Home Festival 2008 arrowsScreenplay Competition Finalists
SCREENPLAY COMPETITION FINALISTS  

Title: ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DOING FINE
Writer: Jim Buess
Synopsis: Mary Jackson has worked for the same magazine editor for twenty-five years.  She comes to work one day to find he has died in the night and she is now out of a job for the first time in her life.  Not knowing what to do now, and faced with a job market that believes if you are over forty you are supposed to be dead, she decides to visit her five closest friends from high school in hopes of finding a new life for herself.


Title: ALL TOGETHER NOW
Writer: Yaron Kaver
Synopsis: Several close friends come across a new drug that enables people to feel each other's emotions. Relationships are put to the test when every personal experience becomes communal.


Title: ALONE
Writer: Tracey Thomas
Synopsis: Alone is a true, 1930s polar adventure taken from the memoirs of Admiral Richard Byrd. Byrd goes to the ends of the earth -and within an hour of death - before he finds out why he's alive.


Title: ALONE WITH VOICES
Writer: Rocky Palladino
Synopsis: Sonny, a man with converse disorder, meets Joon, a woman on the verge of suicide, and they begin a strange and surreal romance.  Their relationship is interrupted when Sonny's unique speech pattern leads him to be mistaken for a serial killer.


Title: AMERICAN METTLE
Writer: Mike Oates
Synopsis: Almost everyone is a suspect in this unique glimpse of small town justice when the son of a wealthy businessman is brutally murdered during the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl.


Title: AMERICANA
Writers: Alexandre Moors and R.F.I. Porto
Synopsis: Hurricane Season. A reclusive actress. A dangerous politician. A secret affair.Gabe Plummer knows more than he should and he's about to get caught in the storm.


Title: ANNA'S DREAM OF FLIGHT
Writers: Ken Mora and Alexander Haythen
Synopsis: Anna's professor seduces her into marriage in exchange for achieving her dream, to master the piano, but Anna is crippled by guilt over his death - when she falls in love with his mistress.


Title: ARCANGEL
Writer: Eduardo Barraza
Synopsis: It is Miguel story, a young LAPD officer, who looses everything in a single moment. He returns to the place where he was born, a Mexican small town, becoming he in the last hope of the people, when he makes the choice of taking his fathers place and turn into Mexican wrestling hero.

Title:
ANTARCTICA
Writers: Michael Hemmingson and W. Bates Beinbrink
Synopsis: Sex, ennui, and assassination games pre-occupy the long hours of the winter crew of a South Pole science station, as each person deals with  longing, loneliness, and lunacy.


Title: APARTMENT #9
Writer: Cameron Cash
Synopsis: Unraveling secrets lead a private eye down a trail of pornography and murder that begins with a tow truck driver, a night club owner, a talent agent, a waitress, a gay cop, a movie star, a kid, and a stripper; and ends at Apartment #9.


Title: BEGINNING OF TOMORROW, THE
Writer: Derek Michael Shannon
Synopsis: At the close of World War II, a young scientist must seek redemption for his Nazi past and restore his dreams of space by delivering his rocket team into American hands.


Title: BEYOND CELL SERVICE
Writer: Patti Candelari
Synopsis: A pre-teen fashionista in New York City, who's incessantly attached to her cell, is forced to attend summer camp on a farm in the Catskill Mountains. Through her adventures and heroism she acquires a new meaning for "wireless network."


Title: BOY BANNED
Writer: Danusia Compton
Synopsis: A formerly rich and famous Boy Band member with a heart of gold is forced to sell his Beverly Hills mansion in a last ditch attempt to re-unite the band. His good fortune returns in ways he couldn't see coming.


Title: BLOODY DUCHESS, THE (fna THE PRODIGAL SON)
Writer: Mario Caiti
Synopsis: A vampire targets an unlikely prey: an embittered parolee.


Title: BOYS OF WINTER, THE
Writer: Ann Tierney Prochnow
Synopsis: An unruly group of young skiers are handpicked to join the U.S. Army's first alpine division.  These talented men must put aside their personal ambition in order to defeat the Germans in World War II.


