FEATURE SCREENPLAY COMPETITION 2025 WINNERS
Winner: RESTORATION (written by Don Stroud, Winter Mead)
As an introverted art restorer succumbs to the evil temptations of an ancient painting, otherworldly forces attempt to stop her from unleashing the painting's unholy power.
1st Runner up: THE SALESMAN (written by Adam Seidel)
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. ABOUT SCHMIDT meets BANSHEES of INISHERIN.
2nd Runner up: ON THE RECORD (written by Adam Goudchaux)
In a nondescript near future, a grief stricken, neophyte print journalist embarks on a journey of self-discovery while working on a story about a new psychedelic drug.
SHORT SCREENPLAY COMPETITION 2025 WINNERS
Winner: LIZ (written by Lauren Loud)
A lonely boy grieving the loss of his mother finds solace in the company peculiar young girl.
1st Runner-up: SAM (written by Daniel Talbott)
Three committed partners - Eliza, Max, and Sam - live together in a small house at the edge of the woods. When Eliza discovers Sam's unexpected pregnancy in the middle of a long winter, it shatters everything between the three of them, revealing the visceral, primal truth under the thin surface of their modern, civilized relationship.
2nd Runner-up: MULVA? (written by Matt Shade)
A nebbish office worker learns his coworker's secret.
FEATURE SCREENPLAY COMPETITION FINALISTS 2025 (alphabetical order)
COAL EYES ARE WATCHING (written by Christine Makepeace)
When big city career woman Cordelia Howell travels back home for Christmas, her attempts to connect with her mother are thwarted by the matriarch’s hostile behavior and a bizarre town-wide obsession with snowmen.
DOROTHEA (written by Chad Ferrin)
Based on the life and times of American serial killer Dorothea Puente.
GOODNIGHTMARE (written by Ian Rowe)
When an Autistic woman’s favorite late-night horror show starts predicting real-life murders, she must confront her fears in order to save her town from the show’s malevolent host.
POEMS OF YORE (written by Quanah Jay Jay Hicks)
An aspiring painter's works unexpectedly go viral as a result of poetry he receives through dreams.
SAYANORA (written by Josh Kirk)
In a small isolated tower, two samurai, who have never met, must babysit the psychotic heir of their powerful clan.
TOILET SHARKS (written by Bruce Griffiths)
When mutant sharks attack the residents of a small coastal town from within its sewerage system, a toilet cleaner is forced to team with a shark rights activist, a germophobic biologist and a portaloo vendor to prevent them from biting the whole world in the ass.
XOVA7 (written by Quanah Jay Hicks)
Locrian Xova awakens in the year 2040 from a 10-year cryogenic sleep. As he prepares to create his next artificial intelligent masterpiece, XOVA7, his high-tech new world poses anomalous complications, leading him to question the nature of time, space, and reality.
SHORT SCREENPLAY COMPETITION FINALISTS 2025 (alphabetical order)
THE ARCHITECTS (written by Justin Zachary )
After exposing corruption at a powerful tech empire, a disgraced journalist is hunted and forced to confront his own erased past—uncovering a conspiracy that reveals humanity’s greatest war was staged to control the future.
THE DIRECTOR (written by Marissa Raine Carlin)
After a seemingly normal first date, a woman wakes up to discover she's trapped inside of a horror movie written and directed by the man she went on a date with.
DOVER (written by Nathan D. Ludwig & Jonathan Straiton)
After encountering something unexplainable in the woods with his cousin Elliot, young Trevor experiences horrific visions and suspects Elliot is no longer just a little kid.
DYSPHORIA? (written by Anissa Matlock)
Rian's newfound body-confidence is threatened by a bad date & the discovery of an intruder lurking beneath her surgical scars.
GOUGE (written by Kade Linville)
When a land owner goes missing, their future oil field is plagued by an unknown breathing resonating in the wells.
HANDS (written by Luke Campen)
A genetic experiment goes horribly wrong.
NO STRINGS (written by Andrew Rosdail)
A man begins to suspect his wife is having an affair with a puppet
PUTANA (written by Matt Shade)
The Ultimate Act of Maternal Devotion is explored, both in Hindu mythology and a rural family.
