Tom Battle to infiltrate organized crime in 1919. The Italian Mafia Dons are gaining a foothold in “new” towns such as Kansas City, combining efforts with Old West gang bosses such as Jack Baxter who are now moving into more sophisticated crime. Dodge joins Battle and a mafia informant to thwart a bribery scheme to acquire the High Plains Aquifer, the largest contiguous underground fresh water reservoir in North America. Through extensive flashback to the Wild West days, we learn that Baxter killed Dodge’s young wife and his Texas Ranger father. Baxter’s attempt to double-cross the Mafia by stealing the gold meant to pay for land bribes is stopped when Dodge is aided by Comanche warriors and a biplane pilot to massacre the guards transporting the payoff gold. Dodge personally kills Baxter, and returns to his Texas ranch with his new love Mary Duncan, the other undercover Pinkerton Agent.

My screenplay “Marshal Dodge” is a Winner of the Cannes Script Festival Western category, plus 14 other international film festival contest awards. I have won a total of 86 film festival screenplay contest awards among 21 feature scripts, with five of those for First Place between four different screenplays. My screenwriting includes a current Option, three other Options now expired, and three written-for-hire screenplays that greenlit but then were canceled. Notably, my lone TV project to be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television (JBTV) at CBS Studios was greenlit then canceled before production. I write in multiple genres including thriller, drama, crime, rom-com, true sports, romance, dramedy, Christmas/holiday, family, true Western, AI-tech, young adult athletics, horror, faith, true Viking, true U.S. Civil War, fantasy, drama/musical, and mixed genre. I began screenwriting in 1983, and my business career has included managerial jobs at HBO and Turner Broadcasting. I have had one published humorous memoir about trying to break into Hollywood, and have another screenwriting journey memoir in progress.

Andy Wolff is a mid-forties-age award-winning U.S. magazine sportswriter and former Major League Baseball superstar. Andy feels insulted when his protest is ignored by his editor when assigned two weeks in Spain to author an article about a bullfighter. Arriving in Spain, Andy meets mid-forties-age matador Juan Sanchez enjoying a magnificent world-class career, yet shares his angst with Andy about the emotional trauma of eventual retirement. Facing near-death experiences in bullring action, the often-injured Juan is shown to be fearless and artistic as well as a beloved figure in society. Andy and Juan bolster each other to reconcile problems within their individual family relationships while discovering a new appreciation of legacy and character. Andy’s ensuing magazine article pinpoints Juan’s inspirational hero’s journey for anyone facing life’s physical and spiritual moments of truth.

My screenplay “Bloodlines” is a Winner of the Cannes Script Festival Action/Adventure category, plus 11 other international film festival contest awards. I have won a total of 86 film festival screenplay contest awards among 21 feature scripts, with five of those for First Place between four different screenplays. My screenwriting includes a current Option, three other Options now expired, and three written-for-hire screenplays that greenlit but then were canceled. Notably, my lone TV project to be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television (JBTV) at CBS Studios was greenlit then canceled before production. I write in multiple genres including thriller, drama, crime, rom-com, true sports, romance, dramedy, Christmas/holiday, family, true Western, AI-tech, young adult athletics, horror, faith, true Viking, true U.S. Civil War, fantasy, drama/musical, and mixed genre. I began screenwriting in 1983, and my business career has included managerial jobs at HBO and Turner Broadcasting. I have had one published humorous memoir about trying to break into Hollywood, and have another screenwriting journey memoir in progress.

Overwhelming Darkness is an intense crime thriller that dives headfirst into the perennial themes of ‘Good and Evil,’ examining what brings out the dark side buried deep within us all. Ultimately, many of us secretly fantasize about being the Vigilante, taking a vengeful stance against the heinous criminals in our society. But we almost never do, unless it’s in a video game, or vicariously through the characters up on the big screen. Our protagonist Jane Abel, the wayward daughter of one of the last ‘good cops’, feels that her life as a crime reporter is stagnant and going nowhere. Until that is, she accidently kills Adrian Cain, a child murderer who beats the system and gets off with his abhorrent crimes, thanks to his powerful cousin Caesar, the leader of a notorious biker gang. When Caesar finds out that Abel killed his cousin, he sends a hitman to kill Abel’s fiancé Mike, to send her a message that he knows what she’s done. The hit goes wrong with Mike ending up in ICU and the hitman lying dead in the street, his head smashed in by a crazed Abel. These incidents push Abel over the edge into a violent, bloody journey to rid her city of the criminals she’s always hated. After killing a paedophile/trafficker and a wife beater, Abel’s convinced that she’s finally doing the right thing and making the world a better place. Abel’s killing spree grabs the attention of the media, the public and the police. Detective Powell, a sadistic cop, working the vigilante murders, accidentally kills a prostitute, Maria Esposito, then tries to cover it up by blaming the vigilante at a Police Press Conference. Detective Hendry, Powell’s new rookie partner (and Abel’s high-school friend) is convinced he is connected to Maria’s murder. Putting her career in jeopardy, Hendry investigates Powell’s relationship with Maria, finding that she was more than just his snitch. As Powell gets more determined to catch the vigilante, Hendry starts to close in on Powell for Maria’s murder. When Abel finds out that Mike has been executed by Caesar, she goes after him. She takes a brutal beating by the huge biker, but manages to catch him off guard, stabbing him through the heart, killing him instantly. With Detective Powell doggedly chasing Abel down and Detective Hendry not far behind, coming for Powell, we’re set up for a final confrontation that will leave both Abel and Powell shot and bleeding out in an old freight train yard. But who will die and who will be arrested, and what will Detective Hendry’s part be in all of the final, bloody carnage at the very end? Overwhelming Darkness pays absolute homage to the fundamental themes of classic Film Noir and the Vigilante movie, but takes them into the modern realm, ramping up the violence and tension times a gazillion, so you could cut it with a large, serrated hunting knife!

Email: stevenhart888@gmail.com | Tel: +44 7715102176

FORMAT: Live Action Feature | Crime Thriller

One Sheet Tagline: Who Really Deserves to Die? COMPS: PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN and THE BRAVE ONE. This is a fresh take on the vigilante movie, where the inciting incident isn’t the usual bad, or violent act that’s done to the protagonist, or her family. It starts with her accidentally killing a child murder in self-defence, then making the snap decision to run away from the scene. This thrusts her into a violent, bloody journey that takes her to terrible dark places, making her do things she never thought she’d do. She is never the victim in this story but stands up for all the innocent people who are.

WHY THIS STORY NOW: With the rise of the ‘Me Too’ movement and the conviction and imprisonment of monsters like Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, there’s a huge appetite for stories of female empowerment and women taking control in a still largely patriarchal society. With the eye-opening popularity of challenging films like ‘The Sound of Freedom’, ‘You Were Never Really Here’ and ‘She Said’, we need to keep the spotlight on the grave consequences of sexual and physical abuse, rape, paedophilia and child sex trafficking more than ever. As these heinous problems of our broken society are not going away, and if anything, are just getting worse. The Epstein Files and the Cornell 7 case being the very obvious examples of absolute male depravity.

Before I started writing Overwhelming Darkness, I was watching many hours of news programmes every day and getting more and more angry and despondent about the skyrocketing number of reports detailing women and children being physically and sexually abused, trafficked and murdered at the hands of men, all over the world. I was at the point of getting ill because of all the negative news I was consuming every day and knew that I had to do something positive to channel my anger and frustration into something meaningful and creative. And that was the very real catalyst that led to me writing Overwhelming Darkness and choosing a strong, but disillusioned female protagonist for my story.

Overwhelming Darkness has won over 30 screenplay competitions in 2024/25, including Best Thriller Screenplay at the New York Screenwriting Awards, 1st place Thriller Screenplay at the Best Script Awards, London and Best Thriller Screenplay - Berlin International Screenwriting Festival. It’s been a Finalist in the Golden Script Competition and Optimus Feedback Screenplay Competition and a semi-finalist in the Page Turner Feature Screenplay Contest, and a quarterfinalist in the Emerging Screenwriters Suspense Screenplay Competition and the Table Read My Screenplay Competition – Hollywood.

Down on his luck and socially awkward, Tootersen finds himself alone, jobless, and depressed, living in his mother’s house with no purpose in life. However, one day, his mother complains about skyscrapers casting shadows over their home, preventing any sunlight from coming in. Immediately getting an idea, Tootersen grabs his TV screen, calls a taxi, and goes to the tallest building in town. Tricking his way into a conference meeting, he manages to persuade the biggest investor to forget skyscrapers and begin building earth scrapers, with the floors going down under the ground and screens used instead of windows.

Soon enough, all the buildings are demolished, and the mayor announces Tootersen as a town hero with his face all over the media. Deciding to go for a walk, he quickly discovers that he is living in a ghost town now that everybody remains in their bubbles underground. Aware he must make a change, he opens a psychology consultation office, where he meets his first client, young Evander, and his single, workaholic mother, Lucy. Their chemistry is evident, and before they know it, the trio forms a bond. Together, they decide to turn things around.

Luckily, Tootersen stumbles upon the mystical spirit of the town, who reveals an old transport bridge hidden below the new earth scrapers that they can lift above ground to bring people together again. Solving the mystery and raising the bridge, Tootersen is marrying Lucy.

an aspiring author / designer / developer / musician dedicated website: https://tootersen.com

My Film An Angel's Diary is about baby angels living happily in heaven among the clouds with the angel chiefs, Jesus and Heavenly Father!

Little Amelie is a baby angel living in heaven. Heavenly Father and Jesus and the angel chiefs love her and her angel friends so much. Amelie likes to play with her angel friends on the clouds and she writes down her happy memories in heaven on her angel diary - that's why this cartoon is called "An Angel's Diary"!

From making cotton candy clouds to playing with the stars! Amelie’s baby angel friends, little Noah, enjoys his playful time on the cloud slide! Baby Theo and Baby Cloudia love making beautiful music with the harp. It’s such a harmony on the clouds today. The little angels are so happy and blessed today!

Little angel Amelie studies in Heaven Kindergarten on the clouds with other baby angels. The granny teacher Aurora is telling heavenly tales to the little angels - the little angels love to hear these heavenly tales so much!

Aurora says, "Once there was a rainbow in the sky, which led to a garden of everlasting flowers…” The little angels are holding their tiny feather pens in this cloud kindergarten room!

The animation was created by Alesia YU who is a Registered Social Worker in Hong Kong. I worked in Small Group Homes for 4 years with children from broken families, my job was to give them a home and love. It was then when I studied in theology school Hong Kong Evangel Seminary Children Ministry certificate course and created this lovely animation.

An Angel’s Diary is the winner in Best Animated Film category in Berlin Film Awards 2026 as well as 9 other Official Selection and Honorable Mentions Awards from different film festivals:

- Official Selection in the Los Angeles Movie and Music Video Awards 2026 - July Season - Semi-Finalist at the Hollywood Indie Festival - Summer Season 2026 - Honorable Mention in New York Film and Cinematography Awards 2026 - Honorable Mention in film festival Los Angeles Short Film Awards 2026 - Honorable Mention in film festival Hollywood International Indie Film and Screenplay Awards 2026 - Official Selection from Film Fest Fusion 2026 - Winner for Best Animated Film Category in Berlin Film Awards 2026 - Official Selection (at least) at Religious Faith International Film Festival 2026 (Animated Category Final 4 Candidates) - Honorable Mention at the New York Film and Female Actress Award 2026 - Official Selection / Finalist from Cine Vista Oasis Film Awards, Season July to September, 2026 - Finalist at Cannes Script Festival Autumn Season 2026 - Honorable Mention at the Palm Springs Film Awards 2026

Act I: The Scam Ambitious DJ SONNY longs for his big break in Malta’s club scene and falls for a girl called Jessica while being stalked by another obsessive girl, Cartier. Her current flame Darius is not too happy with this. Sonny falls for a pitch from sleazy promoter LUC THE FROG: to hand out sealed "promotional packages" in exchange for a festival main-stage slot. Unbeknownst to Sonny, the packages contains drugs belonging to a ruthless ALBANIAN MOB. The giant Swiss DJ's are after Luc the Frog for ripping them off. Meanwhile, Sonny's older brother TERRENCE quietly struggles with severe agoraphobia while working brutal hours to pay off family debts. Act II: The Toss & The Fall Discovering he’s been tricked into trafficking drugs, Sonny intentionally dumps the entire stash into the sea. The fallout is instant: the Albanians give Luc the Frog 24 hours to pay up; Luc threatens to break Sonny's hands; Jessica leaves Sonny, thinking he's a dealer. Desperate, Sonny turns to Terrence. Fighting through his crippling panic, Terrence calls in a decades-old favour from CHARLIE, Malta’s top radio DJ. Charlie takes Sonny on as a protégé and masterminds a plan to bring down Luc the Frog and save Sonny. Act III: The Full Moon Party Sting At Charlie’s massive Full Moon Party, VIP invites draw every adversary into a trap: • Local dealer DARIUS is busted by police dogs after Terrence secretly douses his trousers in female dog pheromones. • Jessica’s friend LAURA reveals she is an undercover Narcotics Officer, using the chaos to arrest the Albanians and Luc the Frog, gets his comeuppance from the Swiss DJ’s he conned. Resolution Sonny takes the main stage to headline before 10,000 cheering fans, wins back Jessica, dedicates his set to Terrence, who finally beats his agoraphobia. After a brief comedy fake-out where Cartier tries to stab Sonny—only for Sonny to faint from smoke fumes over a minor scratch—he recovers, grabs a cold champagne, and asks the camera: "So... you still wanna be a DJ?"

From street dancing in London to performing for the Royal Family, headlining global music venues, and starring in Hollywood productions, Graham is a veteran multi-hyphenate entertainer whose career spans dance, music, television, literature, and film. • Dance & Movement: Started as a street dancer busking in Oxford and London, leading to a prolific television dance career that culminated in a Command Performance for the British Royal Family. • DJ & Radio: Featured international Special Guest DJ playing alongside icons including Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, and Armand van Helden. Highlights include headlining four guest DJ sets for the cast & crew of BBC’s EastEnders and Holby City. Guest presenter for BBC Radio London (with Tony Blackburn), BBC Radio 1 (Steve Wright)and Radio Oxygène (France). • Television & Creator: Co-created, edited, and starred in two seasons of the cult hit KISS TV (National & Cable) and co-presented internet TV show BUZZLUCK. • T8 Robotic & Laser Show: Designed a 6-foot chromed robot with custom LEDs and dual lasers. This show has toured arenas, festivals, and TV networks across the USA, China, Australia, Dubai, Morocco, and Europe, as well as starring in Tenishia’s "Memory of a Dream" music video. o Actor & Screen Credits: Transitioned into acting landing roles in productions such as: Game of Thrones, The Whale, 247 Days, 7 Days in Entebbe, Paul, Apostle of Christ, Risen, & The Duchess. Published Author: Author of four career guides available globally on Amazon: So, You Want To Be A DJ? (Parts 1 & 2), So, You Want To Be A Dancer?, and So, You Want To Be An Actor?, alongside his newly completed feature screenplay.

Phaedra a young school teacher, a summer in Kithira island meets Orestes an author on an idyllic location. On that location on a stone bench she waits every evening for Dimitris, a mysterious young man she met a year ago and after a crazy love affair he disappeared after promising to meet her up in a yearâs time. Orestes falls for her. When she tells him her story at the beginning is trying to shift her, she is a bit torn but when Orestes realizes that Dimitris is the love of her life, he decides to help her out and allow her to live her romance. He looks in the underworld for Dimitris and finally finds him. After reminding Dimitris their appointment with Phaedra, Orestes decides to live an isolated life. Dimitris reunites with Phaedra and for a small period they live their love together. This period is dramatic for Orestes. But also Phaedra starts to see the differences between her life and Dimitris mafia lifestyle. She reaches for Orestes but he is ready to leave for good. Once again their timing is bad. Until one day Phaedra is fed up and brakes up with Dimitris. Orestes is now far away and Phaedra is back in melancholy. Next summer finds Phaedra again on the same bench alone waiting for a miracle to happen. Until it does as Orestes shows up.

