Meet Our Winners & Finalists
Eddie Prunoske – 2023 Grand Prize Winner
Bottle BlondesAl and Bea, an effeminate gay boy and heavyset Asian girl, are best friends and teenage pariahs. Their alliance is tested when their overlapping romantic pursuits turn dangerously deluded.
Jannik Ohlendieck – 2023 Feature Winner
The Black SheepA pair of hapless stepbrothers on the search for their lost pet sheep witness a failed IRA kneecapping and attempt to protect the intended “victim”. A darkly comic game of cat and mouse ensues until everything gets out of hand.
Zan Gillies – 2023 Pilot Winner
On The Skulls of GiantsIn the wake of the Civil War, two social-climbing paleontologists develop a bitter rivalry in search of dinosaur bones, which drives them to the lawless frontier of the American Wild West.
Eva Everett Irving – 2023 Short Winner
F*ck YouIn a world where everyone has turned to euthanasia, a young ballet teacher decides what her future holds.
Guy Ducker – 2023 Fellini Winner
SavioursWhen the Galactic Federation occupy Earth to save the planet from humanity, the Green Party leader accepts the job of UK Prime Minister, but must face down a violent resistance movement bent on toppling her.
Nicola Fletcher – 2023 Feature Finalist
Plate O'ShrimpFollowing the violent death of his mother, 16-year-old Sam’s life is turned on its head as he tries to fulfil the promise he made to Summer, his unrequited and coma- stricken love.
Michael Leung – 2023 Feature Finalist
The AngelSan Francisco, 1940. As fears of Chinese immigration grip the U.S., an upper-class lady from Hong Kong finds herself cruelly detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station. As strange dark forces lurk among the deeply superstitious detainees, she must stay sane and survive their ever present terror.
Samantha Sewell – 2023 Feature Finalist
Is Anyone There Anymore?When Eleanor professes her love to her boyfriend, then murders his pet fish, she and her kid sister, Leone, venture into the desert seeking atonement.
Conor Hanney – 2023 Pilot Finalist
Suspend Your DisbeliefA group of teens with special needs learns empathy through improv from the shittiest person in school.
Ginny Hogan – 2023 Pilot Finalist
The Party LineAt the start of the Cold War, a self-important obituary writer starts dating President Truman’s rebellious, sulky daughter and finds himself in the middle of a Communist conspiracy. A quirky, 1940s The Great meets Veep.
Paul X Sanchez IV – 2023 Pilot Finalist
Latin "X"Romeo a 15-yr-old, Hispanic/LatinX, punk-rocker, searches for Identity and acceptance with his ad-hoc family of outsiders as they battle racism and homophobia when his White, single-mother, in an act of defiance, moves their family to her childhood hometown of Darien, CT, an affluent, conservative, lily-white, cisgender, Reagan-era, shithole.
Elijah Barry – 2023 Short Film Script Finalist
It Won't Always Be Like ThisOn the long way back to her parents’ house a mother attempts to start over with her son.
Bryan Harlow – 2023 Short Film Script Finalist
Burning VirtueEllen McNulty, fresh out of prison after 20 years, is suddenly faced with a dilemma between helping a young girl escape Texas to seek an abortion or turning her over to the Right-Wing militia members hunting her down for the governor's bounty.
Sufiyaan Salam & Luis Hindman – 2023 Short Film Script Finalist
Magid-ZafarTwo childhood friends confront their diverging futures amidst the heat of a busy Pakistani takeaway.
Walid Said – 2023 Short Film Script Finalist
My Little OliveFatima, a young girl obsessed with collecting olives, does whatever she can to protect her little jar of olives as she, her sister, and father struggle to escape the onset of a war.
Agnes Skonare Karlsson – 2022 Grand Prize Winner
Berry PickersDuring an exceptionally hot summer in Sweden, a Thai migrant worker has to navigate the forest and his increasingly quarrelsome relationship with his older brother, in order to find the blueberries needed to afford passage home.
Lu Asfaha – 2022 Feature Winner and Fellini Award Winner
The Fly That Doesn’t Listen Follows The Corpse Into The GraveA former shut-in returns to her childhood home to care for her ailing mother, and is confronted by the ghosts of her family's sins.
Nicole Ballivian – 2022 Pilot Winner
YemmaEmma, a 9-year-old New Yorker with a genetic polyglottal superpower, loses her entire family on 9/11, so she decides to kill Osama Bin Laden. Emma travels by land down through Latin America, then sails over the Atlantic, treks all across the Muslim World, meeting girls and women who fight their own lives' struggles, forming a lifelong sisterhood. After 10 years, Emma accomplishes her task in Abbottabad.
Kahyun Kim – 2022 Short Script Winner
Happy LaundryA young boy finds himself in the realm of a water spirit when his dead friend’s clothing is washed in his family’s laundromat. There he must decide what price he’s willing to pay in order to stake claim to his independence with help from the paranormal.
Bradley Hathaway – 2022 Feature Finalist
Old Man Young Man SnakeA teenage boy is on the run in the middle of a North Dakota winter. He finds refuge at a secluded camp run by a mysterious old man that may or may not have his best interests in mind.
Heidi Hayward – 2022 Feature Finalist
BunnyA Portland trustafarian faces his hypocrisy after meeting a homeless woman in front of his luxury condo.
Laurie Jones – 2022 Feature Finalist
The FeelersA seemingly put-together teacher impulsively invites her socially-awkward neighbor to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner, the first holiday since her boyfriend’s unexpected suicide.
Alexander Blum – 2022 Pilot Finalist
LogosA young woman becomes addicted to a streaming service that creates original TV based on its users' dreams. When a feisty old friend convinces her she is being brainwashed, they form a plan to bring down the company.
