Winners
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The Face of the Earth
Amanda J. Bermudez • Drama • Feature • 115 pages
In a perilous reversal of image and anonymity, a Japanese-American model enters Witness Protection after exposing a sex trafficking ring, but her idyllic new life – and nascent romance with an erudite barmaid – are threatened by a brutal ex-flame and her own mortal obsession with the public eye.
Finalists
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Elephant in a Safeway Bag
Roderick Stevens • Drama • Feature • 110 pages
River, a feisty young man with Down syndrome is determined to get to the Grand Canyon in spite of his scatterbrained brother, a tenacious lawman, an escaped convict, a runaway bride and Elvis Presley. Part road movie and part noir thriller, yet ultimately about learning to let go, River takes place in Arizona during a hot, summer day in 1982. Imagine “No Country for Old Men” meets "Little Miss Sunshine"!
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A BETTER PLACE
Katterina Powers • Western • Feature • 114 pages
A penniless heiress, in search of her family, is stranded alone on the western frontier, but after crossing paths with The Wild Bunch, she is torn between her pursuit of truth and embracing her inner outlaw, as she becomes the legendary fugitive, Etta Place.
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Estevan the Black
Michael Choi, Karl Bauer • Drama • Feature • 96 pages
Based on historical events. In 1528, the largest Conquistador army ever assembled set sail for the New World to discover and conquer the golden city - Cibola. Among the expedition’s ranks was a slave, Estevan, the first African to set foot in North America. An army of 600 went in search of the golden city. Only five survived.
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Californio
Pedro Fernandez • Western • Feature • 97 pages
Manifest Destiny turns its eyes to California. The winds of change strike two young men who grew up as brothers. Now they find themselves pitted against each other. One is the most notorious bandit in the land; the other is the lawman that chases him.
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The Polish Medallion
Siovonne Smith • Drama • Feature • 115 pages
Logline: Women are War Heroes... too. Synopsis: Life's not always what you expect. Stena and her young son are traveling to Warsaw at the start of World War II when their stable lives suddenly explode. The face of their future flips and everyone must reinvent themselves to survive. Through fateful connections and adaptability Stena transforms herself into an underground agent and becomes immersed in the perils and horrors of the Holocaust and World War II. When a secret assignment forces Stena into the darkness and atrocities of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, Stena views humanity at its worst and best. Through it all love, lives, and destiny intertwine and change forever and Stena discovers that war changes you... and everyone. Based on a true story "The Polish Medallion" unfolds the ravages of war, survival, and love... sometimes when you least expect it. War. Reinvention. Holocaust. Intrigue. "The Polish Medallion" is adapted from the novel "Memories of Smoke & Ashes" A World War II Story by Andre Pohlman.
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Dukkha
Rachana Suri • Drama • Feature • 110 pages
Set against the tragedy of the 2013 Rana Plaza manufacturing plant in Bangledesh where over 1,000 laborers were killed. An impoverished Indian farmer arranges his daughters' marriage abroad in hopes of a better life, instead she is sold into a labor trafficking. Now she must do everything she can in order to save her sister from the same fate and free her fellow abductees.
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DARUMA
Kelli McNeil • Drama • Feature • 100 pages
(Little Miss Sunshine meets Born on the Fourth of July meets Bad Santa) Logline: PATRICK (30s, bitter paraplegic) must enlist the help of his detestable neighbor ROBERT (60s, double arm amputee) to transport the four-year-old daughter he never knew he had to live with her maternal grandparents on the other side of the country.
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ON THE WING
Lynn Esta Goldman • Drama • Feature • 112 pages
After a miraculous recovery from a terminal illness, a young African-American woman sets out to confront the mother who abandoned her – but first she must contend with an eleven-year old boy from a chaotic foster home who insists on coming along.
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Enfect
Bo Shim • Drama • Feature • 100 pages
Upon retiring, Dr. Gao Yaojie discovers a secret the Chinese government is trying to hide: widespread AIDS outbreaks in rural areas, caused by the government's own unsanitary blood market. She decides to help those affected despite the risks it might pose her family.
Semifinalists
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Black and Blonde
Klaudia Morawa, Bradley Carter • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 61 pages
Jennifer Robbins, a rookie police officer, gets her dream assignment to the Missing Persons Unit. There, she's partnered with Nikki Black, a seasoned detective battling alcoholism after the suicide of her husband.