Born in Athens in 1963, Alexis Andritsos grew up inside the world of cinema, as the son of Greek film director Kostas Andritsos. He entered the film industry at the age of eighteen, working alongside renowned sound designer Argyris Lazarides, before studying directing at Stavrakos Film School. Over more than four decades, he has moved across almost every aspect of filmmaking — from sound and cinematography to writing, directing and production — working extensively in Greek television, cinema and theatre. During the 1990s he directed and wrote a number of successful television productions for MEGA, ANT1 and ERT, including The Trast, The Shadow of Money, Fear, The Blue Diamond and Love and Passion, collaborating with many of Greece’s most distinguished actors. His feature film Choris Logo followed in 1998. Alongside directing, he has taught screenwriting, directing and production since 1995, adapted Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables for the stage, and served as Editor-in-Chief of Professional Camera, a specialist cinema and broadcasting magazine. In 2008 he was invited by Sony to visit its Hollywood studios. Since 2010, he has devoted much of his work to theatre while continuing to write and develop original film projects. His long journey through different forms of storytelling has shaped a deeply personal relationship with cinema — one grounded in character, human relationships and the tension between reality and desire. Silver Nights brings that experience into a story about love, memory, longing and the possibility of finding something extraordinary in the most unexpected place.

Seventeen-year-old Maisie Crawford has spent most of her life without Andrew, the father who abandoned her fifteen years ago. When he suddenly resurfaces and proposes a road trip from Los Angeles to her home in Portland, Maisie reluctantly agrees, hoping to finally understand why he left.

What begins as an awkward reunion slowly becomes something neither expected. Between roadside stops, arguments, old music, and unexpected laughter, Maisie begins to lower her defenses. Andrew confronts the damage his absence caused, and for the first time, father and daughter seem capable of building a relationship.

But Andrew has hidden the real reason he came back.

He is dying from liver failure, and Maisie may be his best chance for a living donor. When the truth comes out, Maisie feels that every moment between them has been a manipulation. Still, unwilling to let Andrew's failures define her choices, she agrees to be tested and ultimately donates part of her liver, saving his life.

After recovering, Maisie reaches out, leaving the door open for the relationship they started on the road.

Her message doesn't go through.

Andrew has blocked her.

Maisie gave her father the second chance he needed to survive, only to discover that saving someone doesn't mean they will choose to stay.

I’m a Puerto Rican screenwriter whose work blends comedy and drama with character-driven storytelling. An accountant by profession, I grew up around storytelling through my mother, a published writer in Puerto Rico, and eventually turned my lifelong love of film into screenwriting. Over the past two years, I’ve developed a slate that includes A Long Hard Road, The Dating Pool, Incubus, and the short The Songwriter, with my work earning selections and awards at multiple screenwriting festivals. Growing up in Puerto Rico has given me a perspective shaped by Caribbean, Latin American, and American influences, while traveling frequently exposes me to new places, people, and experiences that continually inspire the stories I want to tell.

Four unmarried women are thrust into a reality where literature is no longer an escape but a minefield. Their quiet lives—shaped by work, friendship, and the fragile hope of something more—are upended by an extraordinary chair with wild magic, sending them into the worlds of the bookshey love.

Katherine longs for a romance worthy of Jane Austen, but the factory floor offers no Mr. Darcy, only grit and misogyny. Within the Chair's embrace, she lives her own Regency romance—complete with mishaps, mayhem, and a hero too perfect to be real. But every story must end.

Her friends have their own objectives. Charlotte's journey to selflessly help a friend takes her to a turbulent chapter of history, where choices are shaped by sacrifice. Jane, haunted by a buried secret, must confront the one thing she has fled her entire life—even if it demands the ultimate price—only Maria, wary and unyielding, senses danger. After one harrowing encounter with the Chair, she vows to protect her friends from the Chair that only obeys its own rules.

What begins as a miraculous gift soon becomes a reckoning with the deepest chambers of human desire. And just when the audience thinks they understand where the four-story-arcs have taken them, the story turns and reveals that the greatest surprise was never the gift itself.

Patricia is a writer, producer, and entrepreneur whose career in media began immediately after earning her degree in telecommunications. She entered broadcast media, working across major networks in news, television, and film before moving into independent television and film production with legendary producer Charles W. Fries of Fries Entertainment. That early experience gave her a firsthand understanding of storytelling, development, production, and the business of bringing creative projects to market—and ignited her enduring passion for meaningful, original storytelling.

Building on that foundation, Patricia developed a successful entrepreneurial career spanning business development, branding, commercialization, and strategic planning, experience that now informs her approach to developing creative properties with both artistic vision and commercial potential.

After returning to the U.S. full-time, Patricia refocused her career on feature film development and production, establishing Doodleflix Entertainment to create original, intellectual-property-driven content designed for theatrical, streaming, television, and digital audiences.

Doodleflix’s slate includes the multi-award-winning screenplay The Armchair Travellers, developed for theatrical release; Big Dog’s Adventures in Believeland, a franchise animated feature; and The Diary’s Tale, a feature film/limited series based on the book The Boy Who Saw True.

New York, Christmas 1962; Robert Battle has it all, fame, fortune, women, he is living the American Dream, an A-list star from the Golden Age. His best friend, renowned neurosurgeon Michael Fabian and his wife, Miriam are living out their own dream; a happy couple doing what they love - all of them with the world at their fingertips.

A chance encounter one holiday night changes everything in an instant. Robert comes face to face with the monster that savagely murdered his and Michael’s families in Hungary during the Second World War. Now, the demons from the past thought to be long buried come flooding back.

This evil incarnation comes in the form of a man who goes by the name of Zabko Shear; an “antiquities dealer” revered by the community as well as his wife Emilia and daughter Sofia. Robert and Michael know him by another name … Attila Pelikan, “The Death Pelikan”; a demon who pledged allegiance to The Sinful Cross.

Now, Robert and Michael must revisit the horrors of the past. Along with Miriam, Rebecca Blum (Robert’s love) and Frank Anastasio (an old Korean War buddy) they will develop an intricate plan to bring down and destroy this monster of a man in a systematic labyrinth of twists and turns.

It was a time of peril, a time of vengeance, a time of romance and a time of justice for those who fell victim to the vile wickedness, of one of the devil’s disciples …one who wore The Sinful Cross.

Dan Maysen was born and raised in New York City. He is a classically trained actor, having appeared in film and television; a new breed of actor with an old Hollywood soul. He is also an award-winning screenwriter and producer as well as Head of Mighty Wings 81 Productions. In addition, Dan is a high-ranking martial arts expert in what is known as “The Science of Streetfighting”; the prestigious and deadly art of American Kenpo Karate. He is one of a small group certified to teach the system. He is a graduate of the “Fame” School; LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts NYC, attended classes at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and holds two Masters Degrees. Dan has years of experience working within the Intelligence Community where he is engaged in Counter-Terrorism strategy and National Security.

Charismatic diamond thief Rocko, with his crew – Haitian jeweler/Vodoun priest Glass Eye, Blackfoot tech wizard Trickster and his wife/chef Ama – has mastered the clean heist. Now Rocko wants out. One last score: steal a flawless, 35-carat pink pear diamond ring from arms dealer “Wyly” Henderson, a collector of Nazi-looted treasure, then a permanent holiday with Ama.

Posing as caterers, the crew infiltrates Wyly’s mansion with elaborate disguises, technology and AI. But the pink diamond is missing. Rocko steals a 25-carat clear diamond ring instead. Glass Eye, seeking insurance against betrayal, curses Wyly and his bodyguard Goliath. The Vodou unleashes a nightmare: Wyly’s heart explodes, while Goliath’s corpse rises and gruesomely murders three people.

Rocko discovers the clear diamond is Nazi-plundered Jewish property – and returns it to the family. Rocko blames Glass Eye who faults the spirits as the $30 million score is now worth $300,000. When he learns Ama is pregnant and fears Vodoun retaliation, Rocko seeks protection from a Vodou priestess who invokes the warrior spirit Ogou, protecting Rocko, Ama and Trickster with blood-inked tattoos.

Rocko, seeking redemption, ambushes Glass Eye, severs his hand and steals his jewel case. As he dies, vengeful Glass Eye invokes dark lord Baron Criminel, sending the severed, blue diamond-ringed hand to strangle him. Meanwhile, Rocko, through his fence, donates the stolen fortune to victims’ families, his crew and charity. At home, he falls asleep waiting for his ride to the airport and the five-finger demon assassin strikes, but Rocko’s Ogou tattoo destroys it, then his tattoo dissolves.

In Fiji, Rocko blissfully reunites with Ama, free of his criminal identity, ready to start a family. Her tattoo vanishes as well. At sunset, Rocko throws the hand’s blue diamond ring into the ocean, completing his atonement.

Michael Trachiotis – Award Winning Screenwriter, Filmmaker, Producer, Director and Editor. Comic Creator, Writer, Artist and Animator.

His short films "Death Knocked 3 Times" (A proof-of-concept film for "The Curse of the Glass Eye" feature script) and “Innocence Lost” have received multiple accolades and awards.

Michael’s scripts “The Black Hatchet,” “Blue Girl,” "Curse of the Glass Eye" and “The Chrysanthemum Garden” have also garnered very positive reviews, honors and awards.

His writing and story development experience includes working for legendary director and producer Penny Marshall and Parkway Productions in story, script and project development.

As well he has been retained to consult and strengthen scripts that encompassed analysis, character development, formatting, dialog, story arc, plot, marketability, loglines, synopsis, plus editing, rewriting and generating original material.

Michael’s limited edition, "The Black Hatchet" animated proof-of-concept comics, adapted from the script sold out at at comic-cons and on Amazon (Comics are available free: www.onceuponatimeinsf.com/freecomics).

Stan Lee read the book in it’s early development and praised him for it's compelling art, characters and story and shared advice on how to make it more compelling that Michael used to engineer the current "The Black Hatchet" script and comics.

Furthermore, Michael has a BS, Journalism (Cal Poly, SLO – Advertising and PR), BA, Cinema (SFSU – Screenwriting) and MFA, Motion Pictures and Television (AAU, SF – Producing and Directing).

Several years later he returned to AAU and taught graduate and undergraduate students in the art of building compelling Hollywood stories and screenplays, plus film editing, storyboard creation and animation.

His Fog Town Films created, produced and edited several 2D/3D "mini-short" films and animations for Augmented Reality that were also used in advertising, marketing, PR, social media, product and promotional campaigns that he guided for TESLA, LinkedIn, California Academy of Sciences and Warner Music Group, to name a few.

CFW Harrison is the elementary school teacher parents praise and the babysitter families welcome into their homes. Behind that dependable public identity, he purchases and trades child sexual abuse material through an online network. His work gives him access to children, and his reputation helps conceal the danger.

Childhood memories reveal humiliation and a family ruled by his mother Susan's contempt. In adulthood, CFW remains attached to Claire, his married childhood friend, and distant from his brother Cam. A relationship with Tricia offers the appearance of a conventional life. It also brings a calculating observer into the controlled apartment where he keeps his secrets.

As CFW moves further into the network, Tricia uncovers records and devices, then records his plan to assault Emma Mitchell, a child whose family trusts him. She persuades him to surrender the evidence and brings it to the FBI, pursuing her own financial protection as well as his exposure.

The four episodes follow his arrest, trial, and imprisonment, alongside the shock confronting Claire, Cam, Principal Mitchell, and the families around them.

Faces ends with consequences, continuing lives, and no absolution for the man who used trust to conceal his choices.

Ben Burgess Jr. is a novelist and screenwriter with a background as an NYPD detective. His published work includes Mothers Vol. 1 and A Father's Sacrifice: Daddy's Girl. He previously published with Urban Renaissance/Kensington Publishing and has identified Legacy Books LLC as his publishing company.

His screenplay portfolio includes Ball Is Life, a basketball drama about a professional athlete grieving her father while reconsidering the family legacy that shaped her.

Black and White, adapted from his novel Defining Moments, follows competing attorneys whose criminal cases expose pressures on their careers, relationships, and sense of identity.

Faces follows a trusted teacher's concealed predatory behavior, his exposure, and the consequences for the people who believed in him.

These projects place personal relationships alongside professional roles, examining what people protect, what they conceal, and what their choices cost.

Burgess brings experience in both prose fiction and screenwriting to stories concerned with Black family life, interracial relationships, responsibility, grief, and trust.

Ben Turner and Bill O'Neil compete for advancement at Wayne, Rothstein, and Lincoln, a prestigious New York law firm. When two high-profile criminal cases arrive, the partners assign Ben to rapper Reginald 'Co-Kayne' Brown, accused of killing two civilians and two police officers.

Bill must defend NBA player Johnny Alfieri against Sophia Winters's rape allegation. Strong results could bring partnership.

Both assignments expose fault lines outside the courtroom. Reggie questions Ben's identity and loyalty, while Ben's relationship with writer Becky Preston faces hostility from her wealthy parents and his friend Gabby. Bill, raised in Queensbridge, struggles to reconcile his professional ambition with his love for police sergeant Ebony Williams. Alfieri's behavior makes the moral cost of defending him impossible to ignore.

As family pressure, grief, and professional demands intensify, the attorneys discover how little they know about each other. Ben searches for evidence that can distinguish appearance from guilt. Bill faces a client whose entitlement threatens everything he values. Their rivalry becomes an examination of belonging, integrity, and whether the success they have pursued is worth the lives it asks them to compromise.

Ben Burgess Jr. is a novelist and screenwriter with a background as an NYPD detective. His published work includes Mothers Vol. 1 and A Father's Sacrifice: Daddy's Girl. He previously published with Urban Renaissance/Kensington Publishing and has identified Legacy Books LLC as his publishing company.

His screenplay portfolio includes Ball Is Life, a basketball drama about a professional athlete grieving her father while reconsidering the family legacy that shaped her.

Black and White, adapted from his novel Defining Moments, follows competing attorneys whose criminal cases expose pressures on their careers, relationships, and sense of identity.

Faces follows a trusted teacher's concealed predatory behavior, his exposure, and the consequences for the people who believed in him.

These projects place personal relationships alongside professional roles, examining what people protect, what they conceal, and what their choices cost.

Burgess brings experience in both prose fiction and screenwriting to stories concerned with Black family life, interracial relationships, responsibility, grief, and trust.

2049: Ex-pilot and Englishman, Peter D Carter, vacations in France after a devastating war between the UK and Europe that followed the UK’s ‘Brexit’ decision to part from the European Union, more than 20 years earlier. Carter, now, on the last night of his trip to Narbonne beach on the French Mediterranean coast, meets a beautiful, charming yet enigmatic femme d’un certain age, ‘Madame’, and her dog ‘Boney’ (Bonaparte). Carter and Madame settle down to talk and eat by the beachfront. But the warm ambience slowly gives way to something more sinister, as Carter’s past -- and Madame’s true identity -- is gradually revealed…

Nick Wray is an award-winning writer, editor, and publisher whose work across journalism and fiction explores the intersection of technology, individualism, morality, and humor. With an MA in Interactive Media from the Royal College of Art and a degree in Experimental Psychology from UCL, his diverse background includes working in 'futures' and contributing to publications like the Independent and Screen Digest. His recent multi-format projects have garnered significant industry recognition: his screenplay The Beach at Narbonne won Best Feature Screenplay at the 2024 Geneva International Science in Fiction Awards, while his podcast Machines for Singing and tech-inspired short play Heart of Glass have both received notable competition placements and theatre shortlistings. Rounding out his extensive portfolio are his ICL prize-winning digital polemic The Living Garden and his recently completed WWI radio play Castles of Steel and film script of this called Dreadnought. Nick's short play ‘Heart of Glass’ – based on two Tweets about Google Glass and wearable body sensors – was recently short-listed for production at the Park Theatre in London.

Synopsis

Act One

BAYAZID HAMA, 60s, Kurdish, retired and deliberately invisible, receives a visit from HENRY OSEI, a young accountant whose late father Kwame built a quiet financial operation with Bayazid's help twenty-two years ago. Henry has carried the weight of that inheritance without understanding its architecture. He is here because the last of his father's holdings need to be transferred — and because someone named MARTIN, who also knew Kwame, has told Henry that Bayazid is the only person who can close it cleanly.