Sergio Cervantes – 2022 Pilot Finalist
Esperanza's WorldWhen the city of Los Angeles threatens to demolish her barrio to make way for Dodger Stadium, a middle aged nobody, Esperanza Trejo, must find the resolve to fight back.
Michael Zammit – 2022 Pilot Finalist
HONK!Too Asian for ‘White’ roles and too white for ‘Asian’ roles, a hard-up actress, struggling with her racial identity, begins work at a bizarre clown agency that functions as her long overdue therapy.
George Ellzey Jr. – 2022 Short Film Script Finalist
Cottage GroveCottage Grove follows a young man who struggles to communicate with his stroke-afflicted father in a grocery store parking lot while at the same time staying true to himself.
Laura Quigley – 2022 Short Film Script Finalist
RoomAlbert Wetherby is tired of being lonely and orders some company, but the young woman who arrives is so much more than he ever expected.
Cristine Chambers – 2022 Short Film Script Finalist
Surrender DorothyA desperate woman faces an ethical crisis when her husband of sixty years becomes trapped waiting for surgery in an overwhelmed New York hospital.
Pollyanna Stevens – 2022 Short Film Script Finalist
TamarinA poverty-stricken father grappling with unemployment in Rio de Janeiro is forced to consider the lengths he’ll go to in order to provide for his son.
Faizan Kareem – 2021 Grand Prize Winner
AstrayA widowed Muslim doctor who also happens to be an aspiring Imam, grapples with his faith when his child reveals their transgender identity.
Beverly Chukwu – 2021 Feature Winner
Prince of Lavendale StreetA 12-year-old romantic’s life goes from fairy-tale to nightmare as he clashes with his widowed Nigerian mother in order to find his princess and fulfill his father’s dying wish.
Nathan Karimi – 2021 Pilot Winner
All the Sons of Bitches in the WorldAfter the accidental murder of their White classmate, three MOWA Choctaw boys escape the Gladstone Assimilation Academy and hatch a plan to raise money at the John L. Sullivan heavyweight championship.
Julianna Gelinas Bonifacio – 2021 Short Winner
Little Orange FlagsTwelve-year-old Iris is sent to live on a farm in rural Pennsylvania after an encounter with her mom's boyfriend.
Brennig Hayden – 2021 Fellini Award Winner
CwtchA conservative mother investigates the circumstances surrounding the death of her estranged son, pulling her into the criminal underworld of county line crime and the life of a young immigrant.
Benedict Cohen – 2021 Feature Finalist
AbilityWhen a corrupt official steals their benefits, a veteran must convince an oddball crew of disability claimants to help him pull off a heist.
David Hoffman – 2021 Feature Finalist
The UnderstudyAfter twenty years as a journeyman actor, Chester Knapp finally takes the stage as a leading man on the same night his nemesis has chosen to kill Abraham Lincoln.
Rachel Werbel – 2021 Feature Finalist
Bear Spray and CakeA comedic drama that follows Marilyn as she weather's the storm (an actual storm) at her long-time lover's rustic weekend wedding-- with her alcoholic mother.
Alison Lynch – 2021 Pilot Finalist
Dead-End JobWhen the manager of a newspaper's obituary call center dies, an underachieving employee struggles to compose the perfect tribute for her enigmatic boss.
Haley Bresnahan – 2021 Pilot Finalist
All Turned OutWhen two former dancers inherit their childhood studio from their eccentric dance teacher, their clashing visions unearth their adolescent dynamic as sworn frenemies.
Jimmy Prosser & Rohan Shankar – 2021 Pilot Finalists
DimebagIn a rapidly gentrifying San Diego, a power-tripping weed plant and a coughed-up lung convince a young couple to open a “cannabis-infused” home restaurant to exact revenge on the DEA and a local cheesesteak empire.
Eli Lutsky – 2021 Short Finalist
Lone StarA surreal journey into the subconscious mind of George W. Bush as he becomes lost in thought during a moment of crisis.
Jorge Sistos Moreno – 2021 Short Finalist
In FreedomA couple of indigenous Guatemalans receive an unexpected visitor threatening to throw their lives into complete disarray.
Leah Chen Baker- 2021 Short Finalist
BelatedAn absent mother desperately attempts to win her young daughter's affection during a belated birthday celebration but risks straining the relationship further.
Rami Obeid – 2021 Short Finalist
PuppetsA social worker is surprised at a boy’s determined plan to help his sick mother.
Jane Barr – 2020 Grand Prize Winner
An American TaleAn African American woman recounts the story of her life in the form of a tall tale too fantastic to be fully believed.
Joe Borg – 2020 Feature Winner
Sundays OnlyAn unconventional love story between Shannagh, a free thinker with bipolar, and Pete, a guarded ex-con battling with bulimia – shown only through their weekly dates on Sundays.
Tevin Knight – 2020 Pilot Winner
SquadFollowing the lives of four black boys in their church community after an accidental death sends shockwaves through their home lives and friendship.
Aaron Richmond-Havel – 2020 Short Winner
Calle ColaAn amateur film-maker becomes distracted by romance while making a documentary about his activist community fighting against a predatory soda company.
Laura Dobre – 2020 Fellini Winner
FocusA suicidal reporter becomes the object of a serial killer's affections.
Allison Webster – 2020 Feature Finalist
SonCharlotte Wells, a liberal mother in the hell-stained armpits of rich Texas suburbia, faces her worst fear: having raised a rapist son in the era of Trump. Through this realization, she faces her own morality and decides whether or not her son's punishment is her responsibility.
Amanda Krader – 2020 Feature Finalist
Diabolus in MusicaA young woman discovers that her antique piano can eat her enemies. And she's got a lot of enemies.