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Molokai Channel
Holly Sereni • Drama • Feature • 106 pages
At age 11, Scotty develops a mortal fear of the one thing he had always loved most: the ocean. Twenty years later, he is compelled by mysterious signs to break parole and pull together his childhood friends to race their old outrigger canoe across the world's most treacherous ocean crossing.
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The Laundromat
Dorothy Kozak Snoke • Thriller • Feature • 108 pages
When an FBI raid against a drug cartel goes awry, two young female victims are caught in the crossfire, one a mother struggling to stay alive, and the other, the autistic daughter of the agent tasked with bringing the cartel to justice.
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Scattering Jake
Erica Tachoir • Comedy • Feature • 105 pages
When Kolby discovers that her dead husband knocked up her best friend, she dumps his ashes down the kitchen sink—the night before a road trip to scatter those very ashes. Now, clutching his empty urn in a car with her in-laws and (surprise!) the cheerful stranger who has his transplanted heart, Kolby must find replacement ashes or own up to the truth.
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From God And Family I Descend
Josephine Pulu Bezzina • Drama • Feature • 122 pages
Kingdom of Tonga. A woman finds herself caught in a web of deceit and intrigue , when a noble leader is murdered and officials request a detective from Australia to come and investigate. The detective falls in love with the woman, who unbeknownst to him is secretly following her own hunches on the case. What she uncovers will test them both, and ultimately the woman must choose between protecting her family or her freedom.
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Mr Big Hero
Tom Nolan • Comedy • Feature • 96 pages
When a gangster comes for revenge and the police won’t help, a hapless shopkeeper must turn to his wife and the local community – but he doesn’t want to worry his wife and the locals are all ‘busy’ that day. That leaves only his imaginary friend, who at least has the virtue of being Wyatt Earp.
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Sandwich Man
Dwayne Conyers • Comedy • Television (Half-hour) • 30 pages
The owner of a trendy sandwich shop discovers a new customer is his daughter. He is clueless what to do with a 15-year-old girl he never knew existed. Her mother is adamant that she return home immediately. Neither realizes that the girl has a hidden agenda.
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Urban Ed
Wade Wofford • Feature • 88 pages
Logline: A small charter school in the inner city closes in the middle of the school year. As five former students transition to their new school, they struggle to reconcile the conflicting lessons the world around them is teaching. Tagline: Who's teaching what?
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THE DISEASE
Khalil Sullins • Horror • Feature • 117 pages
After planting evidence to convict the wrong man of serial murder, a Latina police detective diagnosed with terminal breast cancer must confront her own ethnic identity as she searches for the true culprit behind a gruesome killing spree that ignites race riots in Mobile, Alabama.
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Holier Than Thou
Kelsey Cressman • Drama • Television (Half-hour) • 35 pages
Following a stint in prison for drug possession, Bea moves back home with her tough mother who is determined to fix her daughter's broken life. Joined by her older brothers - a Bourdain wannabe Youtube "star" and a freshly divorced cup salesman on the brink of a breakdown - the suddenly reunited family must finally lift the rug and atone for a lifetime of Catholic repression.
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The 51st State
Nkosi White • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 55 pages
As the city of Washington, DC begins a long journey to Statehood, the visions of this path diverge when a young man from the projects clashes with a progressive, but conservative politician with goals of becoming governor, and gentrifying that young man's neighborhood.
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Rumspringa
Marc Moody • Drama • Feature • 98 pages
Two young Amish men from Pawnee City, Nebraska go through Rumspringa, a time Amish youth are allowed social freedom before officially joining the church, when both fall in love with each other – discovered, ex-communicated and forced out from their safe Amish community into the unknown world of “the English”.
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Blue Lace
Kristen Twomey • Television • 55 pages
Years after her brother's death, a French noble investigates the truth behind it - even though doing so brings his widow (her ex-best friend and ex-lover) back into her life and risks their secret past together destroying the careful life she's built.
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The Flying Dutchman
Chris Taylor • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 65 pages
Cliff House is a self-help community of men who survived sexual assault at some time during their lives. When a pedophile masterminds a smear campaign to attack their credibility, a proud, but reclusive survivor must choose between allowing it to destroy the community or publicly recount his shame.