Bayazid agrees. The plan he proposes to Henry is precise: Bayazid will be arrested — a bureaucratic matter he has allowed to ripen for exactly this purpose — placing him in custody while Henry executes the transfer. The records will show Bayazid could not have participated. An envelope, left with Martin, contains instructions for every contingency.

Act Two

As Henry moves through the steps Bayazid has outlined, SIRWAN HAMA, 30s — Bayazid's son, a police inspector — begins tracing an unusual pattern of money flows connected to his father's past clients. He does not yet know his father is at the center of it. Bayazid, in a holding cell, receives small pieces of information through BAYAN, his twenty-five-year-old daughter, who visits and passes nothing directly but lets him read the shape of what is happening outside.

MARCUS, a figure from the original operation who was supposed to have been paid out and gone, resurfaces. His presence is the uncontrolled variable Bayazid could not have planned for. Martin, acting on the envelope's instructions, attempts to manage Marcus — but Marcus has his own version of the twenty-two-year-old story, and his version involves Bayazid's name in ways that could reach Sirwan.

Act Three

Henry completes the transfer. The timing holds. Bayazid is released. The legal record is clean. But Sirwan's investigation has arrived at a threshold: he has enough to ask his father a direct question. In the film's final movement, father and son speak — not about the operation, but around it — in a conversation built from what is left unsaid. Bayazid offers Sirwan nothing that would require him to act. Sirwan accepts this.

The last image is Bayan at twenty-five, seated alone, pressing dried mint between her palms — the same gesture Bayazid made when she was a child, something he learned from his own father. The operation is finished. The inheritance continues.

Zanyar Farhadi is a Vancouver-based writer and entrepreneur of Kurdish origin. His screenwriting draws on firsthand knowledge of displacement, inheritance, and the quiet negotiations that shape lives lived across cultures — themes he approaches with restraint and precision rather than spectacle.

BAYAZID is his debut feature screenplay, developed alongside the short film THE ENGINEER. Both projects explore men who operate in the margins of formal systems — building structures that outlast the moment of their creation, and living with what those structures demand.

In his professional life, Farhadi has built a career in real estate across Greater Vancouver, earning the Master Medallion Club designation and the RIFO Imperial Award since 2023 — distinctions that reflect the same qualities his writing values: patience, precision, and the understanding that most important things take time to resolve.

BAYAZID is registered with the Writers Guild of Canada (Registration No. 2352353, valid through August 2031).

Based in Vancouver, BC, Canada WGC Reg. 2352353 (valid Aug 8, 2026 – Aug 8, 2031)

The ancient city of La Laguna, Tenerife, sits on a Roman burial ground. Beneath its cobblestones lie thousands of legionaries, and they are fiercely territorial about who joins them. At Aunt Violeta's funeral, in pouring rain, the coffin's lowering rig jams. A gravedigger yanks the rope, the earth collapses, and from the mud rises a skeletal hand still wearing an emerald ring. Photographer Anna Aviles knows that ring. It belonged to her mother, Conchita: the most beautiful woman in town, the most whispered-about, and the one who walked out on eight-year-old Anna twenty years ago. Except she never walked anywhere. She has been buried under the family plot the whole time, her skull crushed and her hair hacked off. Police chief Victor Ortiz takes the cold case his late father, Earl, could never crack. Victor grew up beside Anna and is quietly in love with her. Then Anna's six-year-old daughter, Yazmin, starts to change. Her pupils pulse, dilating and shrinking out of rhythm. She digs dozens of holes in the backyard until her fingers bleed. She tells a stranger exactly how her son died decades ago. She draws a man who builds boats, before anyone has mentioned him. A doctor in a clinic carved into a Roman ruin gives a chilling diagnosis: the soldiers below are restless, and they are using the child to unearth a secret. Following a little girl's crayon clues, Anna and Victor work through a town of buried motives: Byron, a washed-up Lothario who builds ships in bottles from human hair. Mayor Lorinda Montenegro, who weeps alone over the bones and has hidden a forbidden love affair for twenty years. A rusted tin box under a memorial angel, packed with stalker photographs of Conchita and a lock of her stolen hair. Then Yazmin delivers the line that stops every heart in the room: "That's why you're my mommy this time. You know how to love better." Conchita has come home in her granddaughter's body. Or so they believe. The truth surfaces in a single name: Earl Ortiz, the town's beloved police chief. He was Victor's hero and Anna's surrogate father, and in a jealous rage he killed the woman he could never have. Anna burns every trace of him. Six months later, in a new home behind a freshly painted red door, Yazmin breaks down sobbing and calls her mother by a nickname only one man ever used: "Missy Girl." The dead didn't send Conchita back. They sent her killer, sealed inside the little girl Anna loves most, to face what he did. "Mommy, will you still love me forever?"

Michael Salort began as a storyteller, and he never stopped being one, whatever the job title. He first made his name as an award-winning screenwriter, recognized by the Nicholl Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, the New York International Film Festival, the Los Angeles International Film Festival, and The CineStory Foundation. That gift for story became an Emmy nomination as a writer-producer. He then took the stage behind one of the most recognizable brands in entertainment: he ran Tyra Banks' media company across every division. There he championed her New York Times bestselling novel Modelland, along with her television and film projects. At Unicast, an early pioneer of digital media, he held a C-level role on the executive team that engineered the company's turnaround, proving he could rescue a business as well as build a story. Today Michael is Co-Founder and CEO of Symbiotic Pictures and its film label, Birdeye Pictures. He is producing a slate of English-language thrillers as Spanish co-productions in the Canary Islands, the same islands his paternal grandmother called home. Writer, executive, turnaround artist, producer: every chapter has led to this one.

San Francisco, 1915. On the day his city honors him, Lincoln Beachey, America’s most famous aviator, sits down with a newspaper reporter four hours before he flies. His story runs from a no-brakes bicycle race down Laguna Street to airships, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the Capitol steps, Niagara Falls and the first American loop. It is also the story of the pilots who died copying him, the brother who always made sure he came home, and the wife who could not watch. That afternoon, against his partner’s warnings about the new monoplane, Lincoln takes to the sky one more time.

Michael Rhine is a television producer, writer and editor with more than 30 years in broadcast production and documentary filmmaking. Like Lincoln Beachey, he is a San Francisco native, and he brings a documentarian’s eye for real places and forgotten history to his fiction. The Sky’s Edge has been named a finalist at the Cannes Script Festival, the Oxford Script Awards and the Cambridge Script Festival. His slate also includes Ghost Dorm!, a 1983-set horror-comedy, and the original science fiction series TERRA.

In a post-apocalyptic landscape of California, Ossa AI, designed to look like human skeletons (reflecting their maker’s sense of humour) decontaminate the designated part of the planet while their AI drones continue to search the earth for human survivors.

Flashbacks show how, before his flight into space, Reeve instructs the Ossa to stay bunkered up while the Armageddon rages overground and only proceed to tackle the aftermath when it is safe to do so. To make the task less overwhelming for the Ossa, Reeve compares the effects of the Armageddon to a wild house party: he wants to Ossa to deal with the mess on earth like they would deal with epic messes left by his biblical house parties - while he himself is away for a long weekend (“Tweakend”) until the house is habitable again… in this case, five to seven years.

The initially lethal levels of radiation subside, allowing the Ossa to progress the clear-up. While the Ossa process the enormity of destruction with cool professionalism, they show off their vast body of knowledge: we learn about blasts and yields of radiation, the units of exposure, and the effects of caesium, strontium, etc., on the humans whose remains the Ossa clear away as part of the overall debris and rubble. Reeve makes periodic video-link contact with Ossum One to receive updates on the progress of the Tweakend. The video-links give us glimpses into the life onboard the Panic Room.

During one such update, commenting on the drone footage received from the Ossa, Reeve is displeased to see the Pyramids of Giza and the Kremlin still standing. These monuments to oppression and evil egos must go. The Ossa resource is limited and there is still a lot construction work and rubble-clearing to be done in California, but the Ossa comply with his wish, seeing it as part of the new dawn Reeve will usher in.

In Year One, the two hundred survivors on board of the Panic Station bond over Karaoke and parlour games while the Ossa decontaminate the planet. Some of the Ossa glitch occasionally. When bad language happens to creep into their normally respectful parlance, Ossum One takes them off-network, to be debugged.

In Year Two, alcohol increasingly helps those on "The Panic Room" manage their time in space. Tempers flare occasionally and the atmosphere can feel strained. At the same time, the Ossa start planning for two re-entry scenarios for Reeve and his cohort: a “splash landing” in the ocean, and the landing strip, airplane-like touch-down. We see the Ossa rescue teams practice a water rescue with daily diligence. We also see the Ossa progress the construction of the vital landing strip.

In Year Three, class relations on board "The Panic Room" become unignorable: some guests have paid handsomely to be there, while others (doctors, physios, pilots) are there to provide a service. They are not all equal, and some of the “paying guests” bulk at the unwelcome familiarity of those “in service”. Reeve moans about the presence of guns on board: an inevitable byproduct of having 3D printers on the station.

In Year Four, AI drone searches return a conclusive verdict that there is no human or animal life left on earth. Ossum One informs Reeve that the 200 souls on board The Panic Room are all that’s left of humanity: precious cargo indeed. Reeve lets slip that his cohort of 200 has somehow whittled down to 168.

In Year Five, equipped with the knowledge that the earth is up for grabs, the survivors succumb to a land-grab fever: one of Reeve’s investors has the front to claim all of Africa for himself. Thrown by it, Reeve instructs the Ossa to zone off semiconductor mining zones in his name, complete with barbed wire and, what the hell, land mines. The greedy folk onboard are only alive thanks to him, so they better keep their mitts off his cobalt, tantalum and tangsten.

While the last of the rubble is being cleared away in California, the Ossa stumble on the remains of Reeve’s closest friend Zach, who wrote their genius network code. Ossum One goes through archive security footage from Reeve’s house to find out why Zach did not make "The Panic Room" cut.

The landing strip construction is abandoned; we see the Ossa rescue team play cards on the beach, neglecting their daily drill.

Reeve fancies a new showy architectural feature to mark his return to earth and the "new dawn": a Noel bridge, visible from space, would be nice. He has no specifics in mind and wants the Ossa to surprise him. Which they will.

With a masters in American Studies and Linguistics and several years in the UK media sector under my belt, I am a now civil servant. I've been writing in earnest since the first 2020 lockdown, and have had some recognition: my comedy feature "Godsend" won in the best unproduced comedy feature at the Los Angeles International Film Festival in 2022; my drama feature "Birthday" won the best unproduced drama feature gong at the Chicago International Scripts Awards in 2022; my drama "The Real McCoy" won the best unproduced drama gong at the Silicon Beach Festival in 2025. I find writing incredibly fulfilling, but several screenplays later (both feature and TV series) I remain unproduced and - not for want of trying - unrepresented.

Set in 1914 Norway (emotionally, 2025), the Valley of Light looks like a pastoral utopia: Commune to the east, Factory to the west. Candles, hymns, steam, schedules—soothing surfaces masking choreography and control. Sex is scheduled, attachment is near-illegal, and belief isn't enforced so much as staged.

Two founders built this: ELIAS, all charisma and spin—the man who can sell a sunset; and MARTA, the terms-and-conditions you click without reading. Their fix for unrest is Stirpiculture—a sacred matchmaking scheme that is also eugenics, that is also theater—culminating in public copulation meant to "unify" faith and labor. Elias says it will either bind the Valley or break it. He's fine with either.

Their ideal pair: INGA, born-and-bred believer; and BENDIK, a factory hand who fled the outside for rules that felt clear and safe. On paper: perfect symbols. In reality: two people who clock the con immediately. Because escape isn't simple, they fake it until they can make it—make it livable, make it better, make it stop—and, in the process, they fall into intimacy that resists choreography.

Elias doesn't just manipulate the Valley—he manipulates us. He breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to camera, narrating his own grand experiment. This direct address is surgical: used only after decisive wins or when a narrative must be spun. He hijacks the lens and tries to sell us his edit. Later, Marta steals the frame, too. You catch yourself rooting for the "plan," then realize their manipulations work on you as well as on the Valley. That complicity is part of the thrill—and the nausea.

Everything orbits one gravity well: the Stirpiculture Ceremony. Episodes either drive toward it or threaten to derail it. When the pageant finally glitches, exile turns intimate and insurgency becomes governance. The "new" Valley feels hard-won and precarious—until the outside world reframes that victory on its terms.

Tone and format: an elegant half-hour serialized drama (10×30) with the propulsive dread of a thriller and the intimacy of a love story.

The show's gut-punch is how contemporary it feels: a cult that reads like a startup, ritual that plays like UX, and lovers trying not to become content.

Under every scene hums the core question: Can love—or revolution—survive the structure it hopes to change? Or do you have to break it to make anything new?

I'm a Senior Creative Producer and writer who has served as script coordinator on studio and premium television productions including Now You See Me 3, Apple TV+'s Constellation, The Continental, Terminator: Dark Fate, and The Alienist - working in Budapest and Berlin alongside showrunners, head writers, and producers in the trenches of international production. Those experiences - as grueling as they were glorious - taught me how big systems tell big stories—and how big stories, in turn, become big systems.

My love for film and TV began early when I was "cast" as a Grouchketeer on Sesame Street. Watching master puppeteers work and walking the Street—something that had only ever lived inside the frame—rewired my sense of reality. Shows weren't just shows; they occupied space. They had texture. They had rules. It felt more real than the real world.

That blurring of TV reality and my own life crystallized when a crew rolled up to shoot The Sopranos around the corner from my home in North Caldwell, New Jersey. I will now forever be neighbors with Tony Soprano—another glimpse into the giant machine that must converge to make the unreal feel real.

This lifelong tension between reality and performance—between control and comfort—fuels my work. Perfection in the Valley of Light is the culmination of a revelatory discovery, years of experience straddling opposing forces, and a stubborn love for a medium that can still hold stories with depth and consequence.

AN AMAZON #1 BESTSELLER---INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY! New York City, 1982. The tabloids scream about a phantom called the Spider-man while a young Bronx Legal Aid attorney turns courtrooms into battlegrounds he never loses. He’s fast, fearless, and determined to outrun the mob-stained legacy of the father who abandoned him. But when a shattered victim ends her life before his eyes, his swagger fractures. Grasping for redemption, he takes on the explosive defense of a gentle teacher’s aide accused of the unthinkable—certain the man is innocent and that the truth is buried in a system bent on convictions, not justice. Piece by piece, he tears holes in the state’s case, only to be blindsided when a child is found dead and a chilling thread ties the accusation to the city’s most feared predator. The deeper he digs through alibis and lies, the closer he comes to the secrets pulsing in his own bloodline—and to a ruthless sociopath who always seems one move ahead. With headlines howling, a city on edge, and a woman he can’t afford to lose in a killer’s crosshairs, every revelation tightens the noose. To stop a monster, he may have to become the kind of man he’s sworn he’ll never be, in a courtroom war where justice and vengeance blur and the cost of losing is counted in lives.

WHY I WROTE THE GOOD LAWYER BY THOMAS BENIGNO "As a Legal Aid Attorney in the South Bronx in 1982, I handled the grittiest of cases. These cases didn't just include the run-of-the-mill burglaries and robberies or drug deals at a time when miles of square blocks there were leveled to rubble and burnt out buildings seemed to be everywhere. There were much more horrible crimes. And I was defender of it all. But this is not why I became a lawyer. I wanted to do some good--help the innocent--give the guilty poor a second chance-a chance for a better life outside of prison. I graduated near the top of my law school class, tried a case in my 3rd year and won, took the job at Legal Aid in the Bronx to hone my skills prior to entering private practice. There were high hopes for me. I started out on fire getting more cases dismissed in Criminal Court than just about anyone. I was cocky, a bit arrogant. I had the makings of one damn good trial lawyer. For my age, I was convinced there was no one better. I had also fallen in love. Didn't think I needed to study for the bar. Then I flunked. After I passed I was on a mission to prove myself. Failing was humiliating. So I took on the most difficult of cases intent on winning at almost any cost, and I did win, time and again. Rapists, child molesters and drug dealers were freed, and all my doing. I was a young man with a conscience drowning in my own success. This was not the boy my Mom raised me to be. She purposely kept me away from my mob connected relatives who were now dropping like flies in burnt out Cadillacs and after hour joints--charred remains of flesh, stuffed in garbage cans, wrapped in plastic. Then a case came through the system-headlines-no prior arrest record-horrible crime. He could be innocent. This is why I became a lawyer-to champion for the innocent man. And so life set me up for the greatest fall ever. Years later I couldn't shake what I had done, so I wrote it down.