Title: BRIDEZILLA VS. DEER
Writer: Colin Costello, Story by Colin and Sharla Costello
Synopsis: A type A advertising exec goes "bridezilla" in a small Conn. town after a white tail buck crashes her perfectly planned wedding and runs off with her $50,000 wedding band on its antler. With her fiance in traction and hunting season starting in 48 hours, she turns to the local sheriff for help. Bridezilla vs. Deer - Something old. Something new. Something univited.


Title: BUGGY, THE
Writers: Patrick J. Bates and Tony Lucchi
Synopsis: Hoping to distance himself from the tragedy that has splintered his family, Professor Neal Bremmen moves his children to a new life on an old New England estate. Folklore and reality collide once the buggy riding ghost of Silas Bilge gets resurrected.


Title: BUTTERBEAN
Writer: James Oliveros White
Synopsis: Butterbean is the life affirming true story of basketball legend Bob "Butterbean" Love who overcame a severe stuttering disability to become one of the most sought after motivational speakers in the country.


Title: CASHING OUT
Writer: Ford Dennis
Synopsis: Fresh out of prison, Ryo matches wits with the cops, gunrunners, a local crime boss, and her former partners to claim her share of the loot from the heist that landed her in the joint.


Title: COMING FALL
Writer: Angie Freeman

Synopsis: The story revolves around the mysterious death of Caleb Feldman, an author and professor at a prestigious university. Denial, deceit, humor, and sex orbit a handful of characters and their duplicity, showing us the poor decisions of today are tomorrow's consequences.


Title: DANCING WITH ROSE
Writer: Stacey Leong
Synopsis: Kate, a pregnant Asian American women, finds refuge in the arms of an illegal immigrant from Colombia when her husband "virtually abandons her" for the world of online video games.


Title: DEAD MAN'S GULCH
Writers: Rob Rex and Michael Stephan
Synopsis: A hapless cowboy-bandit is driven to the brink of madness when he grows suspicious of a bizarre conspiracy to prevent him from getting out of Dodge.


Title: DEVIL'S OWN WORK, THE
Writer: Graham Jones
Synopsis: THE DEVIL'S OWN WORK is a biographical screenplay about how the friendship between two flawed men, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, enabled them to destroy the Confederacy and save the Union.


Title: DIVINE INTERVENTION
Writer: Robert 'Robaire' Renaud
Synopsis: Behind veil of creating a better future for civilization the forbidden Vatican secrets of money, murder and warfare are exposed.  True epic thriller for pantheon cast.


Title: DOUBLE BACK
Writer: Dave Petonic
Synopsis: A female police detective in an upper-class suburb uncovers shocking
secrets while investigating a heinous double murder.


Title: DRAGON'S MIST
Writer: Randy Cruts
Synopsis: As with anything life has to offer, nothing lasts forever and that includes
the comradery of a boy and his dragon. Throughout the years these inseparable friends boldly tackle many adventures but no shared experience could ever prepare them for their last encounter with chance, an unavoidable collision with the Russian mob.


Title: EARLY BIRD
Writer: John French
Synopsis: When Alfred Sparrow, the inventor of a machine to harvest insects and make them into convenient bars, disappears his feisty daughter suspects crooked entrepreneur Oswald Magpie. But as she tries to rescue him the 'fast food' bars appear on the market with disastrous consequences.


Title: EMPTY
Writer: Paul Gustavo
Synopsis: Awakened in a shattered house with a shipped wrecked boat outside, Jezebel is unknowingly caught in a battle for her soul.  As the captain recounts the perils of his boat and crew, Jezebel's soul collides with two crewmembers in this twist of good and evil.


Title: EROTIC GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE, THE
Writer: Werner Akizur
Synopsis: Jesus knows only about spiritual love.  Mary Magdalene, a priestess of Astarte, initiates him in sensual love to make him whole.