THAW (written by Regan Young)
A scientist and his assistant invent a lethal prodecure to ressurect subjects from deep freeze. They turn the experiment on themselves overlooking the obvious consquences in order to study the afterlife.
SOLIPSISM (written by Duncan Putney)
A surgeon discovers that he has been asked to save the life of a man who is the center of all existence. If the patient dies then everything will cease to exist.
THE ULTIMATE BREAKUP (written by Zena L. Logan)
As the world falls apart, a dying man asks his ex-wife to end his life.
WILLOW SAYS (written by Geoffrey Gould)
Millie's imaginary friend might not be so imaginary....
FEATURE SCREENPLAY COMPETITION SEMI-FINALISTS 2025 (alphabetical order)
5ALIVE (written by Delaina M Waldron)
Five stories set in a small town about unlikely heroes trying to survive an Alien Invasion
AKELARRE UNDER THE SEA (written by Shane Hallawa)
On leave, US Air Force Captain Anthony Cavada goes to Puerto Rico on vacation to visit relatives. But a sailing trip with his sisters and cousin across the Caribbean becomes survival on the high seas as they come across the cargo ship Empecinado, which had mysteriously vanished without a trace.
THE BEARDED LADY (written by Steve Troy Sides)
Runaway teen goes to work for the carnival and falls in love with the carnival’s main freak the Bearded Lady. Questions his decision at the end.
BIG BROTHER (written by Ronen Tregerman)
BIGFOOT’S GOT A GUN (written by Troy DeWinne & Hector Farias)
On a remote island, a young escapee from a drug cartel forms an unlikely alliance with a grizzled Bigfoot to rescue their friends and thwart a sinister plot to take over Colombia.
CAT LADY: A PSYCHO-BIDDY HORROR (written by Suzan Averitt)
A lonely cat lady succumbs to possession of her spirit by Ancient Egyptian Cat Goddess Bastet. Through Bastet she saves her small town from real estate fraud, falls in love and is reunited with her lost child. But Bastet is not a friend, she's a queen and as such, she will take what she needs with little care for those she uses to get Her way
DEAD MAN’S HILL (written by Benjamin Sarno)
A homicide detective, unable to score lawful bulk marijuana for his cancer-stricken sister, sets up a buy from weed-growing cultists on Dead Man's Hill.
ED KEMPER (written by Stephen Johnston & Chad Ferrin)
Based on actual events of American serial killer Edmund Kemper, who murdered his grandparents at age 15 and, after being paroled for that crime, killed eight women in 1972 and 1973 including his own mother.
HAUNTED LAMENT (written by Raed Hojiej)
Battling grief a couple spends the first night in their bare new home. The night brings out the truth of this new house, where dreams and reality are blurred with emotions and anxiety.
HORSE HEIST (written by Hayley Anne Nash)
Two sisters team up to steal a thirty-million-dollar breeding horse in this absurdist comedy caper.
INITIATION (written by Sheala Morrison )
After escaping an abusive relationship to a remote mountain town, a recently divorced social worker intercepts a secret transmission about crashed UFOs, and recruits her online gaming friends to help her try and get abducted by aliens.
LISTEN (written by Jeffrey Howe)
Three couples fight for their lives--and their relationships--when sound-mimicking monsters invade a marriage counseling camp.
MY CHILD (written by Matthew Ford)
Present day rural Wales. Carian and Ffion, a married couple in their thirties, have inherited a cottage from Ffion’s late, estranged mother. They move in with their recently adopted five-year-old, Tomos. But an ancient and ferocious monster is watching from the woods...
MOON SHINE (written by K.T. Roth )
Former Chicago journalist Mel Lehrich relocated to backwater Iowa, becoming half the reporting staff at the small-town paper, The Woodcreek Word. While investigating a rash of local pet disappearances, Mel discovers the area has a werewolf problem.
OF PARADISE (written by Troy DeWinne & Allison Webster)
A castaway's virginity quest spirals into absurdity as he confronts his romantic delusions with the help of the island’s bizarre inhabitants.
OUT CAME THE SUN (written by Mike Weimer)
A filmmaker manipulates his friends into reviving a dead TV show, unaware they are caught in a deadly trap connected to his past sins and ambition.