Edith Rodriguez – 2020 Feature Finalist
South Side GirlsSet in the early 2000s, a reclusive teenager and her outspoken best friend lean on each other to navigate troubled home lives and problematic first loves in a Puerto Rican south side neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI.
Jared Lopez – 2020 Pilot Finalist
Fear of TremblingIn the wake of his grandfather's death, a repressed teenage evangelist begins receiving prophetic visions from God, forcing him to confront his faith, family, and fear of the apocalypse.
Jesenia Ruiz – 2020 Pilot Finalist
Entre Nos (Between Us)A Mexican family divided by the US-Mexico border that centers on the oldest daughter, Lupita, who, after her brother is suddenly deported to Mexico, struggles to keep her family together while raising her younger siblings, one of which is pregnant.
Liam Hale – 2020 Pilot Finalist
Our VisionBy adulthood everyone has had a vision that maps out their future: Penny will marry a stranger, Paul will die tragically, and Todd’s going to be a serial killer. Knowing one’s destiny certainly makes life simpler; but Molly has decided to take fate into her own hands.
Allison Theveny – 2020 Short Finalist
Hat WeatherThirteen-year-old Kathleen does not want anyone to know her dark secret, least of all her best friend Annie, but there are monsters lurking in the snowy woods that just might make hiding, whether you’re Kathleen or anyone else, impossible.
Kristian Mercado Figueroa – 2020 Short Finalist
Hawk BellsA story told via the perspective of a Taino Indigenous mother and daughter during Puerto Rico's colonization. We experience their day to day lives and the violent shift as we explore the practice of slavery and usage of Hawk Bells during that time period.
Laurel Kulow – 2020 Short Finalist
All You Want to KnowAfter realizing she had been sexually assaulted by her gynecologist years before, Sasha looks back at specific moments in her life that have stayed with her because she doubted her gut feeling and grappled with how people perceived her and how she perceived herself.
Oliver Giles – 2020 Short Finalist
PebbleAn adolescent Boy and Girl see their final days out in quarantine after a mysterious virus sweeps through the country, killing all those infected on a specific 'expiry' date.
Ariel Sobel – 2019 Feature Winner
Fox HollowAfter losing her home to Hurricane Sandy, a closeted high school senior checks into the last hotel with a vacant room ― a five-star luxury inn – where she’s forced to live with her family in one room for six months.
Benjamin Christopher – 2019 Hour Pilot Winner
Tenth StreetEvery 200 years, all living residents of Angel City vanish without a trace. It's about to happen again, and the only person who can stop it is a hapless loser who's the last living descendant of the town's protectors.
Katie Blair – 2019 Half-Hour Pilot Winner
ClayOn Manhattan's rigid Upper East Side, a socially and physically uncomfortable woman embarks on a fraught path to sue her own family's pharmaceutical company over the drug that gave her life-altering side effects. A dark comedy.
Swetha Regunathan – 2019 Shorts Winner
Forever TonightAn Indian-American girl wrestles with her otherness at a pre-prom gathering.
Eleanor Kirk – 2019 Fellini Winner
Learning CurveThe brainy but emotionally tone-deaf Sam Widge joins the eclectic assortment of staff at Shirley Dirley's tuition centre, where they seem to focus on anything other than actually teaching.
Eric LaPlante & Susie Moon – 2019 Feature Finalists
AlejandraA geology professor juggling menopause, an elderly mother with dementia and a career in crisis has her world upturned when her 19 year old daughter elopes with her boyfriend during a routine survey of sandstone in the California desert.
Jackson Murray – 2019 Feature Finalist
The MothmanSmall-time pro wrestler Mickey Piper undergoes an experimental procedure to treat his advancing brain damage and begins a surreal transformation into his onstage alter ego.
Marc Ketchem – 2019 Feature Finalist
Family On IceWith a delinquent daughter doing drugs and considering prostitution, a son adventuring into the treacherous world of online chatting and exploring his sexuality, a cheating father fighting to hold onto his youth, and a burned out mother reeling from her new boss who won't get off her case, things are not looking good for the dysfunctional Harris family in 1986.
Tom Groneberg – 2019 Feature Finalist
The Empty QuarterOn the Crow Reservation in Montana, a young man from a broken family strives to complete the four tasks required to become a War Chief. The only problem is, he isn’t really sure who the enemy is and who he should be fighting.
John Paretti & Jakob Free – 2019 Hour Pilot Finalists
Pulp SyndicateIn 1938 New York City, cartoonists, mob bosses, and titans of business vie for supremacy in the nascent comic book industry.
Miriam Rahimi-Cholensky – 2019 Hour Pilot Finalist
XXA group of women from different walks of life join forces to take down a notorious, wealthy, Tasmanian rancher.
Seth Harrington – 2019 Hour Pilot Finalist
StandA failed lawyer who returns to the small, Texas hometown that made his life a living hell and gets a chance at redemption when he takes on the defense of a client no one else wants: an 8th Grader accused of murder.
Sonya Terjanian – 2019 Hour Pilot Finalist
The CuratorA brilliant curator, fighting for truth and integrity in the corrupt world of a large New York art museum, has to solve the mystery of a forged Caravaggio painting even though the museum, the art market, and the Russian mafia are all trying to stop him.
Clare Higgins & Julie Fassnacht – 2019 Half-Hour Finalists
Crash & BurnTrout, Montana isn't known for much -- besides a four-story fiberglass fish. But that's about to change when middle-school misfits Denny, Rob and Oliver try to crack a local cold case, and get way in over their heads.
Clarissa Carson – 2019 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist
Bottom of the TopA small-town black college freshman faces intimidating Upper East Siders, incompetent frat boys fresh off their gap years, and her scheming high school nemesis as she struggles with being in the bottom socio-economic tier of her top tier university.
