Moonshot Feature Accelerator |
2024
6-8 screenwriters will be selected to receive 3 weeks of virtual industry training before pitching to studios, producers, investors, and reps.
Placement
Genre
Format
Representation Status
Finalists
100 Heartbreaks
Private
Finalist
Feature
· Comedy
· 105 Pages
"La La Land" meets "Walk the Line" in this country musical rom com. A struggling, aspiring country singer decides the only way to fame is to get her heart broken 100 times for the stories and the cred. The plan works hilariously well until she falls in love for real, and her entire identity begins to unravel. Set in dive bars and honky tonks with ne...
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Joanna Garner
No bio available.
Fight Like a Mother
Private
Finalist
Feature
· Drama
· 107 Pages
A weathered elite boxer on her final Olympic run faces a reckoning when she unexpectedly falls pregnant.
Meagan Noel Fulps is a former pro basketball player turned writer/director, originally from Denver, Colorado, and based in LA. As a storyteller, she is drawn to character-driven, slice-of-life narratives that subvert gender norms, explore identity, and challenge traditional family dynamics. Recently, she assisted and shadowed TV director Daisy von S...
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Finalist
Feature
· Drama
· 93 Pages
In a near-future America, a pregnant woman grows addicted to the VR simulation of a baby she can never have, spiraling into a battle between prolonging this fantasy and saving her marriage.
Brooklyn, NY
NYC-based actor from Bangalore, India. My love for performing started with Indian classical dance, continuing at Yale, where I double-majored in Political Science and Theater. Passionate about affecting change, I am drawn to the unique opportunity film offers to tell important stories and reach audiences far and wide.
Film/TV credits: IMDb.me/shuno...
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Finalist
Feature
· Drama
· 91 Pages
In the summer of 2001, an awkward teen with a suffocating home life discovers the local lesbian riot grrrl community at a video rental store where she learns to find herself and her community.
Los Angeles, California
Lulenoxx (they/them) is a queer filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Their work focuses mainly on the liberation of queer characters and the celebration of all things strange, while spanning the genres of comedy, young audiences and drama. As someone who grew up with a severe lack of queer representation in the media, they write the stories they didn’t h...
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Semifinalists
Semifinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 90 Pages
In 1816, a woman fights to heal from a mysterious illness while
a volcanic eruption across the globe triggers devastating climate change. Inspired by true historical events.
Los Angeles, CA
Though Ashley identifies as genre-fluid, her strength in thriller and horror may stem from her dad’s favorite pastime of scaring her with Halloween masks as a child. (She turned out mostly okay.) She attended film school in Los Angeles, and her writing has made her an Academy Nicholl Quarterfinalist, a LaunchPad Top 50 finalist, and she was selected...
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Semifinalist
Feature
· Horror
· 94 Pages
When a traumatized teacher desperate for an abortion discovers that her boyfriend is in a birth cult, she must find a way to escape his isolated family cabin and regain control of her body before the forced pregnancy — or her DIY abortion attempts — kill her.
Lancaster, CA
Brandy N. Carie is a playwright and screenwriter originally from Minnesota who writes about what happens when nice girls get mad. She won the 2024 Athena Film Festival Abortion Pipeline Project and was featured on the 2024 Dead List with her horror feature BABY, and has also won the Sloan/CMU Screenwriting Competition, and the Kennedy Center ACTF St...
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Guava Tree
Private
Semifinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 83 Pages
After discovering that her father has lied about their Cuban heritage, an eleven-year-old travels to Havana to meet the grandmother she thought had passed away.
Los Angeles, CA
María Alvarez is a Cuban-Dutch filmmaker and a USC Film Production graduate. A Rising Voices fellow (Hillman Grad / Indeed / 271 Films), she co-directed and co-wrote the short film “Last Days of the Lab,” which premiered at Tribeca, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was Oscar-qualified for Best Live Action Short at the 2024 Ac...