Halloween, 1891. At the masquerade opening his new Boston building, the Charlesgate, grieving architect J. Putnam unveils a tile of his nine-year-old daughter, Eliza, set into the lobby wall. Then he strikes a tuning fork, and the whole building hums back in E flat. August 1983. Sealed by the city since 1938, the Charlesgate reopens as a dorm for Waldo College. Holly Kemp, a sheltered journalism freshman with a gold cross and a prayer planner, moves onto the fifth floor with a crew of misfits. Dez is a fearless glam kid who arrives with a record player and a garbage bag of clothes. Bex is a sharp skeptic, Sam a gentle musician, Quint a stoner filmmaker with a Super-8, and Felix a sweet musician who agrees with everyone. Their tough RA, Roxie, keeps watch. On night one, a figure walks through a wall and the ballroom's black mirror fills with Putnam's gala. A basement Ouija séance spells out each of their names, including Holly's, which nobody said, and Putnam appears. Then the building comes for them. A 1930s secretary named Dorothy joins Felix in the shower. Three dead mobsters ride the elevator with Quint. Putnam stands at Holly's bedside and leaves a note in her prayer planner. One by one, the building tempts each of them to stay. Holly's research uncovers a century of missing residents, and a pattern: every Halloween with residents in the building, someone disappears. Quint breaks into the sealed sixth floor and films Room 601, its walls covered floor to ceiling in tiles holding the faces of everyone the building has kept. One blank tile is filling in. It's Holly. With help from Vince, the campus security guard, they learn the building is tuned to E flat, the note that holds the dead. Sam realizes E natural could break it. Their plan is a Halloween party that draws every ghost into the ballroom at once. Then Holly submits an exposé to the student paper. Dean Pruitt, whose name is on the building's purchase, cancels the party and orders the floor relocated. The friends split apart, and the building nearly claims Dez through his father's voice before Holly pulls him back. They throw the party anyway. Putnam nearly takes them all. Holly refuses him, and her tile goes blank. Eliza asks her father to let her go and breaks her own tile, and every tile in Room 601 cracks. Sam and Dez hold E natural until the building lets go. The dead, Putnam last, walk into the light. Next August, Holly is on the front steps welcoming the new freshmen.

Michael Rhine is a television producer, writer and editor with more than 30 years in broadcast production and documentary filmmaking. A San Francisco native, he brings a documentarian's eye for real places and forgotten history to his fiction. Ghost Dorm! comes from experience: Michael lived in Boston's Charlesgate as a freshman in 1983, and it was haunted. His slate also includes The Sky's Edge, a biographical feature about aviation pioneer Lincoln Beachey, and the original science fiction project TERRA.

Inspired by a true event STEVE (35), a New York attorney, reads his late father's memoir. The chapter, "The Last Train," wakes Steve every night with the sound of steam engines and soldiers shouting. He's consumed by the story about the event involving a Gestapo officer, Dietrich, and Steve's great-grandfather in Yugoslavia in 1941. Steve begins chasing Dietrich's descendants across Germany and Argentina — stalked by shadowy men protecting a network of post-war descendants. Steve's nephew is diagnosed with a rare illness, and his younger sister has a riding accident, testing Steve's ability to hold his family together while he tears across the world pursuing the past. Steve finds Conchita – Dietrich's great-granddaughter, estranged from her daughters, battling liver cancer. While it appears that Steve is after her for some family revenge, with a sniper's crosshairs on his neck, Steve approaches Conchita and tells her the story: Steve's great-grandfather was moments from execution when a Gestapo officer, Dietrich, intervened. He ordered the family's car reattached to the last train heading for free territory. He was sent to the Eastern Front as punishment. Steve would not exist without Dietrich's act, offering Conchita part of his liver — repaying an old debt with his own flesh. In saving her, he finds the purpose his father taught him to seek. In the film's closing image, mirroring a childhood memory of Steve hugging his father after they saved a fallen bird, Steve hugs Conchita the same way and whispers to the sky, "I found my purpose, Dad."

I am a retired professor of film and television directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where I still teach doctoral students as a guest professor. I began a successful career as a director and teaching assistant in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, a bloody civil war changed everything. Directing and writing were overshadowed by the destruction of my country and by family hardship: my son’s cancer, the lack of medical care in Yugoslavia and Serbia, visas we could not obtain for hospitals abroad, poverty, and constant moves from one country to another. When I finally settled in the United States and could devote myself to writing, the COVID era began. Then, in 2021, came stage four cancer. Despite every obstacle, my desire to tell stories produced several screenplays in English, some of which have been recognized in screenplay competitions. I beat cancer, and I am ready to beat the odds and return to my first love: writing. I write drama, comedy, and thrillers. The Last Train is a thriller on the surface and a profound human drama beneath. It is based on a true event in 1941 involving my grandfather, my father, and my uncles.

Destiny 'Beloved' Muhammad has built a celebrated basketball career, but the death of her father, NBA legend Devine 'Mack' Muhammad, leaves her unable to answer her coach's calls. On the day of his funeral, the New York Liberty face a decisive Finals game against the Los Angeles Sparks. Rival Renee Parker is ready to claim the title, while commentators question Destiny's commitment.

Alone in her childhood home, Destiny revisits the family history behind her success. Devine survived loss and foster care before Coach McCoy gave him and Naomi a home. As parents, Devine and Naomi taught Destiny different lessons about strength. His demanding training helped develop her talent, but Naomi insisted that their daughter needed room to be herself and enjoy life beyond basketball.

Memories of Naomi's illness, Devine's grief, and his unconditional acceptance of Destiny reveal a legacy more complicated than trophies.

Remembering her father's assurance that she owes the game neither her soul nor her identity, Destiny returns on her own terms. The championship becomes a test of whether she can carry her parents' love forward while finding her own reason to play.

Ben Burgess Jr. is a novelist and screenwriter with a background as an NYPD detective. His published work includes Mothers Vol. 1 and A Father's Sacrifice: Daddy's Girl. He previously published with Urban Renaissance/Kensington Publishing and has identified Legacy Books LLC as his publishing company.

His screenplay portfolio includes Ball Is Life, a basketball drama about a professional athlete grieving her father while reconsidering the family legacy that shaped her.

Black and White, adapted from his novel Defining Moments, follows competing attorneys whose criminal cases expose pressures on their careers, relationships, and sense of identity.

Faces follows a trusted teacher's concealed predatory behavior, his exposure, and the consequences for the people who believed in him.

These projects place personal relationships alongside professional roles, examining what people protect, what they conceal, and what their choices cost.

Burgess brings experience in both prose fiction and screenwriting to stories concerned with Black family life, interracial relationships, responsibility, grief, and trust.

In England in 1950, Valentina Bolster makes beautiful gowns for other women while living a colourless life herself. Her severe employer, Margaret, measures her skirt each morning, while her grieving father reinforces her fear of hoping for more.

A stranger in a bright orange hat delivers an invitation to a masked ball. Inside an opulent theatre, Valentina encounters candlelight, music and unsettling rituals. Humiliated by the guests, she flees into a corridor, where a mysterious man declares that he is Death. He promises to release her if she releases herself.

A second invitation summons her to the Feral Night. Amid animal masks and rhythmic drums, she dances a tango with Death and faces a deadly game. Confronting the fear that has governed her life, she turns her back on him and walks away. Death falls and disappears.

The next morning, Valentina wears a shorter red dress and challenges Margaret’s control. She finishes the exquisite gown she has been sewing and wears it to the theatre. Offered a mask, she removes it: she no longer needs to hide. Declaring her transformation complete, she walks towards a door bearing her own name, ready to claim her life.

I am Chryselle Brown, an author and screenwriter with a BA (Hons) in Classical Studies and an MSc in International Security from the University of Bristol. My books include the science-fiction novels The Conduit and Angels and Aliens, and the historical novel The Golden Templar, forthcoming from Pegasus Publishers. My short screenplay The Dance of Death was selected for The Quiet Collective’s From Script to Pitch retreat in Italy, where I pitched it to producers and directors. I am drawn to stories in which history, ritual and the supernatural reveal human struggles with identity, fear and transformation. I also work as a film and television extra.

Ollie has spent his life battling violent intrusive thoughts—horrifying flashes of things he would never actually do. His girlfriend, Raven, has learned to live with them too, but their increasingly unhealthy relationship is beginning to fracture.

When Raven brings home Gush, a new designer drug promising an intense, uninhibited high, they take it together. At first, it feels like exactly what they needed. Their walls come down. They laugh, reconnect, have incredible sex, and finally say the things they’ve been afraid to say.

Then they start losing time.

They awaken to broken glass, blood, and disturbing evidence of things neither remembers doing. Outside their apartment, Los Angeles is unraveling as Gush spreads through the city and ordinary people begin acting on impulses they would normally suppress.

Because Gush doesn’t create violent thoughts. It doesn’t cause hallucinations.

It simply removes the part of the brain that says no.

Trapped together as the city descends into chaos, Ollie and Raven can no longer trust their memories—or each other. Every resentment, fantasy, fear, and fleeting violent impulse suddenly carries terrifying consequences. As their love turns into a fight for survival, they are forced to confront the question at the heart of every intrusive thought:

If nothing could stop you from acting on it, would it still be just a thought?

Kyle McNamara is a writer, producer, and actor whose work blends high-concept genre storytelling with character-driven stories about complicated, deeply human relationships. As a founder of Media Misfits, he has developed a diverse slate of film and television projects spanning horror, comedy, drama, and socially conscious storytelling.

His feature screenplay INTRUSIVE uses psychological horror to explore the unsettling reality of intrusive thoughts—the unwanted, often disturbing ideas that people rarely admit to having—and asks what might happen if the mechanism that stops us from acting on them suddenly disappeared.

McNamara is also the writer and producer of TWO FOR JUAN, a socially charged comedy with Cristo Fernández attached to play dual lead roles, Esai Morales attached as the antagonist, and Gary “Gaz” Alazraki attached to direct.

His approach to storytelling combines provocative concepts, dark humor, emotional vulnerability, and commercial entertainment, with a particular interest in stories that challenge audiences without losing sight of the characters at their center.

As the world collapses around them, Emma and June retreat to a rooftop with a bottle of wine, two battered glasses, and nowhere left to run. With only minutes remaining, the longtime lovers share memories, laughter, and the truths they never found time to say. As the final strike approaches, they choose not to face the end in fear, but together, finding something eternal in their last moments.

Rebecca See is a Canadian writer, producer, director, and actor, and co-founder of Vivid Visions Studios. Drawn to emotionally grounded stories within heightened worlds, her writing explores complicated relationships, psychological tension, and the choices people make when confronted with loss, fear, and uncertainty.

Her writing credits span film and television, including the series The End Begins and Black Lake, the supernatural thriller feature Last Call, and the short films Silvered and Always, Even Now. Working across drama, crime, psychological horror, and elevated genre, Rebecca creates stories that place deeply human characters at the centre of extraordinary circumstances.

The angels are tired of waiting. The demons are ready to fight. The veil between worlds is thinning. A myriad of creatures roam the earth preparing for battle. And the Clockmaker has been absent for centuries.Both sides plot to ignite the war to end all wars, the war of time’s end. But neither shade nor shinar anticipate an army of children would rise to thwart their plans.

Aubrey Taylor’s cozy life in the subdued Appalachian town of Lake Julian has never been exceptional. Shouldered by his lifelong friends, Buzz Reiselstein and Rodriqa Auerbach, he quietly endures bullying from the most-revered kid in school, Magnos Strumgarten, and his own obnoxiously, well-accomplished brother, Gaetan. Comfortable in his humdrum niche of the absolutely average, Aubrey never pushes back…until fate digs a little too deep, and the unseen darkness of unspoken places rattles his mediocrity. When spurious specters and elusive mountain men battle for a tomb of Watchers, buried in ages past, only those who choose to look beyond the surface feel the grip of the ancients’ revenge. Unusual disappearances, a colorful cadre of insightful townsfolk, and a whirlwind of mishaps expose the struggling forces that transform Aubrey and his friends into combatants amidst the oldest war of all. Prepare yourself to see the unseen as you’ve never seen it before.

Ashland Menshouse grew up in northeastern Kentucky, raising tadpoles and climbing trees. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown College, he obtained an M.D. from the University of Kentucky and completed postdoctoral training at Emory University. Ashland currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where he spends most of his time working with ill and injured children and writing. His debut novel, “The Last Seer and the Tomb of Enoch,” was a finalist in USA Book News’ “best new fiction” category for 2012.

At least four times a week, Ashland posts devotionals in two series, “Faith Killing Fear” and “The Greatest of These,” on his YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/@ashlandmenshouse, which has more than 350k subscribers.

After 26 years of practicing medicine in Atlanta, I have seen the best and worst of life. Now I intend to spend the rest of my days engaging those emotional, physical and spiritual experiences to write. Thank you for time. I appreciate your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

-Ashland Menshouse (née Robert Williams Thompson)

Libido on Steroids unveils the tumultuous life of Michael, a high-powered executive who appears to have it all—a devoted wife, Isabella, and their beloved son, Scott. Yet, beneath the façade of perfection lies a decade-long rift in their marriage, simmering with unspoken issues.

When Isabella starts working from home, she secretly embarks on an affair with Richard, a married man. As she slips away for hours under the guise of work, her increasingly evasive behavior raises Michael’s suspicions. Driven by a need for the truth, he plants a military-grade tracking device in her car, leading him to a shocking discovery: Isabella has a recurring romantic affair with Richard in the back of his van. A confrontation erupts, where Isabella insists that their bond is innocent, citing Richard's impotence and her asexuality as the basis for their connection. Michael, consumed by disbelief and rage, struggles to reconcile her claims.

Meanwhile, Richard's wife, Amanda, a psychologist pursuing her Ph.D. on gender identity, unwittingly becomes entangled in the affair as she uses Richard for her research on sexual disorders. Her ambition to expose the hidden lives of individuals grappling with such issues only complicates matters further.

Once a man fueled by passion, Michael’s world shatters following Isabella's betrayal, leading him to a mental breakdown and suicidal thoughts. In a desperate bid for healing, he seeks psychiatric help. Evaluations reveal Isabella's struggles stem from a defective XXY chromosome, leading to hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) and the scars of PTSD from a traumatic past. Faced with the stark reality of their sexless marriage, Isabella urgently seeks medical intervention to rekindle her lost libido.

Through therapy, it becomes evident that both Richard and Isabella long for deeper emotional connections, while Michael and Amanda crave unrestrained passion. The couples consider an unconventional solution: a polyamorous relationship. They embark on a six-month trial that promises to explore their darkest secrets and hidden desires. Yet, as the initial thrill wanes, unforeseen complications arise, leading to a heart-wrenching conclusion that challenges the foundation of love and trust.

Prepare yourself for a gripping exploration of desire, betrayal, and the complexities of human relationships in Libido on Steroids—a tale where passion and peril intertwine, revealing the shocking truth about Isabella's secret desires.

Jan 2006 to now: Screenwriter, NixFlix, Bear Valley Springs, CA. Completed several scripts for mature audiences covering a range of themes: romance, science fiction, social dramas, and gripping stories based on true events. Such as: The Labyrinth, Critical Mass, Quantum Leap, That Can’t be True, Compassion, etc.

Previously: Director of Engineering at Northrop Grumman for 35 years.

Sept 2002 to now (Retired) COMPUTER SKILLS: iMac user, DaVinci Resolve, Video production, HD videography, Final Cut video editing, Microsoft Office, Mac OS, SolidWorks CAD, AutoCAD.

EDUCATION: Bachelor of Science (BS) from Cal State University at Long Beach with emphasis on mechanical and electronics engineering.