Venetia Ginakakis – 2019 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist
Artemis of ChicagoArtemis navigates single life at an age her Greek-American family considers too late while desperately trying to find a date to her late father’s traditional funeral.
Amber Scott – 2019 Short Finalist
SunshineSunshine chronicles a day in the life of Gwen, an elderly African American woman who suffers from dementia, of her young caretaker, Joe, and the surprising ways they connect through the fog of the disease.
Johnny Sanchez – 2019 Short Finalist
SpicJohnny is an 11-year-old Latino boy whose uncle has been seized by I.C.E. Needing money to hire a lawyer for the uncle, Johnny must go with his father to a drug deal. Inspired by true events.
Sivakrishna Vakamullu – 2019 Short Finalist
Only Dead Know the DeadA railway trackman on night duty watches a young man's dead body waiting for the autopsy team to collect it. His thoughts and experience do not make a right match!
Aggie Pak-yee Lee – 2019 Short Film Festival
MuteumMuteum is a mutation journey happened in an Art Museum.
Bobb Barito – 2019 Short Film Festival
Light My FireA vengeful father hunts down his daughter's boyfriend on the Fourth of July.
Carlen May-Mann – 2019 Short Film Festival
The RatIt's Halloween night, and Renee is madly in love with her boyfriend Jim. On their way to a frat party, he takes a detour to a haunted house, where Renee is forced to confront a terrifying situation.
David Freid – 2019 Short Film Festival
Guns Found HereA surprisingly non-fictional tragicomedy about how America traces a gun involved in a gun crime back to its owner.
Ellen Evans – 2019 Short Film Festival
Life in MiniatureA short film about small things - and the woman who creates them.
Ernst De Geer – 2019 Short Film Festival
The CultureIt’s the opening night at the concert house where Arvid works, but when his sister steals the spotlight, his worst sides are revealed.
Fanny Ovesen – 2019 Short Film Festival
She-PackAnarchy emerges at a public pool party when a group of small girls push the limits of their strength and power.
Jimena Muhlia – 2019 BlueCat Short Film Festival
EvaporatedA teenage boy with overflowing hormones can’t help but start fantasizing about his best friend’s mother after inadvertently catching her in a compromising position. Thus begins a test of their friendship's strength...
Maxwell Addae – 2019 BlueCat Short Film Festival
OutdooringA young man attends his nephew's baby naming ceremony with a plan to steal the money collected from family and friends to run away and keep a secret hidden.
Michael Kam – 2019 Short Film Festival
MelodiAn awkward, lonely boy is infatuated with his new neighbor, a young caregiver. In his own way, he reaches out to her...
Nicholas Manuel Pino – 2019 Short Film Festival
The Funeral BandOn his first day as the newest member of 'Thicker than Blood Brass Band,' John, a now teenager displaced by Hurricane Katrina, learns all about the unique community he's been disconnected from and the traditions that follow them to the grave.
Sam Gainsborough – 2019 Short Film Festival
Facing ItAs a man anxiously awaits a meeting in the local pub, he is forced to explore his own difficult memories and relationships in an evening that will leave him changed forever.
Zoel Aeschbacher – 2019 BlueCat Short Film Festival
BonoboWhen the elevator of their public housing breaks down, the fates of Felix, a disabled pensioner, Ana, a single mother struggling with her move and Seydou, a young man passionate about dance, intertwine towards an explosive ending where their limits will be tested.
2018 Feature Winners Ismael Gomez III & Joe Leone
Death of a FoolA teenager and his dying grandfather conduct afterlife investigations in Miami when a mysterious man hires them to find the secret to immortality.
2018 Hour Pilot Winner Ben Philippe
The Backyard You KnowAfter a series of setbacks at Harvard University, IBI JOSEPH is forced to move back to the Bronx—the home he thought he'd escaped as a young prodigy.
2018 Half-Hour Pilot Winner Joey Siara
Infinite GaryGary, a perfectly bland middle-aged dad, begins to unravel after being violently attacked by a doppelgänger. Joined by his punk rock daughter and her half-baked boyfriend, Gary embarks on an existential odyssey to locate his attacker.
2018 Short Winner Amy Wang
WA-WAA 5-year-old girl attempts to overcome feelings of inadequacy and isolation at a boarding school for overworked parents.
2018 Fellini Winner Kwok Keong
KarmaA budding photographer yearns to do hard-hitting journalism just like her late father until she lands the opportunity to cover the 2008 elections in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the very place where her father was brutally murdered while on assignment just a decade earlier.
2018 Feature Finalist Khamanna Iskandarova
A Game of SupersA rich eleven-year-old must come to terms with living in a country and going to public school after ending up in a poorhouse.
2018 Feature Finalist Nathan Floody
Winter QuartersWhen a dead body is found in the lion cage, an aging animal trainer must kidnap his lions from the circus while finding the real killer to clear their names.
2018 Feature Finalist Rebecca Dreyfus
MenMEN is the story of a woman who–when confronted with her difficult father's terminal cancer–begins a secret, unstable affair with his favorite student.
2018 Feature Finalists Rebecca Shuhan Lou & Sofia Drummond-Moore
Her Weight On MeA coming-of-age psychological thriller centering around a Chinese-American girl who, sexually stunted because of her parents' intense pressure, must break free not only from their control but from a monstrous nightmare presence.
2018 Hour Pilot Finalist Isaac Siegemund-Broka
OdessaIn 1918, a young gun of Odessa's organized crime faction attempts to rise in prominence as his closest friend takes on a leading role in the concurrent Russian Revolution. Based on selected works by Isaac Babel.