Title: EVOLUTION OF SUNDAY
Writer: Justina Walford
Synopsis: Workaholic Kevin Bolger tries to spend a Sunday morning with his wife, Gina, but the morning ends in a fatal car accident. Angry and lost after his wife's death, Kevin appeals to Gina's friend and spiritual counsel, Pastor Danielle McCann, for comfort and guidance. But just as Kevin shows signs of feeling at peace, Danielle has a secret which will turn this relationship inside out.


Title: FAT LOVE
Writer: Robert Bellsolà
Synopsis: A fat baker falls in love with the most beautiful girl in the world.


Title: FELIX THE FLYER
Writer: Christopher Canole
Synopsis: Latino Chariots of Fire saga about a Cuban mailman running in the 1904 Olympic Marathon recounting his 1200 mile super-run up the Mississippi River to battle the world's greatest runners in history's most bizarre race filled with racism, cheating, and drugs to become an inspiration for all future underdogs.


Title: FIRST CASUALTY
Writer: Steve Lyons
Synopsis: A historical fantasy, inspired by real events, in which a Pentagon intelligence analyst struggles to stop the Vietnam War before it begins.


Title: FRANK & FLO 
Writers: Kahil Dotay and Cary Anderson
Synopsis: The touching story of a couple who woke up next to each other married and not knowing who the other was.


Title: GLOVE ADDICTION
Writer: Paul Dunleavy
Synopsis: Glove Addiction is the story of one family's struggles with addiction, depression, fear, tragedy, and violence.  The film follows Danny Kelly, a former prizefighter and middle son of the family, whose sense of duty and selflessness towards his mother and brothers jeopardizes his reputation, his health, and the love of his girlfriend Leslie. Danny struggles to help his brothers win their battles while fighting his own, both in and out of the ring.


Title: GODSPEED
Writer: Celia C. Peters
Synopsis: A woman begins losing her grip on reality and fights to regain control of her life, but instead discovers that she is not human.


Title: GRAY GHOST, THE
Writer: David Gillis
Synopsis: The spirit of a college gridiron star who dies while trying to score a last-second, game-winning touchdown is left to haunt the stadium until another young football player helps him to finally cross the goal line and change his fate.

Title: HAIR TODAY
Writer: Dennis Douda
Synopsis: A lowly flea saves the Earth! Selfish Myo is dragged into a balding astrophysicist's mid-life crisis. Dude, it's just hair. It's not the end of the world! Oh, maybe it is.


Title: KEEPER OF THE GATE, THE
Writer: Michael Deschamps
Synopsis: When power, money and death come crashing into the pearly gates and three souls are up for grabs, only true love will quell the Keeper of the Gate.


Title: LEO OF ST. GEORGE AND THE AIR GALACTIC
Writers: Steven Hahn and Francis Hsueh
Synopsis: Leo, a telemarketer, becomes obsessed with space tourism flights being launched by a nearby company founded by a Richard Branson-esque billionaire. Leo ultimately believes that securing two tickets on an upcoming flight is the only way to revive his wife who lies in a coma.


Title: LOVE SCORES
Writers: Story by Maria Cozzi and Shelly Carlson with screenplay by Maria Cozzi
Synopsis: Zeus, the god of Argentine soccer blows the World Cup and flees to the
US seeking refuge for himself and his six-year old son, Juan Carlos.


Title: MACBROOM HOLLER
Writer: Shasta Lusk
Synopsis: A young father name Pete, addicted to crystal meth in a small town in Alabama, tries to rebuild his life after his wife leaves him. His shy son AJ, enters a talent show at school to bring his mom back home and Pete's sister puts her life on hold to help him survive his past mistakes.


Title: MOM JEAN'S
Writer: Kathleen Douglass
Synopsis: The church ladies of Fertile, Iowa hold a culinary secret that could send International Food writer Dee Douglass to straight to the Food Network. To gain their trust Dee must become one of them, she must become; Fertilized. Armed with a frizzy perm, giant glasses and "Mom" jeans, Dee Infiltrates small town Iowa, embarking on a glass slipper like quest for the magical flavor.


Title: MONEY DEAREST
Writer: Michael Jon Levin
Synopsis: When May-December con artists, Evelyn Demitri and Alfred Duncan, become inadvertently involved in a diamond heist masterminded by a short-fused scoundrel, Hawk, things get quickly complicated, and then spiral out of control.