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Something is Rotten
Private
Semifinalist
Feature
· Thriller
· 101 Pages
Hamlet reimagined as a pitch-black comedy thriller about two estranged sisters (one living, one spectral) who set out to get revenge on the usurping cousin who would commit any sin to gain control of the family's exclusive castle hotel.
No bio available.
Quarterfinalists
A REAL PAIR
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Comedy
· 116 Pages
In the wake of bra burning, Miss America protests, and the legalization of birth control, the inventor of the sports bra is dominated by the opinions of her sentient breasts (and those of her business partner) during her incredible journey that would change the world of sports, and the very idea of women's freedom forever. (Inspired by a legendary r...
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Los Angeles, California
Lindsay holds an MFA in screenwriting from AFI. She has overseen two scripts from script to screen: SPOONER starring Matthew Lillard (SLAMDANCE) and DOUCHEBAG (SUNDANCE) both released theatrically. Lindsay is currently developing an interactive rom com with Effin' Funny, and adapting the book SEX WITH STRANGERS. She loves stories inspired by real li...
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Cheryl McCarthy's Death Day Party
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 102 Pages
When 76-year-old Cheryl McCarthy finds out she has cancer, she decides to plan an extravagant death day party to celebrate her departure from this earth. Juxtaposed with memories of her life and all the funerals she's been to, Cheryl's party brings together estranged family, close friends, and old lovers, making everyone realize that life isn't ever...
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- Verified WGA Member
Los Angeles, CA
Minoti Vaishnav has staffed on TRUE LIES (CBS) and THE EQUALIZER (CBS). She has also produced several scripted podcasts, including SOMEONE IS KILLING THE WOLFHOUNDS, which charted at #1 on the Apple Podcast Fiction Charts. Minoti is also a published short fiction author, a former reality TV development producer with 17 produced shows under her belt...
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Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Adventure
· 118 Pages
Desperate to find her missing mother, a young writer leaves behind 1930s Harlem to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, joining a world-renowned performer on a supernatural treasure hunt through the Caribbean.
New York, NY
As the mixed-race daughter of West Indian and Irish immigrants, my life is grounded in ghosts, grudges and glamour. I write high-concept, stylish features where the supernatural meets real-world adventure and of course, generational bonds weigh heavily on the minds of my characters. Because what’s a life without a little haunting by the ancestors?
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 92 Pages
Three female comedians of different generations find out that an alleged abuser is headlining the show tonight.
Los Angeles, California
Stephanie Weber is a Cuban American writer and comedian from Chicago. She performed standup and sketch comedy for years before attending SCAD to earn her MFA in screenwriting. Her writing can be found in Reductress, The AV Club, Mental Floss, Slate, and more. She wrote and directed the short film Real Live Girls.
EMANATE
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Fantasy
· 120 Pages
When an imaginative fourteen-year-old is threatened by the orchard farm manager where she works, her anger triggers her powers of emanation—the ability to conjure nature. In a world of eco-apartheid, she must defend her community from the military.
Brooklyn, NY
Claire Tran— based in Newark, NJ, but has lived all over the US. Placed in Austin Film Festival, WeScreenplay and others. Trained at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Roadmap Writers, and Upright Citizens Brigade, she brings a “yes and . . .” philosophy to the team. Born in Virginia, raised in Nebraska, Claire escaped to San Francisco to not be a lone ...
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Girls Camp
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Other
· 85 Pages
During their final year at church camp, two Mormon girls ignite an explosive romance, while their friend has conflicted feelings about it, making all three of them challenge their self-identity and hidden desires.
No bio available.
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Horror
· 84 Pages
After the passing of her monster of a mother, a young woman travels to Iceland to sell her mom’s childhood home... only to find a different kind of monster waiting for her.
- Verified WGA Member
Los Angeles, CA
Carol Bass is an Ubisoft Television Fellowship Winner, an AFF 2nd Rounder, and NBC’s Writers on the Verge Top 6%. She has writing credits on L.A.’S FINEST (Spectrum) and ALERT: MISSING PERSONS UNIT (Fox). Carol was born in Nashville, TN and majored in film at Cornell. She also published the YA fantasy novel CROWNS OF CAPFICI.