2018 Hour Pilot Finalist Jacob Krasnow
News ValuesIn order to save his job, a disgraced local news videographer chases an impossible story that threatens to topple the corrupt but successful athletic program at a major university.
2018 Hour Pilot Finalist Lauren Hussey
The Golden AgeIn Post-World War II America, an aspiring horror writer moves to Hollywood to pursue her dreams. But after procuring a job at a major movie studio, an unexpected murder rocks the insular community of colorful personalities, and the suspect is anyone's guess.
2018 Hour Pilot Finalist Randy Rex
I Love You Mr. FreezeA girl is abducted by a psychopath with a manifesto, and a world-weary Sheriff must team up with the local ice cream man to find her before it’s too late.
2018 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist Chris Maudsley
Black CabsA young, unemployed footman attempts an honest living at the height of the abolition movement in ruthless Eighteenth-Century England, thrown into a sedan-chair startup with his dead employer’s chaotic son and a savvy social campaigner.
2018 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist Joshua Smooha
Area 51A secret force of government agents assigned to investigate alien happenings adjust to their new and overly emotional teammate: a super A.I. in a hunky new human body.
2018 Half-Hour Finalist Pogo New
IssuesA young woman struggles to achieve and maintain basic markers of human success while literally living with anxiety and depression—as in, she sees them as her roommates.
2018 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist Samuel Josephs
ConceptionA hunky astronaut terraforming the moon returns to Earth to help announce his pro-life pop star wife's candidacy for governor of Texas when he vomits and faints on Live TV - he's pregnant with an alien baby, and life begins at conception.
2018 Short Finalist Bernhard Riedhammer
Cardboard BoxA homeless girl’s life is defined by her troubled past, her daily struggles of survival, and her attachment to a cardboard box.
2018 Short Finalist Meegan May
First WordsIn the near future, a new experimental technology gives two grieving parents the chance to speak to their young daughter, who has been in a coma since a vicious assault four years ago. But they will only have three minutes to help find her attacker - and say goodbye.
2018 Short Finalist Peter Haig
A War on TerrorAfter enduring an attack by Taliban insurgents, a group of US soldiers wake up in a room unsure if they are alive, dead, or worse.
2018 Short Finalists Shekhar & Shalinder Bassi
Absolute BeginnerGrandfather and widower, PREM, sets out to fall in love for the first time but before he can do that he must find love, which proves to be a challenge.
2018 Short Film Finalist Alicia MacDonald
Bad NewsWhen some people are unable to switch off from work, it can be fairly noticeable. We see one particular group of friends who are suffering more than most and hear how it has even started affecting one of the group's home life.
2018 Short Film Finalist Derin Seale
The Eleven O'ClockThe delusional patient of a psychiatrist believes he is actually the psychiatrist. As they each attempt to treat each other the session gets out of control.
2018 Short Film Finalist Jennifer Boles
Cowboy TownCowboy Town is an impressionistic documentary about a 1970s replica roadside ghost town with automatons in rural South Dakota.
2018 Short Film Finalist Marielle Woods
Do No HarmA short film about a combat medic attempting to hold on to humanity in the midst of a war much bigger than himself. A medic's job is to fix people up, but how does that obligation reconcile with someone who is trained to fight and may be asked to kill?
2018 Short Film Finalist Monica Santis
Towards the SunA 12-year-old girl confronts her scarring past when she is placed at an immigrant children's shelter for unaccompanied minors in Texas. As her future hangs in limbo, she embarks on a healing journey to recover her own sense of power through her artwork.
2018 Short Film Finalist Omar Al Dakheel
AblutionThe bond between a disabled Muslim father and his son is tested when love is pitted against religion.
2018 Short Film Finalist Sarah-Leigh Burger
Mite-y BeardA displeased wife enters a world of unexpected adventure after deciding to finally confront her husband's stubborn, unkept beard.
2018 Short Film Finalist Shanrica Evans
CaseyA teenager with gender dysphoria witnesses the physical assault of a transgender woman.
2018 Short Film Finalist Steve Sears
Special FeatureA special feature making-of for a motion picture.
2018 Short Film Winner Tessa Hoffe
SpinosaurusA young girl cares for her younger brother at home, while she awaits her mother’s return.
2017 Feature Winners Judy Soo Hoo & Isaac Ho
Cadaver DogWhen a young autistic Latina rescues a stray cadaver dog, she stumbles upon a 15 year-old cold case that no one wants solved.
2017 Feature Finalist Laura Allen
SpreeLiv, a single-mom and small-time shoplifter, barely makes ends meet with her deviant lifestyle. But when she reconnects with her estranged father she finds she must navigate a new place for herself in the world.
2017 Feature Finalist Baruh Benjamins
The TownhouseA young black writer spends a busy day coming to terms with his crumbling relationship with his older white girlfriend as they prepare for an afternoon recital and an evening party in their townhouse. The day comes to a head as demonstrations throughout the city break out into a full-scale riot before escalating into something much more terrifying.
2017 Feature Finalist Jesus Celaya
Chico GrandeA boy in 1960's Mexico struggles with what it means to be a hero- all the while obsessing over the TV Western serials of that era.
2017 Feature Finalist Sachin Mehta
WestchesterAn Indian jeweler struggling to fulfill his family's American dream gets caught up in the darkest corners of the 1980s L.A. jewelry district.
2017 Pilot Winner Beanie Barnes
White-Shoe UFour Ivy League students build an illegal drug operation, using it to orchestrate and grow their own social power. But as their power accumulates, they find it harder not to become pawns in the game of their own making.
2017 Pilot Finalist Maria Soscia
Junk DreamsFollowing years of separation from her elderly mother, a mentally unstable woman confronts deep-seeded family hostilities after a radio psychic relays a message from her deceased father.