In the isolated backroads of the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, a reclusive dog breeder named Burk takes in a mysterious white pit bull named Zeus from his troubled ex-lover, Emily. She claims the dog is dangerous — responsible for killing another dog and even his own litter, sparing only one surviving pup named Piranha. Though wary, Burk is immediately struck by Zeus’s unusual intelligence, loyalty to his pup, and extraordinary physical power.

As Burk and his younger friend Dylan begin rehabilitating and training Zeus on Burk’s rural property, unsettling signs emerge. Zeus displays explosive aggression, uncanny combat instincts, and an almost unnatural endurance. What initially appears to be trauma from abuse slowly reveals itself to be something far darker: Zeus may have been bred and conditioned for the brutal underground world of organized dog fighting.

While Burk grows emotionally attached to the animal, Zeus’s violent tendencies begin infecting life around the cabin, injuring other dogs and forcing Burk to confront whether the creature he rescued can ever truly be domesticated. At the same time, Burk wrestles with his own haunted past — a childhood scarred by neglect, violence, and isolation — seeing pieces of himself reflected in the animal he’s trying to save.

Blending rural Southern gothic drama with psychological thriller elements, The Dog Fighter explores cycles of violence, loyalty, masculinity, and the thin line between protector and predator. As Zeus’s past closes in and tensions rise between survival, compassion, and fear, Burk must decide whether redemption is possible for either man or beast.

Russell Richardson is an accomplished collaborator with several filmmakers such as Nick Coleman (Bad News. 2021) and musicians with the likes of Eric Brittingham (Cinderella) and Carl Ray Hopper. Working since 2019, Mr. Richardson has been apart of several projects including Short films, Commercials, music videos, and corporate media.

In 1806, thirteen-year-old Hanna St. Claire lives in a Freiburg convent, cut off from her father by war and still grieving her mother. Raised Jewish but now immersed in Catholic life, she is expected to become a nun — while the heritage her father begged her to preserve slips from her grasp.

Hanna has an extraordinary musical gift. When the convent's formidable Kapellmeister, Franz Schissler, takes her on as an organist, he discovers something far more remarkable: Hanna is a composer. Her talent draws her into the world of working musicians — and eventually Ludwig van Beethoven — opening doors the convent wants shut.

Meanwhile her father Karl, wounded and taken prisoner in the Napoleonic Wars, fights to survive and find his way back to the daughter who believes she may never see him again.

As sacred and secular music, Catholic faith and Jewish heritage, duty and ambition collide around her, everyone has a different idea of who Hanna should become. In the end she must do what no one has ever allowed her: choose for herself who she wants to be.

Berl Kaufman is a screenwriter based in Atlanta, Georgia. After a 25-year career as a business analyst and management consultant, he turned to screenwriting. His first feature-length effort, A Sacred Romance was selected as finalist in the Santa Barbara Screenplay Contest and achieved semifinal status and quarterfinal status in two other contests. Here's an interview he did for the Santa Barbara contest. https://www.santabarbarascreenplayawards.com/berl-kaufman-interview.html Counterpoint: 1806 is a complete rewrite of A Sacred Romance. In September 2026 it was selected as a finalist at the International Indie Screenplay Festival (2026).

Counterpoint: 1806 combines Berl's passion for stormy periods in history together with his love for the classical and romantic periods of music.

Hanna and Aaron move into their first apartment together in their dream apartment building. But very quickly, Hanna senses a dark , otherworldly presence in the building. And while Aaron soon succumbs to those dark forces, Hanna meets and teams up with a fellow tenant to uncover the building's dark secrets. When they discover a dark entity known as the Midnight Tree, it and it's minions will do everything in their power to keep them for escaping alive.

At a young age, I discovered my passion for cinema and the moving image. Since then my mind has been a burst of story ideas I've had trouble keeping up with. There's only so much time in the day and so much I can put to paper. But the flow keeps coming, undaunted, as I attempt to put my best stories forward.

In a violent post-Second Civil War America, Hollister Duncan, the outcast son of a genetically enhanced Gunlord soldier, has long known that life as a monster was never going to be easy. Now, framed for treason and sentenced to death, he is offered a second chance by the arrogant Captain Radigan of the United Federal Armed Forces: enable the summoning of reinforcements by restoring the power to a damaged radio tower in the nearby, and likely hostile, town of Oliveri, or meet a grisly death in the crushing claws of the militarized mechanical drone that has just gruesomely decimated Radigan’s platoon. Hollis agrees, unaware that the two-faced Radigan is planning to use Hollis—as well as fifteen other prisoners and two government platoons—to trap and destroy the drone and annihilate those he believes responsible for dispatching it: the people of Oliveri. Expecting danger, Hollis enters the formerly idyllic town only to find that its few remaining inhabitants, the Orphans, are deranged and deluded mental patients who were abandoned during the early years of the War, perhaps intentionally, by the town’s fleeing citizens. Thus discarded, they have submitted to the erratic leadership of the self-proclaimed Princess Talia, a teenage girl whose sole objective is to protect the town’s devoted robot sentinels—he of the single blue eye, the Sapphire King, and a second drone with an eye of red, the Ruby Queen. Hollis learns that Talia and Talia alone is able to communicate with the drones, and that it was she who ordered the King to destroy the radio tower. She is the puppet master. She needs them, as they need her. As the military closes in, with Radigan recklessly sacrificing soldiers’ lives to fuel his mad, Ahab-like pursuit of the King, Hollis is unable to convince Talia that she and the other Orphans must flee, with or without their King and Queen, and the two part ways. On the outskirts of town, a small squadron tracks down and atomizes the Ruby Queen, igniting within the King a human-like hunger for revenge that is only sated when he ultimately foils Radigan’s plan and stares with unblinking hatred into the duplicitous captain’s dying eyes. Exiting Oliveri, Hollis encounters the battered hulk of the Sapphire King returning home to his princess. The monsters exchange a brief, wordless acknowledgment—a weighty silence that seems to both recognize their shared suffering and convey a message of hope for their broken world.

Having served in the US Army, Russell brings authenticity to this military sci-fi. Born in 1964, his passion for classic horror and contemporary genre flicks has instilled a devotion to strong character development built upon a sound foundation of story building. As with most of his writing, he has a firm pathway to a third act script structure that emphasizes twists and unexpected turns to keep the audience guessing while leading to a satisfying conclusion. The Sapphire King is no exception. His intent is to make this film more than just a typical action Army vs. a giant robot flick, but rather a deeper, more mysterious emotional engagement than this kind of material often presents.

DEA Special Agent Steve Jenkins operates in a world where cartel violence, political influence, and corruption routinely undermine justice. While working a joint operation with Mexican authorities, Jenkins and his partner, Daniel Rodriguez, pursue a cartel organization protected by powerful interests in the Mexican government and military. Their investigation leads to a high-profile arrest operation in Mexico City, where a cartel sniper assassinates Rodriguez in broad daylight. Jenkins faces a choice: walk away or continue the hunt alone. When official channels fail, he launches his own rogue pursuit of the cartel sniper responsible and the organization protecting him.

As Jenkins pushes deeper into cartel territory, Mexican special investigator Jacqueline Contreras pursues a parallel investigation from inside the system. Following financial records, political connections, and military corruption, she uncovers a political protection network reaching far beyond the cartel itself. Meanwhile, cartel sniper Ricardo Salazar—known as El Lobo—emerges as a dangerous adversary whose ambitions extend beyond simply protecting the organization. With official support gone, Jenkins and Contreras launch a final effort to dismantle the network protecting El Lobo and expose the corruption surrounding the cartel. Their pursuit culminates in a violent confrontation in the Jalisco highlands, where Jenkins finally comes face-to-face with the sniper who murdered his partner. The hunt ends, yet the larger war continues, leaving Jenkins and Contreras forever changed by what they uncovered and what they lost.

Scott Cahill is a non-WGA writer and retired DEA Special Agent who spent more than two decades investigating drug cartels, organized crime, and international narcotics trafficking. He has written three crime/action-drama screenplays, including The Last Hunt, inspired by his professional experience in cartel investigations.

Adapted from his published novel of the same name, The Last Hunt draws on Cahill’s firsthand knowledge of the people, operations, and institutional complexities surrounding the international drug trade. His screenwriting has received recognition in multiple screenplay and film competitions, and he has worked with industry professionals to develop and refine his material.

The Reincarnation of Marie is a feature film set in Paris and the autumn countryside of Burgundy, blending documented history with tragic romance. Yann Roussel, nineteen, buys a diary off a Seine bookstall for less than a franc — the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, a Ukrainian painter who died in Paris in 1884 at twenty-five, her greatest fear that she would be forgotten. Over four years he becomes consumed by her: visiting her streets, her paintings, her grave. Then, days before he ships out to Algeria, his sister introduces him to her closest friend: Marya, a nineteen-year-old Ukrainian pianist who plays Chopin, dresses in white, and is dying of the same disease. Marya shares an uncanny resemblance to Marie.

This is not a ghost story and not a puzzle. Over one unforgettable weekend, Yann stops asking whether he has found Marie and starts discovering Marya — who refuses to be reduced to another woman's reincarnation. After he leaves for the front, Marya reads Marie's journal herself and begins to wonder. Three weeks later both are dead, and the story passes to the man who wrote it down: Jim Woodman, an American veteran who was there at the beginning and the end.

Henry Woodman is a Florida native and a graduate of the University of Arizona for his bachelors and Nova Southeastern for his MBA in Entrepreneurship.

With a passion for travel, Henry produced and directed travel films for destinations worldwide. Then in the late 90’s he founded World Travelvision (WTV) and pioneered the production and distribution of Virtual Reality 360° Panoramic Photography.

In 2003, WTV was completely rebuilt and renamed IcePortal, a technology SAAS platform went on to serve over 60,000 hotels. The company was sold in 2019 to the Shiji Group.

In 2024 Woodman published his dad’s book, The Reincarnation of Marie, and founded Anemoia Media (www.Anemoia.Media) with partner Doug Weiser. The idea is to take the IP of the book and create three entry points – A micro-drama, a feature film and a premium TV series.

Woodman adapted the book into the screenplay for a feature film and Doug has taken the core premise that souls return, that love persists across time, and that the universe has a long memory, and moves it into the present day, into modern consciousness, and into the full metaphysical territory that the feature film can only gesture toward, called Slippin’.

A Jesuit priest dispatched with a mandate to further the imperial ambitions of Portugal by aiding and abetting Japan’s most ruthless and bloodthirsty daimyo finds himself drawn into a web of political intrigue that challenges even his brilliant and Machiavellian mind.

Meanwhile, a peasant boy, Mikado, who was orphaned by the constant violence and destruction of the Warring States Period, has made his way to the province of Iga, where the fiercely independent populous practice the first democracy ever to exist in Japan. There he has encountered the original ninja, and their mentors, the tengu, growing into a charismatic leader and formidable warrior.

Determined to add Iga to his conquests, the daimyo orders the priest there to spy on the inhabitants in the guise of a missionary. Unknown to him or the daimyo, however, there is already a band of renegade Jesuits there who have abandoned Rome and Lisbon for what they recognize as a better political system, and way of life, in Iga. The priest turns from spy to ally and joins Mikado’s forces opposing the daimyo’s invasion.

In the maelstrom of conflict that follows, the original ninjas of Iga join battle with legions of samurai, as the priest’s encounters with Mikado and the tengu engender a crisis of faith. Despite the ninja’s elimination of the evil daimyo, the tide of history continues to flow against Iga as other warlords step into the consequent power vacuum.

When the Shogunate is finally established, Christianity is outlawed, and the priest lives the life of a fugitive, facing immediate execution upon capture. Alone at last, he contemplates the nature of belief, superstition, divinity and the human condition as prepares a ritual exit on an isolated Pacific beach.

Walter Bauer is a scientist from the Washington DC metro area, where he works as a federal IT contractor. He developed an interest in screenwriting during his experiences with the Bhopal incident, while living in Baltimore, where he met Paul Loeschke. Paul is a Baltimore native and career videographer. His work for CSPAN and Maryland Public Television has made a major contribution to informing and entertaining television audiences nationwide. “Mikado” is based on a concept created by the script’s third collaborator, Tarence Gibson, a private detective, martial arts expert, and weapons consultant based in Washington DC.

When a neglected high schooler discovers his conspiracy-obsessed mother is hiding an illegal gun, Quentin realizes one mistake could send her back to prison—and him into foster care. Desperate to protect the only family he has, he creates ALLID, a fake grassroots conspiracy group designed to steer her toward safer choices by exploiting the very paranoia that controls her life.

With help from his best friend, Quentin carefully builds the illusion, but his plan falters when his mother’s reckless boyfriend, Travis—the man who gave her the gun—tightens his influence. Quentin briefly regains control by forcing her to promise she’ll ditch Travis and get rid of the weapon. For a moment, it works.

Then she lies. She’s still seeing Travis—and planning to move away with him. Panicked, Quentin orchestrates a confrontation meant to scare Travis off. Instead, it spirals into violence, and Travis kills a neighbor before fleeing.

Now Quentin is trapped inside his own deception. To keep his mother safe and suspicion away, he uses ALLID to help a murderer on the run. The ruse succeeds: his mother finally trusts the group. But Quentin’s victory comes at a chilling cost—he’s no longer just saving his mom. He’s manipulating her, protecting a killer, and losing control of the truth he created.

Vince came to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment after spending time on stage in New York. He studied filmmaking at The Los Angeles Film School and acting at Ivana Chubbuck Studios. As a filmmaker, he won awards for Best Low-Budget film (Silver), Best TV Pilot twice and Award of Merit. As a writer, he has placed multiple times in festivals as a Finalist, Semifinalist and Quarterfinalist for both features and TV. Vince loves to find and write about the overlooked subjects in our society.

A long-lost manuscript written by a once-famous author has resurfaced in Switzerland. Out of nowhere Paul Broughton, a book editor for L.H. Hart & Co. in New York, receives a mysterious promise and request from Sir Philip Renshaw, the owner of the manuscript. He travels to Vevey and once there is caught up in a maelstrom of debauchery and intrigue as if cast backward into the bohemian and artistic world of the 1920’s Bright Young Things. Like a character out of Christopher Marlowe, Paul is a seeker of truth but torn by conflicting desires -- both good and evil. When the book is published and becomes a runaway best seller, Paul’s fame and fortune is assured; it is then he realizes the price he has paid.

Born in Pennsylvania and educated at Boston University and Harvard University, I spent many years at WGBH-TV/Boston. I worked on such series as: The Victory Garden, This Old House, ZOOM. I spent eight years as the Production Coordinator for Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!

At Harvard’s Peabody Museum I worked in external relations creating media material and organizing special events. Currently, I work at an independently owned bookstore – Porter Square Books - as a bookseller; there, I spent eight years organizing and hosting author events.

I’ve written eight screenplays three of which are based on my short stories; three based on the works of Edith Wharton. My adaption of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1860 novel, The Marble Faun, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Award from the Screenplay Critics Awards and is a finalist in the Matera International Film Festival.

In the pilot episode of Horrible People, codependent trio Joey, Sarah, and Tyrone head to the Cinecrapitorium—a movie theater owned by the monolithic Dooby Corporation—intending to hate-watch a mindless sci-fi reboot. The mundane outing spirals into chaos when Joey’s explosive, anti-capitalist outburst accidentally results in the death of a theater usher.

The fatality triggers an immediate Level 8 corporate lockdown, trapping the trio inside the high-tech cinema with automated security systems programmed to eliminate liabilities. Scrambling for an exit, the group must navigate escalating absurdity and deep-seated personal friction: Joey is forced to face off against a college bully, Tyrone strikes up a surprisingly intimate bond with a corporate holographic AI named Kiosk-Chan, and Sarah reveals surprisingly ruthless survival skills to keep the group alive.

After outsmarting the automated defenses and staging a frantic breakout, the trio learns that Dooby Corp has officially branded them as financial terrorists. Their high-stakes escape sets the series engine in motion, establishing their chaotic dynamic against corporate oppression and driving them directly into Lenny’s Diner to process the fallout.