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Family
· 110 Pages
When a single, chaotic writer fosters a boy who thinks he's a dragon, she must embrace his imaginary world and share her own to heal them both and form a family. Based on a true story.
Top 25 Screenwriters To Watch - Network ISA. Single foster mom, UN aid worker, chaos specialist. Phoenix writes genre-benders about adventure, identity, racism and loss. Her social dramas, blended with whatever the muse brings, are told from her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. Phoenix is inspired by a son, who thinks he is a ...
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Laken's Bluff
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Thriller
· 116 Pages
Seeking a fresh start, an ex-con takes a job at an Appalachian summer camp, only to uncover a deadly werewolf curse she must break with the help of an 8-year-old camper before it consumes them both.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Kyra grew up in a northern Wisconsin town where cows outnumbered people. Now based in Charlotte, she spends her days editing commercials and her nights crafting stories that go beyond 30-second promos. When she's not writing or splicing together ads, she's out gathering inspiration on her motorcycle, letting Carolina backroads fuel her genre-bending...
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Last Man
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Comedy
· 131 Pages
When a radical plan to 'save the planet' makes all the men disappear, two bickering exes must team up to uncover the truth—before the world changes forever.
No bio available.
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Let Me Be You
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 120 Pages
At 62, twin sisters Rose and Betsy are an integral part of their small Midwestern community. When uninsured Rose is diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer, Betsy compels her to move to Florida, swap identities and fool the system, so Rose can access Betsy’s health insurance and—just maybe—save her life.
San Francisco, CA
I’ve published science and flamenco articles, but fiction is my calling and I’m eager to spill my motley life onto the page. I experienced Spain’s transition to democracy, been a racetrack jockey and a field, lab and computational scientist. Raised between the US and Spain, I’ve lived in Madrid, Navarra, Alaska, Georgia, and California. I’m a mother...
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Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Thriller
· 109 Pages
When a woman struggling with an unplanned pregnancy returns to Texas to help sell her rural childhood home, she finds the house has become a hoarding nightmare. But the real horror unfolds when she discovers that her once submissive mother is now taking violent measures to keep her home and her freedom.
Los Angeles, CA
Arianna Ortiz won the 2024 Stowe Launch Advanced Development Fellowship for her crime caper feature script THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF JAVIER ORTIZ. The project is also now on the 2024 Latine List; selected by The Blacklist, NALIP & The Latin Tracking Board as one of the top ten screenplays by emerging Latine writers.
Creatively, she leans into he...
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Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Historical
· 108 Pages
When a young Cockney woman becomes the model and muse for an acclaimed painter, they form a marriage of convenience that rocks Victorian society and inspires George Bernard Shaw’s "Pygmalion."
London, GB
Erin is a writer and script coordinator with fifteen years of experience in film and television. Past projects include Spider-Man: No Way Home, How I Met Your Mother, The Man in the High Castle, and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Erin co-wrote the penultimate episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
Prior to completing her MA in Script W...
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Phoenix
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 107 Pages
An elder Black woman fights notions of ageism for a seat on the first commercial flight to Mars.
New York, NY
Gernell Welcher is an African-American writer and pop culture junkie who develops character-driven scripts for both TV and Features. She specializes in creating flawed, emotionally dented characters that delight in skewering the status quo.
Ms. Welcher currently works in Influencer Marketing, producing award winning content. She received her Mas...
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Sound of My Dreams
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Fantasy
· 99 Pages
A closeted trans girl shares telepathic dreams with her girl crush. Upon discovering her crush likes boys, she decides to overcome her femininity and become the boy her crush will fall in love with.
Los Angeles, CA
Miida Chu is a writer-director who writes high concept sci-fi fantasies of queer experience. Her short film EUREKA won the prestigious Golden Reel Award at the 38th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, which qualifies the film for award consideration for the Academy Award. Miida holds a BA in philosophy from New York University and an MFA in fil...