2017 Pilot Finalists Allie Kingsley & Tony Baker
The OrphanAl, a down and out reality show host, must make the best of the worst TV show in history: The Orphan, a show about impoverished children from around the world competing to be adopted by a wealthy family in Bel Air.
2017 Pilot Finalist Bill Keenan
SquatIn a wryly comical near future, where too many baby boomers have saved too little money and amassed too much debt, an unemployed man aspires to the affluent lifestyle of his rich brother while trying to avoid the humiliating fate of his destitute brother who lives in a vast ghetto of boomers known as Squat City.
2017 Pilot Finalist MJ Palo
ClementineAfter a recently murdered high-school sweetheart's body is dug up from her grave, the secrets of a small mountain town begin to unravel.
2017 Short Screenplay Winner Will Schneider
AgeusiaA depressed lunch lady finds new meaning in her mundane life when she falls for a troubled janitor.
2017 Short Screenplay Finalist Walker Hare
Sun ShineWhen an African American teenager gets a seemingly depressed white guy to open up, she discovers he's on his way to commit a mass shooting.
2017 Short Screenplay Finalist Mohamed Karim
Borders of LifeA gritty portrait of courage, tragedy and immigrant life through the eyes of a Syrian refugee.
2017 Short Screenplay Finalist Colm Ryan
The CallA taxi driver is interrogated over a bank bombing. As he is questioned about what happened by a police detective, certain details do not add up.
2017 Short Screenplay Finalists Cameron Thrower & Joe McKernan
The ScientistDr. Roy Jackson was once an accomplished scientist. Now a 60 year old homeless man, living in the woods and spending all of his time acquiring junk to help him build a time machine out of a shopping cart. His latest attempt fails and he's back to the drawing board. An unlikely friendship teaches our obsessive inventor that patience is the true key to time travel.
2017 Fellini Winner Jason Chan
The Art of Letting GoWaking up after 15 years in a coma as the result of a traffic accident, an unhappily married woman has to re-learn everything with the aid of her husband’s new fiancée, and map out a new path for her life.
2016 Cordelia Winner Haydn Fox
Title IXAs a couple’s marriage heads towards a disastrous end, the story reflects on the events that brought them to the present.
2016 Short Screenplay Finalist Tess Carroll
I Sleep EasyA young girl demonstrates her method of appeasing the yellow-eyed beast that haunts her town.
2016 Joplin Winners Chad J. Nelson & Alexander Ellerston
ParodyAfter a chance encounter with his identical twin's mistress, a curious psychologist begins to unravel a web of deceit leading to fatal consequences.
2016 Roshan Winner Paras Borgohain
Deepest, Darkest or How Not to LieWhen a public relations executive discovers a note from her deceased best friend, she must find the trigger for his untimely death - revealing his long-distance relationship with a man, while confronting her own fears of unrequited love.
2016 Short Screenplay Finalist Nikki Tran
When We RunSaigon, 1978. A young girl learns the meaning of sacrifice during an impromptu escape out of Vietnam.
2016 Short Screenplay Finalist Nic Yulo
ChangelingsStruggling to keep his dysfunctional family afloat, a teenage boy challenges his immature father by threatening to ruin a family tradition.
2016 Short Screenplay Winner Elizabeth Capot
ApartA woman wakes up to find that she is literally falling apart—again.
2016 Feature Finalist Justin Piasecki
Death of An OrtolanA disgraced White House chef is discovered decades later preparing meals for prisoners on death row, but he risks a chance at redemption when he befriends an inmate whose guilt appears doubtful.
2016 Feature Finalist Jonathan Holmes
In the Cradle of GraniteWhen a young girl discovers the corpse of a notorious outlaw, her father must strike a deal with the stranger bringing the body to justice. Miles from civilization in the harsh Oregon frontier, together the two men will discover a bounty is always best earned alone.
2016 Feature Finalist Hannah Leshaw
Amara, 15Amara, 15 (formerly Hijita de Papá) is a coming-of-age feature about a 15-year-old Bronx teenager who is desperate to escape her father's sexual abuse but who will do anything not to leave her two little sisters behind.
2016 Feature Finalist Conall Pendergast
DogA mute drifter and a lonely night clerk must face their deepest fears when confronted by a mysterious man in a patchwork dog mask at a remote, rundown motel.
2016 Feature Winner Oreathia C. Smith
MONA. RICHY. ROBBY. AND RAYA black woman will not allow another black woman to attend her white church.
2015 Feature Finalist: Theodore Schaefer & Patrick Lawler
Taking the Toll - The Life and Life of Gilbert BoothA young toll booth operator falls for a woman at his father’s nursing home but soon discovers that it’s her 99 year old grandmother who may be more in tune to his eccentric philosophies, including time travel and his imaginary friend.
2015 Feature Finalist: Palmer Holton
The Anxieties of Peter WilhelmWhen Peter Wilhelm’s adulterous daydreams creep too close towards becoming reality, he finds himself being whisked away to a rehab facility for sex addiction, only to become part of a radical new procedure that promises to make him fall in love with his wife again… or drive him insane.
2015 Feature Finalist: Joseph O’Driscoll
Scriptures and CigarettesAfter a near-death experience, a devout Mormon teenager experiments with the outside world for the first time, risking his relationship with his family and community.
2015 Feature Finalist: Alex Rollins Berg
IAfter a flash flood kills his father, destroys the family farm and leaves him to support his younger brothers, a poor but enterprising teenager sets off to Kuala Lumpur for an iPhone factory job, only to get caught up in the lives of the fabulously wealthy American factory owners.