Johnny Washington is a Chicago-based comedy writer and Second City Improv graduate who uses dark, satirical humor to explore human codependency, corporate absurdity, and grief. I love to box and ski to stay active and I play video games, watch TV and movies to relax.

Twenty-five-year-old coding prodigy Colt Nexus, drained from years of masking his neurodivergence at toxic Pinnacle Technologies, accidentally activates an experimental AI sheet mask he coded during a late-night breakdown. Functioning as an internal social coach, the mask grants him effortless confidence. Guided by the AI, Colt pitches Work Gamify, secures $2 million, and leads a team: developer Rachel, sales star Mira, mentor Blaze, VP Victoria, and Finn Cipher, a brilliant MIT graduate hiding his identity as heir to giant Cipher Industries. Meanwhile, manipulative manager Marcus uses accomplice Jane to steal project files, while Finn falls for Mira while disguising his wealth. When Jane copies the files, Rachel exposes the corporate espionage, and Finn refuses interim CEO Chester Blackwood’s demand that he betray Colt. On a key presentation day, Colt forgets the mask, realizing he has internalized its training and no longer needs an adaptive interface. Recognizing Finn’s social anxiety, Colt transfers the mask to him. During a getaway, Finn accidentally reveals the mask’s existence to Elza and Mira, sparking a joyful jam session. United in solidarity, the entire team later executes a joint resignation from Mira's farm via video call, delivering a scathing manifesto against corporate toxicity. Finn steps up as Cipher’s true owner and invites the team to build an inclusive company. They pivot to develop AntiMask, an AI platform that offers social navigation and executive-functioning tools for neurodivergent individuals. Five years later, Colt addresses 2,000 researchers in Geneva: AntiMask reaches 25 million users worldwide, shaking toxic workplace barriers and empowering neurodivergent minds to thrive unmasked.

A Chatelaine Awards 2025 short-list honoree for a novel and Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards Quarterfinalist. Two original IP holder. Tatiana McClintock has honed her talent for making people laugh with a uniquely witty, incisive perspective. As a writer, she uses satire, parody, and comedy not only to entertain, but to hold a magnifying glass to human flaws and the world around us. Since childhood, she has written poetry using playful, imaginative word-building, developing a distinctive voice that blends the clever with the familiar. While building a career in business and academic writing, she quietly dreamed of applying those skills to comedy, where she believes her true talent has always lived. Her literary inspirations include satirical masters such as George Orwell, Mikhail Bulgakov, Ilf and Petrov, and Jonathan Swift - writers whose ability to merge humor with social commentary continues to shape her approach. After stepping away from a corporate strategy career specializing in academic and business writing, she pursued fiction more seriously, taking various writing classes and eventually publishing her first romantic comedy, K-Pop Love Escapades, a BTS fan novel. She currently resides in northern New Jersey, where she frequently clarifies that she doesn't know anyone from Jersey Shore, and yes, she can pump her own gas.

Jalen St. Rose is a successful chef by day and the smooth-talking host of Newark’s popular late-night radio show, 'Love After Dark,' by night. Known for his deep voice, quick wit, and endless dating stories, Jalen has become an expert at helping others navigate relationships while quietly avoiding the vulnerability required for one of his own.

His life is filled with entertaining disasters, including unforgettable dates that become radio-show material. Everything changes when Winter enters his world. Intelligent, compassionate, and unimpressed by Jalen’s charm, she sees through the image he presents to everyone else. Their connection grows through meaningful conversations, shared values, and a mutual desire to build something genuine.

As their relationship deepens, Jalen’s unresolved fears begin to surface. Past disappointments, trust issues, and the pressure of being the man everyone expects him to be cause him to question whether lasting love is truly possible. Complications arise when Marcus becomes a growing presence in Winter’s life, creating tension and exposing Jalen’s insecurities. Meanwhile, Haz, Jalen’s loyal mentor and friend, repeatedly challenges him to stop running from the very thing he encourages his radio listeners to pursue.

The strain eventually leads to a painful breakup. Winter refuses to continue paying for wounds she did not create, while Jalen is left alone with the consequences of his fear. Through the support of Haz, the honesty of his daughter Naja, and a period of self-reflection, Jalen finally recognizes that love requires courage, accountability, and trust.

As Winter prepares to open her tutoring center and pursue her dreams, Jalen decides to fight for their future. During a live Newark broadcast, he publicly shares his truth, admitting his mistakes and declaring his love before the entire city. What follows is a heartfelt proposal that transforms a personal love story into a celebration of growth, healing, and second chances. In the end, Jalen learns that the greatest relationship advice is not found behind a microphone—it is found in having the courage to love completely.

Born in Newark and raised in Irvington, New Jersey, Jalen Criss writes with equal parts wit, wisdom, and warmth. His passion for storytelling comes from real-life experiences as a father, educator, and creative voice dedicated to helping people navigate relationships and self-growth. He is the author of “Fatherhood: The Challenges, Battles, and Joys,” which explores the emotional and practical sides of parenthood, and the children’s book “Skyy Parker Goes to School,” a story inspired by his own family and his belief in confidence and kindness and the author of Dating As Easy As Pie Unless You're Allergic To Nuts. Through his creative brand CrissCreations, Jalen connects with audiences through books, podcasts, community events, and online platforms, inspiring laughter, honesty, and genuine conversation.

When her drug-addicted brother R.J. disappears, Koren Grant, a hardened Baltimore cop, defies orders and ventures into the city's illegal dirt bike culture to find him. Her investigation leads her to the D.O.C., a mysterious and violent bike gang hiding an ancient secret, they are descendants of Cain cursed to walk the earth as vampires. Koren reluctantly joins forces with Eli, the leader of the D.O.C. who believes she may have the power to break the curse, while Rachel, Eli's right hand sees Koren as threat and seeks to kill her. Koren soon discovers her connection with the supernatural is more than she imagined but to unlock this power she must confront her own demons. Ultimately, Koren is able to defeat the demons both inside and outside and save her brother.

My name is Caleeb Pinkett, I'm a producer turned writer/director. Storytelling has been a major part of my life since I was a child and my mother first introduced me to biblical stories. Then as I grew older, through History class which to this day remains my favorite subject. I have an immense passion to tell stories about people who struggle to reconcile the idea "why should I do what's right in a world that seems to reward what's wrong?" So I look for concepts that can be cinematically pleasing and enjoyable to an audience while at the same time giving them a little something else to take with them.

Outback Australia,1960. Olga, eight months pregnant, trudges through mud beside a bogged car, catches her reflection in the rear-view mirror, and falls.

In 1956 Czechoslovakia, Olga is a gynaecologist, constitutionally unable to lie, interrogated by the secret police because her husband Karel fled West. A fussy and dominating Aunt drags Olga to balls to meet a replacement for the man she claims to love.

Karel, a charming engineer with a talent for women, is in Darwin, Australia. Olga escapes thanks to a donkey and an ambushed ambassador. She arrives in 1957 to a broken-down car and a puppy urinating on her dress. She laughs. She is home.

But Darwin has no university. To practise medicine, she must re-qualify in Brisbane, two thousand miles away. Pregnant, and further along than she admits, she finds another woman's earring in the car. She doesn't want an explanation. She wants Brisbane.

In a Hillman Husky, the road delivers farce and revelation: a collision with the only other car, a town whose police and fire brigade are the same two men. Olga helps deliver an Aboriginal woman's breech baby, and begins to see that the dispossession around her is systematic. Karel hides two children. Aboriginal men free the bogged car and tell Karel to respect his wife.

In Brisbane, amid comedic chaos, Olga delivers her own daughter.

At the university admissions, Olga refuses to present papers until an overlooked Aboriginal woman is served first. Seeing debutantes on their way to the University hall, Olga is reminded of the first ball where she met Karel.

Deborah Klika is a comedy writer who has lived several lives (production assistant, aspiring politician, suburban housewife, divorcee, accidental academic and author) and turned each into a sitcom about people stuck in a world they are trying to escape. She is starting to suspect she is her own protagonist. Screen comedy is both her practice and her research being the author of Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis, a book theorising how sitcom works. Her university sitcom It's Academic won Best Comedy Teleplay at the 2026 Austin Comedy Film Festival and was a Scriptation Showcase quarterfinalist. Her feature Czech in the Rear View Mirror, a dark comedy about her migrant parents driving across Australia's Top End in 1960, was a 2025 finalist at the Euroscript Screen Story Competition, the Melbourne International Screenplay Awards, and PAGE Awards quarterfinalist. Earlier pilots placed at the Cannes Screenplay Contest (At the Bar, 3rd place, 2016; Unfinished Business, finalist, 2017) and the London Film Awards (Sandwich, 4th place, 2015).

In 1595 London, playwright William Shakespeare stumbles upon the raw material for a new play while eavesdropping on two drunks in a tavern, initially staging it as a comedy with a happy ending. When Queen Elizabeth I attends the premiere and demands he kill both lovers to give the story true weight, Shakespeare is thrust into a creative crisis--complicated further by the apparitions of his own characters, Juliet and Romeo, who argue fiercely against their fates. Through chaotic rewrites, failed endings, and a charged palace meeting with the Queen, Shakespeare wrestles with the tension between pleasing power and telling the truth, ultimately guided by Juliet's demand that if she must die, it must mean something. The final tragic performance devastates the audience and earns the Queen's rare approval, leaving Shakespeare alone in the empty theater, humbled by what his pen has wrought, and quietly beginning his next play--a comedy, as promised.

Barry J. Brock is an award-winning screenwriter, educator, and former U.S. Navy officer whose remarkable career spans storytelling, academia, and military service. His screenplays have earned numerous honors, including Best Drama, Best War, and Best Feature Screenplay for After the Bitter Winter, while his comedy Killing Juliet has garnered eight Best Comedy awards and a Best Dialogue in a Screenplay award. A college professor for more than twenty-five years at Barry University, Brock created two academic programs, developed numerous courses in business and management, and presented his research internationally at institutions including Cambridge University, the University of Konstanz, and the University of Prague. During his Navy career, he led the planning and operations of Medical Services in regions and combat zones including Kuwait and Afghanistan, with assignments also taking him to Hawaii, Germany, Turkey, and England. Following his early retirement, Brock devoted himself to his passion for writing and creating, completing Call Sheet Media’s Mentor Program and developing Unfathomable, a war-action screenplay based on the true story of Robert Smalls, the enslaved man who commandeered a steamship through Charleston Harbor during the Civil War to rescue his family. The screenplay became a finalist in the Emerging Screenwriter competition and is currently being shopped by David Lautrec of CSM.

Inspired by true events, Peel Island is a love story set during World War II. In 1940 Kate Farrell, misdiagnosed with Hansen's disease, is a mother of two young girls when she is arrested and transported to the Peel Island leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her husband, Fred, tries to get her off the island where she is beset by bushfires, sharks, snakes, treatments, being shipwrecked, a treacherous returned soldier from the war and the loss of not seeing her daughters grow up. Despite testing negative for the disease, Kate is thwarted by the authorities and staff, determined to keep her there. She meets an American soldier, Peter, who falls in love with her, but Kate is consumed by Catholic guilt and her longing for her previous life with her husband and girls. A cure for leprosy is found at Carville, Louisiana, and after nearly 13 years Kate is released to find her husband has a love interest and her girls are setting off in life. Peter arrives and they sail away together. The last two black screens reveal the true story and that 95% of people are immune to leprosy anyway.

Over the years I have written articles for newspapers. As a professional fundraiser I prepared many strategic plans, conducted interviews, wrote newsletters, articles and press releases and wrote and directed videos for clients as well as TV ads. (Writing and creating the videos was my favourite.) In 2012 my book, “Liebling, An adventurous life” was published. It’s the true life story of Liebling, my German Shorthaired Pointer, written in her own words, with photos and paintings, along with a colouring-in book.

Noor must come to terms with her pregnancy and her future, in doing so confronts her murky past and her grief; she risks her welfare of that of her unborn baby in the drive to bring her deceased husband back from the grave. NOOR sits in a graveyard, cries. The gravestone reads: ‘ASTER JAMES VITALIS. 1987 - 2024’. Noor strokes her large, heavily pregnant bump. A cat circles her. Noor responds to the creature wit familiarity, follows the cat toward a clearing in the shadows: ‘THE CERBERUS ARMS - Welcome to the Underworld!’ A shadow of a man stands in the porch way: DAN THE BILLBOARD MAN. Noor cannot turn to look into Aster’s eyes on returning to the living world. Noor accepts, makes her first step. Noor and Aster’s small wedding ceremony in a church; witnessed by NELL, Noor’s foster Mother, ANDROULLA, Aster’s Grandmother and ADAM the best man. NOOR AND ASTER’S DATING BACKSTORY. The rings are exchanged, followed by the kiss. The wedding reception: A celebratory explosion of people, dancing, drinking, confetti thrown. Noor declines a cigarette Aster offers, makes the announcement that she is pregnant. Inside: A shadowy figure of a BARMAN serves Aster and Adam snakebite shots. Aster starts to mysteriously choke, runs outside. Aster collapses, dies. Aster’s funeral. Noor watches Aster’s casket: the new, APPARITION ASTER, emerges. He tells Noor that she is the only person who can see him. After the service, NELL and NOOR agree that she is coming to live with her in Noor’s childhood home of the Phoenix Centre for refugees. Noor performs, plays her qanun in a market square, busks. DAN THE BILLBOARD MAN approaches, he knows about Noor’s deceased husband. Dan asks Noor if she wants to see Aster again. She replies, “of course I do”. Dan the Billboard Man tells Noor to call him to receive instructions on how to enter the Underworld. Dr. LINDA ALOKA and Noor in the psychiatrist’s office. Dr. Aloka is concerned about Noor’s visions. Apparition Aster watches them. Noor admits that she can see Aster as though he were there with her; Apparition Aster disappears at this moment. Dan the Billboard Man appears to Noor in visions around Kingston town centre. Dr. Linda Aloka calls Nell, tells her that Noor is being prescribed antipsychotics. Noor holds the mysterious phone number in her palm, calls it. Dan the Billboard Man answers the phone, instructs Noor to the war memorial in town and look for a black cat; bring her qanun. The black cat will guide her to the Underworld. Noor faces the THREE-HEADED DOG, animate, difficult to get past. Noor plays her instrument, lulls them to a calm sleep. Noor seizes the opportunity to step forward. A large nightclub. Across the dance floor is Aster. Noor tells Aster that she has come to rescue him. Aster tells Noor that he wants their unborn daughter to be called Aurora. There is a dock of small boats with oars. As they drift to the human world, Noor looks back at him, Aster disappears. Above on the bridge, Dan the Billboard Man declares his obsessive love for Noor, tells her that he killed Aster, proposes to Noor; she defiantly refuses. Dan metamorphoses into a black cat, runs away. Noor is on a hospital bed, gives birth to the child: Aurora Sky Vitalis. Two years later. Noor attends Aster’s grave; leaves a bouquet of red roses. AURORA, 2, toddles through the grass, points, “Mama! A cat!” Out of the corner of Noor’s eye, the tail of a black cat whips in the growth.

Screenwriter | Filmmaker | Visual Artist Eleanor Veness is Cannes Script winner for Best Female Screenwriter, Winter 2026. Her Feature Film script, 'Aurora Sky’, has won and made Finalist in multiple international awards, including ‘Best Fantasy’ at Hollywood Indie Festival 2026. Her specialist sub-genre is magical realism. All of her stories are in synthesis within rich, encapsulating world-settings, constructed by character-driven narratives. Eleanor’s stories carry other-worldly or fantasy aspects, grounded in humanistic realism. Eleanor’s work is unconventionally told, often breaking traditional structures with a desire to innovate storytelling method and inspire imagination from gritty reality. Eleanor writes to get to the core of humanity and communicate those messages. In ‘Aurora Sky’, the central imperative to ‘not look back’ carries the weight of generational trauma and the protagonist Noor’s Arab refugee heritage. Noor must accept the traumas of her past in order to face a brighter future of stability. ‘Aurora Sky’ explores the concept of oral histories and migrational diasporas as told through commentary on refugee rights in the United Kingdom. Her portfolio demonstrates a wide range of genres and formats, including Drama, Comedy Drama, Historical, Biopic, Memoir, Horror and Thriller. Eleanor is currently adapting a 2024 novel into a feature film screenplay. She has written for feature, TV series and short, a play and another book adaption. Eleanor became 4 x award-nominated for her TV pilot/series 'Sam: A Teenage Girl' in 2020 - 2021. Eleanor also works as an artist and lives in South-West London with her husband and their cat, Pixel.