Title: NATIONAL ROAD
Writer: Chris Zeller
Synopsis: Henry and his buddies become embroiled in a small town drama as they endeavor to score a bag of weed graduation weekend at a small, hippie college. Intersecting story-lines of last chance love affairs, stolen guns and abandoned cars, drawn to comic effect, create the backdrop for what is ultimately a coming of age drama.


Title: ON A FIELD OF LEGENDS
Writer: Nicholas Julius
Synopsis: Ex-Superstar college quarterback challenges Death to a football game using a dream team of old time, legendary, passed away players and finds redemption along the way.


Title: ORCADIA
Writer: Steven Zawacki
Synopsis: A bitchy nurse grieving the death of her husband in battle with the Italian army confronts an Italian-American prisoner when she's drafted to nurse POWs, and with the help of an old woman finds the courage to choose a new life of love over wallowing in self-pity.


Title: PACK HUNTERS
Writer: Terrance Mitchell Thibideaux
Synopsis: Men behave quite badly when a hit on an undercover gambling joint goes brutally awry -- and the hunters suddenly become the hunted.  A dark, nasty romp through an underworld of cops, crooks and carnivores...


Title: PETER AND THE CHROME PLATED FISH
Writer: Chris Swider
Synopsis: Peter and the Chrome Plated Fish is a sexy romantic comedy about a wacky sculptor who dreams of making his masterpiece, a monumental fountain that is an allegory about sensual love. Then he meets a magic woman who has the power to wake the dead, and perhaps his dreams might come true.


Title: POPULOUS
Writer: Zakary Kurzawski
Synopsis: Distrusted by his daughter and blackmailed by a colleague, a human
population control agent must save his family from the complications
that come with killing for a living.


Title: POWDER BROWN
Writer: Philip Dorr
Synopsis: In the cold winter of 1940, in Oliver Springs, Tennessee, a young, black, orphan boy struggles to make his frugal dreams a reality. His glass ceiling is skin deep, and the town itself rises up to become the antagonist of this bizarre tale: a dark, undefinable presence that has taken layers of generations to form and from which Powder Brown cannot escape.


Title: PREEMPTIVE STRIKE
Writer: Alan Armstrong
Synopsis: Claire Chennault, a washed up Air Corps fighter pilot, takes command of the Chinese Air Force and organizes American pilots and planes for a campaign of secret air warfare against Japan before Pearl Harbor.


Title: THE R.A.T. FILES
Writer: Dale Whisman
Synopsis: A wealthy young man leaves his fancy home in the suburbs and goes undercover in the city slums to fight drug traffickers and to avenge the murder of a man he hated; his own father.


Title: RED AGENDA
Writer: William D. Prystauk
Synopsis: Detective Keagan of Philadelphia's Paranormal Crimes Unit learns the vampire
terrorist group Red Agenda is out for blood. Now Keagan, a shady vampire, and a trigger-happy tactical unit, have three days to sort through Philly's undead underground before the president visits the city of bloody love and ends up on Red Agenda's menu.


Title: ROSE BY NAME
Writer: Shawn Linden
Synopsis: When his mother is killed in an accident, a privileged young man discovers that he was the product of a violent rape, and sets out to track down his sinister biological father.


Title: SCAVENGERS
Writer: Diana Kemp-Jones
Synopsis: Banished from the City, bastion of the privileged elite, the survivors of a disease designed to cull millions face extinction unless an immune child can be transported to a refuge where a cure can be developed.


Title: SEAWARS
Writer: Michael Mouyal
Synopsis: Set 1999 years in the future. SKUBA must free his girlfriend CORALA from kidnappers while saving his underwater colony from extinction. Star wars meet top gun underwater.


Title: SECOND ECHOES
Writer: Lesley Sinclair
Synopsis: A 1980's surveyor risks her life to investigate nightmares from the 1745 campaign of "Bonnie Prince Charlie".