2015 Short Screenplay Finalist: Ludwig Thelin
The Last Days of the Dolores ProjectIn a few days, the chimpanzee Dolores will step out of the flight simulator and onto a real airplane, together with the pilot who taught her how to fly, but before the flight, the pilot wants to tell a colleague a secret.
2015 Short Screenplay Finalist: Danielle Barcena
SilkAn abused woman struggles to free herself from her brother’s web of control when a grocery store clerk offers her the chance to escape.
2015 Short Screenplay Finalist: Darren Robert Tibbits
WakeFollowing the deaths of two teenage boys, a small-town simpleton with a hobby of crashing strangers’ funerals makes the locals more uncomfortable by trying to sell his homemade casket.
2015 Cordelia Award Winner: Kitty Percy
Butter Side UpWhen a hopelessly unlucky smalltime criminal kidnaps a celebrity by mistake, he finds his luck starting to change in unexpected ways.
2015 Joplin Award Winner: Leonardo Noboru de Lima
George!An unhappy family man faces another level of his mundane existence when he wakes up to find himself inhabiting a sitcom version of his life.
2015 Short Screenplay Winner: Susan Fleming
Six Months of Wonder WomanOn her twenty-first birthday, a fledgling poet plans her escape from an alcoholic father; but before she can leave home, her superhero-loving mother has one last questionable lesson to teach.
2015 BlueCat Feature Award Winner: Kimi Howl Lee
MouthWhen a broke Fem-studies major with an unwanted pregnancy assumes an alias and delves into a transactional relationship with an affluent family man, she must masquerade as a suburban trophy wife while finishing her degree––before her dual identity is unveiled.
2014 Short Finalist Wenonah Wilms
WAABOOZA young Native American comic book fan faces his life and fear of dancing with the help of his superhero alter ego.
2014 Short Finalist Athenia Paris Mekarnia
WolfieA Muslim man finds a strange woman when he travels to a remote mountain in search of a wolf he encountered as a child.
2014 Short Finalist Jeremy Lerman
The Twelve PlaguesA Jewish painter travels to receive a prestigious award, coming head to head with his wife's new boyfriend, Torah-thumping art patrons, and a slutty parapalegic.
2014 Feature Finalist José Luis González
The History of MagicA degenerated traveling Mexican magician and his teenage niece find themselves on the same path of life as he approaches her home in a Texas border town.
2014 Feature Finalist Kateland Brown
HamboneSet against the illegal dogfighting scene in Los Angeles, a gangbanger sentenced to community service at an animal shelter forms a bond with an abused pit bill scheduled to be euthanized.
2014 Feature Finalist Dennis Capps
Chicago ShuffleA mild-mannered Prohibition-era accountant has a chance meeting with the twin brother he never knew he had, a brash Chicago gangster, but when he wakes up trapped in his brother's identity, he's forced to find himself as he fights to return to his old life.
2014 Feature Finalist Doug Mallette
Bad HouseHoping for a fresh start, a desperate father moves his estranged wife and kids into a mysterious new house, where he soon discovers the horror of the perfect family.
2014 Cordelia Award Winner Jason Pittock
Face to FaceA cosmetic surgeon's life starts to unpick at the seams after he accidentally ruins the face of a celebrity client.
2014 Joplin Award Winner Savion Einstein
The Longest BirthdayWhen a clinical trial in Israel fails to treat her young son's cancer, a single mother takes him back home to Los Angeles to celebrate one more time.
2014 BlueCat Feature Screenplay Winner HF Crum
3 Faces of Hunger & ThirstThe true story of the assassination of a revolutionary Mexican presidential candidate unfolds from the original standoff of three gunmen in Tijuana.
2014 BlueCat Short Screenplay Winner Jennifer Cui
WingedA young Chinese girl ventures outside her home to find a crowd gathered near a dead body, only to find something entirely different upon second glance.
2013 Finalist Bryce Wolfgang Joiner
Giants of the ValleyTheodore Tuttleberg, once the tallest man on earth, forms a bond with a morbidly obese recluse whom he saves from death, but when he seeks to make him famous he almost kills the soul of his one true friend.
2013 Finalist Michael Yagnow
Dead DoloresAs a grieving frontier sheriff succumbs to madness, his unseasoned deputy is forced to confront a pile of corpses and a troubled young barber who possesses an unnatural and homicidal obsession with the suitors of his gorgeous twin sister.
2013 Finalist Michael Quintana
We Lost GraceOn the eve of their anniversary, while still coping with the death of their next-door neighbor, a married couple tries to adjust to their daughter’s return home, and the truths they learn along the way.
2013 Finalist Kendal Alexander Whitlock
A Cat's TaleYeo, a senior citizen security guard stuck in a perpetual state of mourning his wife and son, meets a neighbor girl and soon finds himself in the middle of a Singaporean underworld, attempting to expose the murderer of the girl’s cat.
2013 Joplin Award Winner Rachael BernSousa & Mary Lusted
Hand Lit MatchA teenage tomboy escapes her dead-end Australian country town by joining a visiting sideshow as a wrestler – then sets her sights on the top of the American female league in the 1950's.
2013 Cordelia Award Winner Christopher Brown
Knock-OutA young boxer must take his fight outside the ring when the guys he trains with discover the truth about his sexuality.
2012 Short Finalist Annaliese Ciel Walker
Wort Irkington's Hate BooksA reclusive bus driver coughs up a curious phlegm creature and finds himself forced to choose between his new friend and his life’s work: his Hate Books.
2012 Short Finalist Kristi Simkins
In The SilenceThe story of a woman who has shut herself off emotionally from the world around her for unknown reasons.
2012 Short Winner Ben Cleary
TrumpetIn his small, isolated cottage, Alexander finds a very unusual trumpet that will turn his lonely existence upside down.