CHARACTERS: Protagonist - Wayne Talbot: A hunter way past his prime. He's a friend or partner to no one and all his enemies are dead. He's trying to save up 11 thousand to buy a used-car lot in Galveston and he's on the hunt for a big score. Clayton Moss is worth 5 grand. But add in what Wayne's got on-hand, and he's still 6 thousand short to retirement. He's hard-boiled, cold and calculating.

Antagonists Human – Leo Garrett: He runs the bounty-hunter operation from Law Town, temporary prisoner drop-off and pick-up way stations. But to him the law stops at the Rio Grande. Leo likes to sell his prisoners to traffickers across the border.

Supernatural – Werewolf clan: Men, women and children (10) who exist in the shadows and eliminate any loose threads. They have a mutated version of the Lycanthrope gene. Think THE WOLFMAN meets THE THING.

Supporting Characters Maria Torres: Car trouble on the way to grandma’s house. Tough; resilient. Silver vanity set. Clayton Moss: Wanted for murder and he did it. Remy Ramirez: Loves being a bounty hunter; lousy at his job. Javier Ramirez: Hates being a bounty hunter; good at his job. Tory Lake : A teenager and a loose thread. She’s been bit. Sweet Jane: Independent. A vamp and smart hunter. History with Wayne. Giorgi: Wolf clan chieftain. Leo captures him.

SYNOPSIS Act 1: Wayne is on the hunt. A brawl gets him a lead, but the trail runs cold. He drives past a stranded Maria but goes back. He’s looking for a honkytonk. She has an idea but needs a ride. He brings her along. In a sleazy bar, Wayne finds his bounty. Moss pulls a knife. Wayne fires a shotgun. He shuts the place down. He tells Maria to call the sheriff and leaves with Moss.

Moss stirs, shot with rock salt. Wayne is taking him to Law Town. They camp in the desert. Wayne chains-up Moss and sleeps. He wakes to shouts. Something is in the dark. Wayne hears a child’s giggle. He fires. And hits a charging wolf. The animal stands on two legs and runs off into the night.

Act 2: Law Town is a temporary way station. It’s an abandoned oil town used as a prisoner exchange. One of the bounties is a girl named Tory. She’s the lone survivor of a werewolf attack. And she’s been bit. Leo wants to sell Tory and Moss to The Dance, a sadistic rodeo south of the border. Wayne wants them given to the proper authorities. Ramirez brothers arrive with money owed to Leo, and a gift from the sheriff. Maria.

A storm forces everyone to stay put as a pack of clan members converge to kill Tory. They attack. In the aftermath, Giorgi is captured and put in a cell. The survivors fight among themselves. Wayne is forced into a leadership role, corralling cops and criminals to work together. They pool their resources and prepare for a fight. Leo is only concerned about his captured werewolf and taking him to The Dance.

Act 3: Some hunters want to throw Tory to the wolves. Wayne protects her. Leo wants his prize loaded onto a prison bus for Mexico. Leo sabotages vehicles so they’re forced to follow his plan. Wolf clan attacks. Using 1950’s weapons and a silver vanity set (comb, brush and magic mirror) the hunters fight back. Leo’s hubris gets him killed by Giorgi.

Wayne, Tory, Maria and Moss make it to morning. Moss isn’t going to prison and wants a duel. Wayne talks him down. Moss is attacked and killed by Giorgi. Wayne kills the werewolf chieftain but not before Maria gets bit. Survivors prepare for a long walk to civilization. They split up. Tory will turn with the rise of the moon and Wayne leaves with Maria, knowing she might also transform.

MAIN CHARACTER STORY ARC RESOLUTION: A long-term loner is forced to be a leader. He brings good and bad together to fight and survive the night against a supernatural horde and corrupt ugly turncoats. At the end he leaves his old life behind for an otherworldly adventure ahead.

WHAT MAKES THIS STORY UNIQUE? WHAT’S THE MARKETING HOOK?: A spaghetti western / werewolf movie set in 1959. It combines genres into a unique period piece. It also subverts audience expectations. Starting off as a neo-western and shifts into a supernatural thriller. Also the practical and digital FX could play big. The mix of The Wolfman meets The Thing is something we haven’t seen before. This world-building story has a beginning, middle and end, but does leave some unanswered questions. Which could be addressed in a sequel (Bad Moon Rising )

Sean Bridges was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He’s an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and audio producer.

He’s the author of On the Bayou and Gunbarrel Highway. He’s a Stephen King Dollar Baby with his festival-winning audio production of One for the Road.

His company Audible Parade created the serial audio thriller productions Triple Six and Parasite Zero.

He’s now developing High Moon, a spaghetti western/werewolf feature film, and he lives and works in the Texas Hill Country.

A brilliant but emotionally isolated thirteen-year-old girl creates a homemade time machine to visit her eleven-year-old mother in 1990 and her fifteen-year-old daughter in 2057, forcing three generations of young women to confront race, identity, friendship and family legacy through the inherited lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The genius stops at specific points in time to find connections to her direct genetic line, in hopes that they may one day be able to help her find a cure for a rare genetic disease that only she has, but misleads her adolescent mother from the past and her future teenage daughter about her true intentions. To make amends and regain their trust, in the end, she uses the family history and its future, to go back to where their family legacy began and give both her mother and her daughter the emotional closure they didn’t know they needed.

I was born the son of a musician. So, unlike some parents that steered their children away from the creative arts, mine encouraged it. As a teenager, I was involved in choreography, video editing , music production and subsequently attended and graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta. Writing did not come naturally until much later in life after having experiences that actually give me subject matter to write about. Family Time was inspired when I realized that my Black/Hispanic daughter attending private school and her Caucasian best friend who attended public school knew more about each other's race and culture than their own. Family Time was written to be a tv show geared at my daughter's young adult demographic, but I felt it would also make a great feature film or a stage production as well, and get a wider audience thinking about racial and family identity and how it changes over time...or does it?

Aaron Roz, a once great artist, is now watching himself sink into anonymity. As Tracy,  the young gallery assistant he’s sleeping with succinctly puts it “if you were remotely relevant you’d have been cancelled by now.”

Gen, the art dealer who represents him, has only managed to keep the gallery open through the help of Joseph, a brash art critic with a complex relationship to his father, the mob boss (and avowed philistine) Berra.

Now Gen has one month to pay back 100K, or else Berra will seize the Gallery and everything in it.

She schemes to restore an artist’s glory and pay off the debt by faking Aaron’s death to dramatically raise the value of his work. With nothing left to lose, Aaron agrees.

Unaware of her plot, Berra sends his enforcers to preemptively collect the art for money laundering purposes, but Gen convinces Tracy to create several forgeries in exchange for making her the gallery’s featured artist (something Tracy has long worked toward.)

Aaron is understandably furious, not about the forgeries themselves, but that Gen has put Tracy at risk by involving her.

When Berra discovers the deception, he unleashes hell. Nearly killing his own son in the process, even as Gen and Aaron manage to escape his clutches.

Meanwhile, inspired by this brush with death, Aaron paints… a masterpiece. Only to be shot by Tracy herself, when she realizes she’ll never get her opportunity to shine with him standing in her way.

Jonathan Shatoff is known for his producing and editing work for Nickelodeon, Paramount +, and FIRST - A Global Brand Experience Agency. His directorial feature film debut, The Devil Sits on Both Shoulders, won Best Actress at the 2018 Artemis Women in Action Film Festival. In 2025 at the 32nd Austin Film Festival, Jonathan was a Finalist for the feature screenplay, Wet Paint, which he co-wrote with Fred Soligan.

Fred Soligan has directed work for UCB Comedy, BricTV, The New Yorker and IFC. In 2019 he was selected as an Official Participant in Tribeca Film Festival's “N.O.W. Creator's Market”, along with his writing partner, Jade Daugherty. Their pilot script for Georgi & The Bot was a Top 5 Finalist in the 2020 Final Draft Big Break Competition. In 2023, Jade and Fred were awarded the inaugural Writer's Vision Grant by the Black List & Warby Parker for their script You Know Who You Look Like? In 2025, he was a Finalist at the Austin Film Festival for the feature screenplay, Wet Paint, which he co-wrote with Jonathan Shatoff.

I have produced a mock-up of the opening of the script if you’d like to view it here on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/1228890085?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

ACT I

We see a grainy, 1970s-style video about the legend of CAIN, an immortal killer who was trapped in an abandoned Appalachian mine at the end by the locals.

MAX (22) and his sister SOPHIA (25) drive in an SUV at night; Sophia has just finished watching the video on her phone. Max is an aspiring YouTuber and intends to do a livestream at Cain's mine. Sophia is a grad student who is helping him with the project.

They make it to the mine and accidentally release Cain from captivity. As they narrowly escape, Cain slashes the tire of their car.

After a few miles, they have no choice but to abandon the car. With Cain still in pursuit, they spot a house in the distance and head for it.

ACT II

Sophia and Max meet EZRA, an older religious man, and his grandson ZACHARY (25). Ezra is aware of Cain, and calls his younger brother GABRIEL, an ex-soldier. Gabriel and two of his friends locate Cain, but Cain quickly turns the tables on them. Cornered, Gabriel leaps off a cliff into a raging river.

At Ezra's house, Sophia, having done some research, realizes that Cain might be genetically engineered to regenerate, and they may be able to neutralize the process. Cain attacks the house, and Ezra attempts to defeat him with an exorcism, but is swiftly killed by Cain.

Sophia lures Cain to the garage, where Max and Zachary subdue him with tranquilizers. While Cain is unconscious, they chain him down and feed a solution into his system.

Soon after, Cain awakens and breaks the chains. Zachary has an idea to lure him to a nearby lake and lock him in a large dock box and shove it in the water. Sophia and Max stall Cain by electrocuting him, and the trio escapes to the lake.

They make it to a boathouse on the lake with Cain not far behind. Having survived his fall into the river, Gabriel attacks Cain. Gabriel sacrifices himself with a stick of dynamite and it's clear Cain is injured - the solution Sophia made appears to be working.

Cain enters the boathouse, and after an intense fight in which Zachary is severely injured, they manage to trap Cain in the dock box and shove it into the lake. Max and Zachary kiss tenderly.

ACT III

Black SUVs and mobile units show up near the lake. AGENT JACKSON, female, takes control of the situation. Zachary is taken to receive medical attention. Meanwhile, Agent Jackson interrogates Sophia and Max - she wants to know what happened and what they injected into Cain. It is revealed that the government knew about Cain and wants to harness his regenerative gifts. Sophia and Max warn them that they should let Cain die, but Agent Jackson instructs her scientists to rehab him.

Cain breaks free and kills Agent Jackson. Before dying, a scientist named DR. LIU gives Sophia, Max, and Zachary a serum that should stop Cain, but it needs to be injected into his heart. To assist, Dr. Liu tells them to use a so-called sonic beacon to attract another creature to fight and weaken Cain.

In the final showdown, Max and Zachary distract Cain while Sophia activates the beacon and affixes it to Cain's back. The GOATMAN, another horrific creature, emerges from the woods and attacks Cain. A violent battle ensues. Just as it seems that Cain is getting the upper hand, Sophia, Max, and Zachary intervene. Cain is left weak and broken on the ground as the Goatman retreats into the woods.

Max and Zachary hold down Cain as Sophia injects him with the serum. Cain convulses for a few beats and goes still, presumably dead. But as the trio walks away, Cain recovers and charges at them, but as he is about to make contact, he EXPLODES, covering them in fluid and viscera. Cain's head comes to rest at their feet and a frustrated Max punts it into the night.

Sophia, Max, and Zachary leave in one of the government vehicles. We see Cain's severed head lying on the ground, and tendrils undulate inside his neck, indicating that the regeneration process has begun again.

I have been an entertainment/music attorney in Southern California for the past 20 years. In 2016, I wrote and produced the horror-comedy "The Midnight Man," starring veteran actor Ken Foree, which was distributed by ITN Films. This new script, "THE GOSPEL OF CAIN," has received extremely positive feedback and has won three screenwriting competitions and reached the semifinals or quarterfinals in several others. As mentioned in the Synopsis section, I have produced a mock-up of the opening of the script if you’d like to view it here on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/1228890085?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Mei Li, an illegal immigrant in London's Chinatown, works as a waitress and cares for her father, Jian, a former teacher now working as a casino croupier. They're both grieving the loss of Song, Mei Li's younger sister, who disappeared during their escape from China, orchestrated by the Snakehead gang.

When Jian is killed in a gang raid, Mei Li must repay the Snakeheads or be sent to their brothels—until MI5 agent Alex Rhys offers her British citizenship in exchange for working for MI5. Mei Li undergoes rigorous training to become a covert operative and to assume the identity of Wu's mistress, a ruthless Triad boss.

Once in Anna Huang's shoes, she realizes her mission is personal when she discovers the Triad is involved with the traffickers who took her sister. As Mei Li gains Wu's trust, her situation grows perilous, especially when the real Anna escapes and arrives at Wu's location. Dumbstruck, Wu tortures the identical women to identify the impostor. Just as the Snakeheads barge in to challenge Wu's authority, Mei Li's only way out is to team up with her double.

Shaped by diverse cultures, Suzanne Lutas blends genre-driven entertainment with thoughtful storytelling. Her thrillers explore identity, belonging, resilience, and how extraordinary circumstances reveal people’s true selves.

Born in Vietnam and raised and educated in France, Lutas earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature. She later taught English and art in Tahiti. Her academic background and lifelong love of cinema and literature shaped her screenwriting.

Her work has earned international recognition, particularly The Dead Ringer, which won Best International Screenplay, Best Original Story, Best Worldwide Writer, Best Characters, and Best Thriller Screenplay. These awards highlight her compelling characters and her ability to unite accessible genre storytelling with themes that transcend cultural boundaries.

Beyond writing, Lutas paints, designs handmade jewelry, and sings lead vocals in a jazz band—pursuits that broaden her artistic imagination.

Black Creek State Prison is a place where inmates must serve their sentence; their entire sentence. With the help of deranged scientist, Dr. Michelle Garcia, inmates at this prison stay young, strong, and healthy for those sentences whether they be twenty years or one hundred and twenty years. Inmates have become lab rats, having been subjected to painful injections of other-worldly compounds that infuse their bodies with stem cells. Now, these injections aren’t just for torturing inmates. The stem cell rich blood is used to cure bone marrow cancers.

John “Methuselah” Booker has been an inmate at Black Creek State Prison for years. Since 1943, to be exact. He’s coming up on the end of his sentence and is about to be released. He and his small group of friends on the inside want to put an end to the torturous science experiments being done on the inmates. Methuselah must bring down Dr. Garcia and the prison once released but he only has a few weeks to do it- when the injections stop, his body will rapidly age and decay.

Methuselah must enlist the help of a reluctant young scientist working with the program inside the prison and the only way to convince her is to threaten what’s most precious to her: her ailing grandmother.

It’s a race against the clock for Methuselah. Can he expose the prison and the treatment of inmates before it’s too late? Can his friends on the inside survive the torture?

My name is Courtney and I am a forty-something southern screenwriter with a heavy background in acting. Acting for many years has given me a unique perspective when it comes to writing scripts. I tend to write meaty characters that actors would love to take on. My stories lean toward Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Thriller. When I am not writing, I am mama to two really rad kids. I enjoy cooking, watching movies, and hanging out with my husband and two dogs. I am also an OG X-Files obsessor.

Dani is a young woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder. She was adopted at a young age and has two distinct personalities in the pilot. Judy, the most assertive personality, loves to lure toxic men to their deaths while posing as a 1960’s housewife. Piper, a younger, bratty personality is a serious “Karen”. While on a rare date with the ever-charming Chad Denton, Dani is caught up in a street brawl involving Chad. A gun is drawn and a man dies at her feet. The alternate personality, Piper, takes over to protect Dani and experiences the murder. She watches Chad run off and leave her alone. Because of this, Piper goes into hiding within Dani. Too bad she was the only witness to this crime. Together Dani and Judy work along side the local police to pull clues out of the alternate personality. Dani’s therapist-turned-best-friend along with her adoptive parents are pulled into a world of drugs, murder, and the unfolding of a traumatic childhood long passed.