Title: SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY
Writer: Lisa Reznik
Synopsis: When the 1920s obscenity prohibitions were preventing James Joyce from publishing his revolutionary novel Ulysses, it was Sylvia Beach, proprietor of the legendary Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, who undertook the challenge of publishing and distributing the 800 + page manuscript.


Title: SOUTHERN MAN
Writer: Ian Grody
Synopsis: An American professor teaching in Nigeria and a Nigerian grass roots activist fight to get a power plant built in an oil-rich region of the Niger Delta- but the transnational energy company exploiting local resources will do anything and everything to keep the people of the Niger Delta "disempowered."


Title: SPLIT IMAGE
Writer: Charles Winecoff
Synopsis: Based on the book by Charles Winecoff, SPLIT IMAGE follows the journey of "Psycho" star Anthony Perkins from promising young actor to typecast movie monster "Norman Bates."  It also explores his complicated personal life as a closeted gay man who struggled to turn straight.


Title: SPINNING WHEEL, THE
Writer: Natashia Saunders
Synopsis: The Spinning Wheel tells the story of a naïve runaway slave and her unlikely friendship with a wild and crude Jewish prostitute as they struggle for survival in the Antebellum South.


Title: SPOOK
Writer: Michael Clifton
Synopsis: A Believer has an encounter with an UFO and a Spook makes himself known his guardian angel trying to escape the system from a sinister force of a Super Secret Organization of conspiracies elusive.


Title: SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT, THE
Writer: Joseph Kenny
Synopsis: Set against the spectacular backdrop of the Great Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee and North Carolina, The Swimmer Manuscript is a coming of age story based on the legends of the region and the sacred myths of the Cherokee. It pits a young, untested conjurer named Swimmer against the Widderman and a cadre of demon witches, as Swimmer seeks to avenge the death of his father and learns to utilize the powers he has inherited.


Title: THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE "A HOME"
Writer: Frank Rogala adapted from the book Retards, Rebels & Slackers by Jaina Bell
Synopsis: A desperate, penniless young woman finds her first real "home" when she's hired as "staff" in a group home for developmentally disabled adults.


Title: THUNDER, SWORD AND HALO
Writer: Frederick Flynn
Synopsis: Ariel struggles to choose sides as the rebellion in heaven becomes a battle, and he goes on a Hero's Journey to find meaning beyond the narrow existence he has known. Being an Angel of Knowledge he learns that the mind alone cannot comprehend existence, and that heart and soul are just as important.


Title: VATSUYANA GRILL
Writer: Gary Hebert
Synopsis: Working night and day at the soon-to-be-shut-down Varsity Roadhouse, college buds Matt and Dillon consult the Kama Sutra on their greatest challenge...obtaining the unobtainable girl.


Title: VERA
Writer: Caitlin McCarthy
Synopsis: VERA is based on the true story of Vera Laska who, as a young teen, defied statistics and lasted three years as a Czech Resistance fighter (instead of the average six months); survived Auschwitz as a political prisoner; and escaped the Nazis during a death march.


Title: VOICES
Writer: Susan Klos
Synopsis: A single mother struggles to balance a business and a new romance with family life when her daughter's increasingly strange behavior is diagnosed as schizophrenia. Ultimately, she must make the choice between the love of her life and the life of her child. Inspired by a true story.


Title: WHITE WATER
Writers: Michael S. Bandy and Eric Stein
Synopsis: Obsessed with the desire to taste the water from the "White's Only" drinking fountain, a seven year-old black kid in segregated 1963 Opelika, Alabama sets out on a quest to do the unthinkable: drink from it.


Title: WHY THINGS BURN
Writer: Alix Reeves
Synopsis: Michael is a teenager whose father is an imprisoned pedophile awaiting parole. Inspired by a late night conspiracy radio show, Michael decides to use his unique talent for mimicry and for orchestrating elaborate pranks, to entrap his father into breaking his parole.

 

image
sponsors
2012 Sign up for
Festival Updates
Name:
Email :
HOME | ABOUT THE FESTIVAL | FESTIVAL SERVICES | SPONSORSHIP | FESTIVAL 2012 | TERMS & CONDITIONS | CONTACT US |