We’re excited to announce the winners and finalists from this year’s screenplay contest. A big thank you to all the screenwriters who entered. There were lots of excellent screenplays this year making our work even harder trying to figure out which screenplay deserved the award. It’s never easy trying to apply objective criteria to something as subjective as screenwriting, but that’s what we must do. As a screenwriter myself, I want to really emphasize the fact that this is in no way a “best of” or that any script is “better” than any other. Our process involves a lot of people reading a lot of scripts. All the scripts entered this year were read by numerous first round readers, and the scripts that made it into the later rounds were all read by numerous industry judges and the results here today simply reflect the response from those first round readers and industry professionals.
A big congratulations to both the winners and the finalists.
Short Screenplay Category
Winner
Sun Is Coming? (drama) by Saeid Ghasemi
Log Line: In a Dubai refugee camp, SHARIFOLAH battles bureaucracy and the looming threat of the Taliban to bring his scattered family together.
Runner-Up
Domestic Disturbance (thriller) by Darren Coyle
Log Line: A cop is called to a domestic disturbance. He finds a woman chained to a radiator and a man with a gun. Cop subdues the man and frees the woman only to find she is a werewolf and he’s in trouble.
Feature Screenplay Category
Winner
The Salesman (drama) by Adam Seidel
Log Line: A lonely assassin on the cusp of a mid-life crisis is duped into a cross-country road trip with his next hit, an abrasive, suicidal man who wants company on his pre-death apology tour.
Runner-Up
On the Hour (horror) by Brandon Rhiness
Log Line: A group of friends spending the weekend in the country fall victim to a curse that causes them to die off one by one, every hour, on the hour.