My name is Courtney and I am a forty-something southern screenwriter with a heavy background in acting. Acting for many years has given me a unique perspective when it comes to writing scripts. I tend to write meaty characters that actors would love to take on. My stories lean toward Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Thriller. When I am not writing, I am mama to two really rad kids. I enjoy cooking, watching movies, and hanging out with my husband and two dogs. I am also an OG X-Files obsessor.

The Devil has been banished to earth by her father. On earth, Lucy (Satan) runs a religious bookshop while simultaneously carrying out her life-long job of taking souls when The Man Upstairs deems appropriate. Multiple atrocities and natural disasters disrupt daily life for Lucy along with each of her six angelic siblings paying her a visit with messages from Dear Old Dad. Archangel Michaela, God’s loyalest child, comes earth-side to force Lucy home. A biblical level fight breaks out, with Michaela killing Lucy’s only mortal friend, Kevin. Michaela barely escapes with all of her limbs while the other siblings do their best to bring Kevin back to life. Satan and the angels band together to find an estranged God and their AWOL sibling before the worsening natural disasters take all of humanity.

My name is Courtney and I am a forty-something southern screenwriter with a heavy background in acting. Acting for many years has given me a unique perspective when it comes to writing scripts. I tend to write meaty characters that actors would love to take on. My stories lean toward Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Thriller. When I am not writing, I am mama to two really rad kids. I enjoy cooking, watching movies, and hanging out with my husband and two dogs. I am also an OG X-Files obsessor.

Nathan, a mild mannered, devout gamer slips out of work to attend a game convention. At the convention, he meets the girl of his dreams - Vicky a cute down to earth girl who can hold her own in video games. While getting to know Vicky he comes across a back booth selling a real reality game. Nathan is talked into buying the RR game. Unlike virtual reality games where you can be someone else in virtual reality, real reality allows him to be a different person in real life through his avatar Edward.

Upon playing the RR game, Nathan begins a slow descent into evil in which Edward begins mugging people, robbing banks, and even killing Nathan’s own boss. With the police searching for Edward, Nathan's relationship grows with Vicky until she discovers that Nathan and Edward are one and the same person.

Nathan must choose between a life in prison or Vicky's life. Going against Edward, Nathan spares Vicky's life and helps the police take down Edward until the game pulls Nathan back in as SWAT closes in.

Greg has been involved in making films for fifteen years. He has written three films including: two shorts “Pas à Vendre”, “SUX2BME”, and a feature “Gibby”, with two more in preproduction – “Seven Graces of God” and “Soul of My Ego”. Greg is a storyteller who has worked behind the scenes to assist directors in bringing the story to life. Working with the actors and directors, Greg came to realize that he communicates well with the actors and can convey the character and story nuances to them. Greg brings the passion, understanding, and knowledge to make the story come alive on camera. Behind the scenes Greg has assisted in six independent film productions. When not making films, Greg is busy writing scripts in all genres, a script reader for Cinequest screenwriting competition, and did a presentation on independent film making at the American Film Market.

June Fillmore (60s), living alone in the Brentwood hills, takes an out-of-the-blue phone call from Janice, the younger sister of Roy Thode, the fiercely idealistic environmentalist June loved back in the early 1970s. Janice says she wants to reconnect the two of them, but her real motive is more self-serving. Roy has become a malnourished recluse living in filth out in the high desert, and Janice is desperate to hand him off to somebody, anybody, else. When she stumbles onto bank statements revealing that Roy is quietly sitting on millions, her mission shifts to getting control of the money. She dismantles his home, tries to push a power of attorney on him, and lands him in a hospital where the staff decide he can't be released on his own. Roy escapes into the desert he knows better than anyone, and it is June, not Janice, who rescues him from his gutted trailer and takes him home. The back half becomes a domestic comedy of two stubborn people trying to live together. Roy turns out not to have dementia at all, but he is still impossible, sorting the neighbors' trash, stealing an abused dog, lecturing everyone about the dying planet. June reaches her limit, calls Janice, and the two women, now allies instead of adversaries, restore Roy's desert home and set him free where he belongs. Flashbacks quietly explain who Roy and June were before life sanded them down. At its heart this is a story about love, freedom, and the thin line between helping someone and controlling them.

I started writing professionally in 1982 as a TV promo producer and editor and continued with commercial and corporate videos. I decided to try screenwriting in 1989 with “After Alice,” a romcom about how a man deals with getting dumped. After that I tried different genres – drama, action, some sci-fi, dramedy, and all while maintaining a day job.

I learned more about screenwriting from books and groups, talking with industry people, and writing more. In 2000, I was a tech writer at Microsoft – books, online articles and videos, help. But until now, I’ve never tried to sell a screenplay. Here I have polished and updated the best of my attempts and feel they are ready for your consideration.

Based on a true story.

When Alan, a little boy, relapses with his illness neuroblastoma, he and his family begin a race against the clock to look for all treatments and clinical trials available that can give them hope in Alan possibly being cured from his illness. The search takes them on a journey through many places; San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles California, as well as Monterrey, Mexico.

Along the journey to finding a cure, Alan and his family experience many amazing synchronicities and events that lead to Alan not only being able to meet his favorite rock band, but also meet his long time idol, a very famous comedian and movie star; who ends up creating a special bond with Alan.

After all available treatments and clinical trials fail to cure Alan, the decision to stop the search is reached by Alan and his family. Alan's entire life's journey eventually leads him to learn and understand the meaning of eternal happiness.

I was born in Palm Springs, California on April 21st, 1988. I lived in between cities and countries through out my life. Different cities in California, in Monterrey, Mexico, and in different cities in Costa Rica. I graduated from Hart High School in Newhall, California and briefly attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. I'm currently a writer and investor in the film industry as well as an investor in different markets in the U.S. and Costa Rica. In the past I have also been an airline pilot, international projects manager at a Mexican company, and an over the road trucker. I'm looking forward to making the film industry my new full time career.

Sarah Hawthorne, a fading mom influencer whose perfect public life is collapsing, agrees to a livestream interview that turns into a public ambush over a buried charity scandal. Valentina Moroz, a brilliant but suicidal nuclear physics PhD student carrying a stolen radioactive alpha source, is drawn into the same event through Sarah’s husband John, her therapist and lover.

When Valentina’s troubled friend Izzy arrives armed, the interview spirals into chaos. A Christian extremist group, Foundation Circle, seizes the abandoned hydroelectric plant, takes Sarah, Valentina, and Sarah’s autistic son Noah hostage, and turns the crisis into a national media spectacle.

Trapped together, Sarah and Valentina initially despise each other. But as the situation worsens, Valentina sees beneath Sarah’s vanity and performance to a mother willing to risk everything for her child, while Sarah discovers she can survive without the approval she has spent her life chasing.

Valentina devises an escape using the alpha source as a bluff. Sarah sells the lie convincingly enough to make the gunmen hesitate, and the three escape before the building explodes.

A year later, Valentina is back at FRIB, alive and finally willing to embrace love and attachment. Sarah is more famous than ever, preaching resilience and forgiveness on television. Her husband John has died from a mysterious slow illness resembling the effects Valentina once described from ingesting an alpha source.

Two unstable women collide and emerge transformed.

I did not research these women’s worlds from the outside. I am a nuclear physicist with a PhD, a research scientist at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb, and the leader of the DAENERYS research project. My working life takes place in the world Valentina inhabits: international laboratories, radioactive sources, experiments, scientific ambition, competition and people who spend their lives studying matter at the edge of stability. I am also a mother of six, and I have watched mom-influencer culture grow almost from the beginning: the transformation of motherhood, family life, beauty, relationships and children into public identity and content. I know the gap between the chaos of real family life and the polished version presented to the outside world. Sarah and Valentina come from two very different worlds, but both are worlds I know intimately. I have also been telling stories for most of my life. I published two novels while still in school and university, later made short films, science films and theatre productions, and my science parody SCI-CSI won Best Medium-Length Film at the Croatian Amateur Film Festival. SARAH’S HOME AND HEART is my first feature screenplay.

Randy, a middle-aged graphic designer, faces reduced hours at her job, to the point she struggles to survive financially. Forced to move back with Jane, her abusive mother; she pieces together the dark truth of why she got her hours cut: that her ideas were being stolen and reused by her former ad executive mother, who she later learns is contracting for Randy’s boss, Andy. Randy takes a second job where she reconnects with Lisa, her high school friend, who is now a lawyer, and also married to Randy’s boss. Soon Randy’s boss and Randy’s mother go missing, and Randy and Lisa connect over the betrayals of people closet to them. Randy also reconnects with Jake, a former boyfriend, and Elsa, her former Art teacher; like Lisa, they also become Randy’s anchors. One night, Randy accidentally overhears at a bar gathering about an event planned honoring the ad campaign achievements of her boss Andy and Randy’s mother. Angry, Randy aims to hijack the event; projecting her own graphics onscreen to show her ownership of them. While there, Lisa’s failing health takes a bad turn and she passes away, and a confrontation with Randy’s mother turns ugly, and Randy knows she will never see her again. By the end, Randy has taken a job working with special needs Art students, under the direction of her former Art teacher Elsa. Randy is finally doing a job where she can be creative and connect with students who also feel unheard in this world.

Boston-based award-winning actress, writer, producer, and director Mary C. Ferrara caught the acting bug in her late 20s when she took an improv class on a whim. After almost 20 years of performing, in improv, theatre, and film (with some directing and writing thrown in), 2018 opened up an opportunity for her go behind the scenes. She helped produce and direct the award-winning dramedy short film, "Candlestick Justice" (a First Time Productions film). After that, she decided to produce, write, direct, and star in her own film, the award-winning "Schmoopie," inspired by a break up and her love of animals (Mary has volunteered at the Quincy Animal Shelter since 2008). Under the umbrella of her own production company, Call it a Whim Productions, she has continued to write; notably, she wrote the award-winning short unproduced comedy script, "Red Shirt," about a woman who goes on a blind date not knowing anything about her date other than he has a red shirt; she then runs into a high school classmate before she can meet him and chaos ensues. She also wrote the feature comedy film, "Wallie's Gals," about four women who reunite 30 years after working in a discount clothing store together. Most recently Mary wrote the short unproduced comedy script, "Call Time: Impossible," about a woman trying to get to her web series set on time but everything gets in the way; from dealing with method actors, uber drivers, drunk neighbors, stuffed ostriches, and a half naked mother.

Claire, a once-renowned musical director, has spent years hiding from life after the deaths of her husband and young son. Living quietly in Brighton and working in a charity shop, she keeps everyone at arm’s length—until the world learns that a massive asteroid will strike Earth in just fifteen days.

While thousands flee for government shelters, Claire chooses to remain. She is drawn to a struggling church choir led by Peter, a warm-hearted local reverend whose musical enthusiasm far exceeds his ability. Reluctantly taking charge, Claire transforms the ragtag singers into a real choir and begins planning one final concert.

As Brighton empties and society starts to unravel, the choir becomes a refuge for those left behind, including rebellious teenager Becky, fourteen-year-old Kobe and indomitable street cleaner Lena. In caring for them, Claire slowly confronts the grief and guilt she has carried for years—and rediscovers the part of herself that still wants to live.

When their planned concert is threatened, the community creates a makeshift stage on Brighton Pier. With the asteroid approaching, Claire raises her baton and leads hundreds of strangers in one final song. Together, they face the end not with fear, but with music, connection and joy.

I was raised by a single mum who was also a film editor and filmmaking teacher. One of her students' films? The Full Monty (at the time the most successful British film of all time). My mum's advice? Don't work in the industry. I listened for about 20 years, but it's always been there, and so now I'm scratching that itch.

The Full Monty along with that particular blend of British humour, community, small stakes that FEEL big, have all stuck with me (Pride, Billy Elliot, About A Boy.

I also adore high concept films which manage to balance spectacle with heart and bring years of working in creative marketing (mostly for tech and AI companies) with me in my writing. I daydream about the films I would make, have written four (two features a short and pilot) which have picked up numerous screenwriting awards.

Avery Blake, a wildly popular travel influencer and author of Fearless Footsteps, is exposed mid-livestream when a neighbor's lawnmower reveals her "Pacific Northwest" wilderness is a suburban backyard. Her publisher, Charles Goldmann, faces sponsor litigation and gives her an ultimatum: complete a fully verified, geo-tagged livestreamed trek to a mythical Thai temple she once claimed nearly killed her, or face lawsuits and possible jail. Broke, terrified of flying and water, and quietly paying for her father's Alzheimer's care, Avery flies to Bangkok with her manager Madison running comms from Los Angeles.

In Bangkok, her guide never shows. After a disastrous first meeting in a bar, she learns her guide is Connor Storm , a former award-winning conflict journalist who now bathes elephants at a sanctuary in Chang Dao. Connor deliberately abandoned her at the airport as a "test." The trek strips Avery down: Connor dumps her content calendar, she nearly loses her late mother's compass in a river, and a rainstorm forces them into one tent. There she reveals her mother drowned while Avery filmed instead of paddling. Meanwhile, Zhao, a logging-syndicate enforcer who recognizes Connor, shadows them. Connor exposes a fake snake planted by Charles's hired prop crew, but a real spike trap soon follows. At a hill-tribe village during Songkran, Elder Somphong reveals the river has been diverted by armed loggers. Connor confesses that his source Lek was murdered, and he and Avery share a kiss off-camera.

The next morning Avery discovers Connor has been tracking Lek's killers all along. She wounds him by throwing Lek's death back at him, and they split emotionally just before Zhao's men capture them at a rope bridge. To keep Connor alive, Avery invents a promise of temple gold. They escape at night, and on the partially restored feed Connor admits he used her livestream as bait to expose the syndicate, while the global viewer count climbs past 2.8 million. Guided by her mother's compass, Avery leads them north. They survive a mudslide and find a dam starving the temple's sacred spring.

They break the dam, and the flooding basin ignites the temple in golden light. Zhao arrives, confesses to Lek's murder on the live feed, and rigs the temple with C4 to reach nonexistent gold. Connor hurls a charge into the dam breach, and the temple floods. When debris pins Connor underwater, Avery overcomes her lifelong fear and dives to free him ("I'm not letting go this time"). A military helicopter kills Kiet, Somchai falls into a crevasse, and Zhao is arrested. Back in LA, the board moves to suspend Charles. Six months later, the valley is protected, Avery's new book funds Alzheimer's research, and she plants a tree for every adventure before riding off with Connor, leaving her phone behind.

Jacob Jamieson is a screenwriter, producer, and creative entrepreneur whose work is shaped by a lifelong fascination with adventure and extraordinary experiences.

Jacob's writing is informed by a background that is anything but conventional. He has built and led lifestyle and experience-driven brands including Stay Salty Designs, JJ Divers, and Privateer Charters, while working professionally as a scuba instructor, FAA-certified private pilot, and U.S. Coast Guard Senior Master/Captain. These experiences have taken him into environments and situations that most writers only encounter through research, giving his storytelling an authentic relationship with adventure, risk, exploration, and the people drawn to them.

As a screenwriter, Jacob has quickly established recognition within the competition and festival circuit, with five of his screenplays placing and receiving podium placement in competitions including the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, Final Draft Big Break, Scriptapalooza, Pipeline and the Austin Film Festival. He has also been named an Emerging Screenwriter, with two of his screenplays selected for the Hot 100 for 2026.

Jacob is particularly interested in high-concept stories driven by compelling characters, cinematic worlds, and strong commercial hooks. His projects span adventure thrillers, science fiction, horror, romance, and other genre driven stories, often placing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and exploring what happens when the identities people construct are tested by reality.

His approach to storytelling is rooted in creativity, collaboration, and visual imagination. He believes the strongest screen stories should not simply entertain an audience, but transport them somewhere they have never been and leave them with characters and moments they remember long after the credits roll.