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Lavender Panthers
L.M. Harter • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 60 pages
San Francisco, 1973. Publicly out Reverend Ray Broshears forms a gay vigilante group to patrol and protect the Castro and Tenderloin districts from a gray VW van, at the ready with pool cues, chains and attitude. They called themselves the Lavender Panthers.
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DANNEMORA
Matt Williams, Andrew Griffiths • Drama • Feature • 99 pages
An African American war veteran wrongfully imprisoned for criminal insanity battles against a corrupt corrections system and his own inner demons to single handedly petition the Supreme Court to free him and thousands of other inmates. Based on a true story.
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The Centenarian's Birthday Party
Raymond Anderson • Drama • Feature • 119 pages
When a disowned homosexual accepts a secret invitation to his father’s 100th birthday party, back in homophobic Jamaica, he dreams of mending fences and dancing with his estranged teenage daughter. But his conservative, evangelical and angry ex wife, along with her powerful brother, have other plans. Things are about to get real for everyone involved.
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Spitfires
Brandon Botta, Casey Tollett Botta • Sci-fi • Television (One-hour) • 61 pages
When a planet in their system is destroyed, a ragtag squadron of female fighter pilots embarks on a mission to track down the aliens responsible. But what they discover causes them to question their allegiance to the galactic government they had sworn to protect.
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The Life - Another Day in The Life
George Perez • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 64 pages
A New York City cop, a prosecutor, an advocate and a private investigator all wage a non-stop war against pimps and sex-traffickers, despite the emotional toll it takes on their lives, in an effort to rescue underage victims.
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The Pysanky Connection
Phineas Fiske • Comedy • Feature • 107 pages
When bumbling Soviet spies out to steal nuclear secrets hidden in an Easter egg mistakenly kidnap a six-year-old boy, bereaved NYPD Detective Ivan Ardan risks everything to rescue the boy and recover the egg — and rediscovers love in the bargain.
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PRIDE & PRESIDENT
John Pisano-Thomsen • Drama • Feature • 114 pages
Before dying, the FLOTUS confronts the POTUS about a gay affair, forcing him to reflect on his true nature, while a prominent evangelical Senator struggles with his son’s sexual awakening. Once a world leader and a teen face their truths, comedy and tragedy ensue to bring their two worlds together.
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Gold Medal Domination
Karolyn Carnie • Comedy • Feature • 101 pages
An FBI analyst, dreams of getting over her inability to read people to one day be a field agent, and a complacent Boston traffic cop, that was forced into this line of work by the his Chief of Police father, and has always wanted to be the next Elvis Stojko, will both get their chances to live their dreams when they are tapped to go undercover at the winter Olympics to thwart a terrorist attack.
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Transcendence
Christine Shin • Fantasy • Television (One-hour) • 55 pages
This fantasy drama series centers on a 911 emergency call operator, who is thrown into an unexpected relationship and collaboration, when her husband is murdered on their wedding day and secretly returns to life in the body of a police officer.
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JUST SOUTH OF NORMAL
Ellen Gerstein • Comedy • Television (Half-hour) • 35 pages
Just South Of Normal, is a dramedy series that centers around two high functioning men with developmental disabilities who together take on the world. As they encounter a society with a broad spectrum of people and experiences you may ask… “Normal”? What is “NORMAL”?
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Reckless Notion 99
Kathie Scholl • Thriller • Feature • 125 pages
A reformed, Irish hit man living in the US Witness Protection Program, is forced out of hiding by revenge seekers who use members of his family who are Black, know nothing of his criminal past, and believe he is dead, to lure him into their death trap.
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The Institution
Christopher Crane • Drama • Television (One-hour) • 60 pages
A classical music-loving kid from the 'burbs and a troubled hot-head from South Central must learn how to go along to get ahead in a lilly-white college football mountain town while trying to lock down roster spots before fall. Meanwhile, a controversial coaching hire turns the campus on its ear. The Institution is the child of Friday Night Lights and A Different World, if it were adopted by The Wire.
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Cowboy Bob
Melissa Emery • Historical • Feature • 104 pages
In Texas in the 1990s, a lonely middle-aged woman sends a seasoned FBI agent on a wild goose chase by robbing banks dressed like an old male cowboy. She does this at first to pay off crippling medical debts but then can't stop because it feeds her yearning for adventure.