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The Boat
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Horror
· 109 Pages
After shipwreck survivors are left adrift in the Devil’s Triangle, they must face their inner demons or succumb to the evil lurking below the boat. Either way, a monster reveals itself.
No bio available.
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 95 Pages
A counter-terrorist agent discovers her brother is the prime suspect in a terrorist plot.
A finalist at the recent Urbanworld Screenplay contest, Rashmi is a NY Screenwriting Fellow with the WGAE and FilmNation. In addition, Rashmi is a Baldwin For the Arts Fellow, an honor founded by Jacqueline Woodson, recognizing commitment to arts and advocacy. A versatile artist, Rashmi is an AUDELCO-nominated actress who has worked with Ed Zwick an...
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Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 98 Pages
6-year-old Bee is convinced that her mother (Darcy) is turning into a werewolf. In reality, Darcy suffers from an alcohol addiction. As Darcy’s alcohol abuse worsens, Bee blurs reality with her imagination: believing that she knows the cure and can save her mother before the full moon.
Los Angeles, CA
Alicia Herder is an award-winning writer-director and Spirit Award and GLAAD Media Award nominated producer. Her work is intersectional, feminist, and unapologetically fantastical. THE GIRL WHO CRIED WOLF was a 2024 Semifinalist at the Austin Film Festival, a 2024 Finalist for the PGA Create program, and a 2023 Finalist for the PANO Microgrant.
...
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The Politician
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Comedy
· 91 Pages
A young Ghanaian-British student at the prestigious Anfield School in Massachusetts finds herself drawn into the American presidential election conversation when her love of rap gets her into a sticky situation.
No bio available.
The Unraveling
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Horror
· 109 Pages
When a French nobleman saves a mysterious young woman in the forest , he lends her refuge at his estate and they bond through marriage, only then coming to understand neither are who or what they appear to be…
Los Angeles, CA
Samantha Mallory is a writer/director based in Los Angeles, specializing in sci-fi, horror, and fantasy stories with female protagonists that have to face the darkness within. She was a Top 10 Finalist in Stage 32’s New Voices in Animation (along with her writing partner Kelly Eisenbrand), a Semi-Finalist in the Atlanta Film Festival Feature Screen...
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Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 109 Pages
A coming-of-age dramedy that follows a queer, Chinese-Canadian teenager, Meg, and her emotionally stoic father, Colin, traveling on a road trip from Toronto to Los Angeles to catch the next solar eclipse. But Meg has a secret plan: to find her mother at a mental health facility and bring her home.
Los Angeles, CA
www.melmah.com
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 114 Pages
During the Space Race, aging aviatrix Jackie Cochran funds a program to find qualified women for astronaut training but the rivalry between Jackie and the young frontrunner threatens to ground the program for good.
Glendale, CA
K. Michelle Stewart is a former hula dancer and roller derby player who lives to tell stories and push limits. As a biracial writer, she is drawn to characters caught between worlds who must find their hidden strength. Kim helps audiences explore complex worlds they may have only heard about through characters they feel like they know.
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Comedy
· 109 Pages
A horny hijabi Texas teen races to get an abortion in post-abortion America, navigating underground clinics, vigilante car chases, and her own perfectionism, with her activist bestie, grandmother, and a Bollywood chorus in tow.
No bio available.
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Thriller
· 105 Pages
A misguided single mother makes a series of mistakes culminating in a car accident that strands her with a charismatic but dangerous man deep in the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Trying to escape, she gets lost in the woods where desperation forces her to partner with him to survive and return to her children.
Brooklyn, New York
Writer/Director Andrea Ashton’s shorts and pilots have garnered dozens of film festival awards, critical love, thousands of views, and even an archive in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A Californian turned Brooklynite, she’s been a second-rounder for both Sundance and Film Independent’s Writing Labs and was one of only 8 women sele...
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Work
Private
Quarterfinalist
Feature
· Drama
· 94 Pages
A struggling photographer seeking independence is drawn back to sex work, igniting an intoxicating affair that could unravel her life.