2012 Finalist Zeke Farrow
Untitled Sarah Palin Sex Doll ProjectWhen the last virgin in high school creates a fake girlfriend on Facebook as part of an elaborate scheme to get a real one, the woman whose pictures he stole shows up and his fiction becomes a reality.
2012 Finalist Alex Eylar
The Prime MoverA young man witnesses a glitch in time itself, and becomes a target of the individuals tasked with protecting the system the world relies on.
2012 Finalist Anthony Easton
The Hosanna TreeA tale of good versus evil set against the desolate backdrop of Dust Bowl era Oklahoma.
2012 Finalist Ashleigh Powell
MallpocalypseA down-on-her-luck nail salon employee is happy making the world a better place one pedicure at a time, until a near-death experience awakens within her strange supernatural abilities, and she suddenly becomes part of a giant battle of Good vs. Evil… played out in a shopping mall.
2012 Joplin Award Winner Guy McDouall
Random Acts of ViolenceA quarantined pacifist fights to help find a cure for the fits of murderous rage he and other test subjects have become afflicted with.
2012 Cordelia Award Winner Nick Luddington
Life in a BoxA young man struggling with the death of his girlfriend unwittingly commits suicide, condemning himself to purgatory. Now in a world where memories are all that is left, his desire for life is renewed and a desperate fight to escape begins
2012 Winner Michael Hamblin
The Emperor of WyomingThe fractured and dysfunctional family of an Idaho mortician and struggling author falls apart – and comes together – as he and his estranged son grapple with the moral and ethical implications of a bizarre mission from God, delivered by way of a talking corpse.
2011 Fellini Awards Winner Will Ryan
I Want My Car You Son of a BitchWhen the wealthy boss of nearly retired personal assistant, Toni Fratzki, dies, she’s left to clean up the mess of his troubled teenage son’s illegal affairs and discovers the last chance of belonging to a family she might have.
2011 Fellini Awards Winner Cime Bruce
Talk of MiftonA young girl who dreams of escaping her suffocatingly small town the day after her eighteenth birthday is injured in an accident that leaves her without the ability to talk or move. Now she must use her new gift on her caregivers if she is to continue to live.
2011 Fellini Awards Winners Jacob Gillman and Matt Diebler
Horse GirlAn unpopular and sexually naive 12-year-old engages in a downward spiral of unintentionally perverse get-rich-quick schemes in order to obtain the horse of her dreams.
2011 Fellini Awards Winner Fergal Rock
Calvin & SkyeA hypochondriac and a terminally ill teenager strike up an unlikely friendship.
2011 Fellini Awards Winner Tony Mullen
Electric TownIn the heart of Tokyo, an old man gets more than he bargained for when he turns to a robotic pet to relieve his grief.
2010 Cordelia Award Winner Steve Ruttley
TilfordA widow and her young son give refuge to a wounded government witness after discovering he’s testifying against the underworld figure that tore their family apart.
2010 Joplin Award Winner Maurizio Marmorstein
One Night in Asbury ParkA local teenage girl with nothing and nowhere to go meets a visiting foreign student in a rockin’, early 60’s dance hall. Their love clashes with the lethal rage of a jealous boyfriend.
2010 Winner Ian Simpson
Below the WaistVanessa, a brilliant, introverted 16-year old, must go to aberrant lengths in order to learn how to ‘feel’ again after a car accident at the hands of her best friend leaves her permanently paralyzed below the waist.
2009 Finalists Peter K. Hassan & Elisabeth Silverman Hassan
Death and TaxesChet spends his days running down tax dodgers on the neon streets of Las Vegas. But when he's forced to find and arrest his own deadbeat dad, things turn strange.
2009 Grand Prize Winner Jerry Mahoney
Gladly McGee and the Damn Retarded F*****Two actors forge an unlikely friendship while playing offensive stock characters in the 1940s, then experience the ups and downs of Hollywood as it changes over the next 40 years.
2008 Grand Prize Winner Timo E. Peltonen
The Piano TunerIn 1943 Germany, where trust has collapsed and fear burns brightly, a piano tuner investigates the mystery of a war widow’s son disappearing from his room.
2007 Finalist Vicki Speegle
Loved OnesA young girl chasing adulthood struggles to win the love of her alcoholic mother but finds her quest complicated when her estranged half-sister returns.
2007 Finalist Irin Evers
Every time I go to Staten Island something bad happens…When a Latino ex-gang member finds an identity in the Manhattan art school world, his brother’s criminal life proves to be a deadly distraction.
2007 Grand Prize Winner Ana Lily Amirpour
The StonesIn modern-day Tehran, a teenage girl from the working class falls for an upper-class boy. As a forbidden relationship ensues, she finds out the hard way what happens when rules are broken in a merciless society.
2006 Grand Prize Winner Young Kim
Hyung’s OvertureThe oldest son of a Korean immigrant family leaves Harvard to manage a Bronx convenience store in order for his younger brother to fulfill his destiny as a world-class violinist.
2005 Screenplay Live Winner Ryan David Jahn
The Break-In2005 Grand Prize Winners Andy Stock & Rick Stempson
Gary The Tennis CoachAn ethically challenged Rod Laver worshipper moonlighting as a custodian finds himself in charge of the high school tennis team, only to throw down the singularly most unorthodox coaching performance in the history of the game.
2004 Grand Prize Winners Andrew Pagana & Justin Thomas
The Man in the Rearview MirrorThe story of a man, his wife and mother-in-law in pursuit of a suspected kidnapper on the Eisenhower highways of the 1950’s brilliantly recalls the Hitchcock classic, Rear Window, at 90 miles an hour.