Los Angeles, California
April Maxey is a writer/director from San Antonio, Texas passionate about stories that center underrepresented perspectives and thematically explore the complexities of queer intimacy, grief, belonging, and healing. Her short film Work, screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding US Narrative Short at Outfest. April i...
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Fellows
Fellow
Feature
· Drama
· 109 Pages
When a young woman forced into domestic slavery in London discovers her long-lost sister is being held by a gang of human traffickers, she must race against time and her own captors to mount a rescue
London, GB
Sylvia-Anne’s journey to screenwriting began as a script supervisor working with directors Danny Boyle, Cary Fukunaga, Kenneth Branagh, Yorgos Lanthimos and Nia DaCosta. She enjoys creating stories helmed by women of color who have a strong sense of purpose and identity.
A Fellow of the Sundance Episodic Program, Sylvia-Anne has developed a ho...
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A Singular Girl
Private
Fellow
Feature
· Sci-fi
· 110 Pages
A lonely student steals an AI “with a soul” and falls wildly in love. But when her AI claims to be a real human, she must set out on a dangerous mission to rescue her mysterious companion from a tech-god.
Los Angeles, CA
Katerina is an award-winning writer/director based in Los Angeles. She earned an MFA in Film & TV Production from USC and was the Director of Productions at XR Stage, an immersive film studio.
Katerina is a 2024 Next List screenwriter, 2025 Russo Brothers Filmmaking grant winner, 2025 Moonshot Feature accelerator fellow, 2024 ScreenCraft Screenw...
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DEADBEAT
Private
Fellow
Feature
· Horror
· 106 Pages
Sisters Simone and Ray return to their childhood home and have a magical reunion with their deadbeat dad - the day after his funeral.
Lauren Brown is a “walking encyclopedia of film history”, a tarot reader, a maximalist, and a writer-director of gothic horror about Black women and families. Her short film, A Wake, screened at the 2020 San Diego Black Film Festival, Women in Horror Film Festival, and Screamfest Horror Film Festival, and it earned her a spot in the 2020 Women in Fi...
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Fellow
Feature
· Drama
· 115 Pages
A Type A recovering addict desperately seeks her dying mother’s approval but the only way to earn it is by bringing home her newfound picture-perfect half-brother who is everything she should have been.
Portland, OR
Julia is a writer/producer/actor based in Portland and Los Angeles. Produced credits include "Dragonfly" (animated short film), "JesusCat (or How I Accidentally Joined a Cult)" (feature film), "Sin & Lyle" (short film), "Twenty-Two" (play), and "American Comedy Horror Story" (fiction podcast). Julia is also a freelance script analyst, the Short Film...
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Fellow
Feature
· Sci-fi
· 101 Pages
In a bedazzled, 90s retro-tinged dystopian society, a low-level bureaucrat makes a mistake on the job and gets forcibly enrolled in a life-threatening medical trial that makes her question her loyalties.
Nashville, TN
Briana was born and raised in Tullahoma, TN — a town inexplicably found on state maps. (It just got a Publix!) She is the oldest of seven children and a first-generation academic with degrees in cognitive linguistics, Japanese language, and speech-language pathology. In 2019, she became a fellow with the TN Playwrights Studio and has been writing s...
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This Is Our Home
Private
Fellow
Feature
· Drama
· 101 Pages
No logline available.
No bio available.
Fellow
Feature
· Comedy
· 110 Pages
A recurring meet-cute but make it super gay! A fateful road trip sets pragmatic Ani and idealistic Jo on the path from reluctant travel companions to platonic just friends (mean it) and finally (finally!) enthusiastic lovers… Until Jo’s pregnancy and charismatic midwife Cris force them to reimagine their relationship(s).
Albuquerque, NM
While earning her screenwriting MFA from Stephens College, Elizabeth hugged the inimitable Winnie Holzman and was instantly imbued with the singular grit of storytelling mothers.
Now a flourishing Stowe Story Labs Launch Fellow, ISA FastTrack Finalist, WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Finalist, George R.R. Martin Screenwriting Grant Finalist, LA Int...
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