THE P. I.’'s (PARNAORMAL INVESTIGATORS) (written by Krista Crawford)
After a fall from grace, a ghost hunter reluctantly returns to the hometown she left behind and comes face to face with her greatest paranormal threat yet as she tries to rebuild her image.THE PIPER (written by J. Aldric Gaudet)
A darkly twisted re-rendering of the Pied Piper legend told through the eyes of an estranged father and son. The boy is struggling to manhood while they both suffer the pangs of their wife/mother’s suicide years earlier. When the Piper takes the children the father sets out with the village midwife to get them back.
THE RUSS TRIPTYCH (written by Richard Morell)
An experimental comedy about unrequited love in three parts: a high-school marching band clarinetist fantasizes he's crucified to a goalpost and tackles Death in the form of his linebacker crush; a musical about the 10-year high school reunion where he shoots his long-time crush a "come hither" look with surprising results (witnessed by said crush's girlfriend); and 32 years later, the crusher guy knocks on the crush's door and nine possible variations of what could happen spool out.
SAKURA (written by Richard Fore)
A masked killer targets 27-year-old musicians, adding to the ranks of the infamous "The 27 Club."
THE SCOTTISH PLAY (written by Rashel Mereness)
A small-town community theater company stages an infamous play rumored to be cursed and find themselves entangled in a series of bizarre events. As the opening night approaches, they must uncover the root of the curse before it claims the next victim.
SICKIES (written by Alex Schulman)
After being expelled from college, a germaphobe returns to his hometown and finds himself tangled up in a complex world of immortal humanoids who eat trash, spit toxic sludge, and battle the institutions that threaten their way of life.
SINGING HOLLOW (written by Gabriel DiDomenico )
A writer on retreat discovers that his getaway is not all it seems to be.
SHORT SCREENPLAY COMPETITION SEMI-FINALISTS 2025 (alphabetical order)
ACTUALIZATION (written by Jaina Cipriano)
When her life sized, childhood teddy bear shows up in the bedroom of a 30 year old pregnant woman, they embark on a journey to free her from her narcissistic mother.
ÆLECTRONA (written by Max Henry)
In a not-so-distant future dominated by artificial intelligence, a utility worker responds to a routine residential power outage and makes an illuminating discovery.
BLOOD SUGAR (written by Travis Long)
After the death of her mother, a young woman broke and battling medical issues inherits a house...and something else.
CAMERON’S MANIFESTO (written by Jack Henry Greene)
A delusional, misogynistic shut-in plans his own revolution after misinterpreting his favourite movie.
CONSUMERS (written by Luke Campen)
A meat-packing plant becomes a dystopian nightmare.
DELIRIUM - HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE NEW DRUG IN TOWN? (written by Alexandra Varkarotas)
A sleep-deprived art student attempts to take a study break as delirium kicks in and brings her surrealist studies to life.
ERA II (written by Delaina M Waldron)
A naive scientist who has discovered a way to bring people back from the past, interviews famous dictator Hitler but his German translator has different plans.
FLYING INTO INFINITY (written by Vakhtang Pridonashvili)
A research ship of the future flies through outer space in search of the edge of the universe.
HVAC (written by Jackson McKeehan)
A father takes his son on an HVAC job at the local theatre, where the boy discovers an unusual desire.
INVASION OF THE BOBBY SNATCHERS (written by Silvano Spagnuolo)
Conservative mom Dina must contend with her teenage daughter's disturbing behavioral developments while also fending off an invasion of alien lookalikes!
INVASIVE SPECIES (written by Mary Kuryla)
Still reeling from a miscarriage, a fish and wildlife employee realizes she is responsible for letting a sea monster develop in the park’s waters.
IT’S OPEN (written by Doug Maguire)
A homeowner, his teenage son, their new gardener and a shocking discovery!
LONG WAY HOME (written by Terry Luke Podnar)
A surreal cab ride and an omniscient driver force a woman to struggle internally over a tragic decision she made in her youth.
NO FACES (written by Michael Pisaturo)
On his last night of freedom before moving in with his sex-starved girlfriend, a closeted Charlie takes one final expedition through the world of chat roulette.
TAKE MY HAND (written by Jay Hodgkins)
A serial killer seeks a cure for loneliness when he develops a special relationship with the severed hand of one of his victims, only to discover it points him in the direction of true love.
TALES OF THE MACABRE (written by James Steele Haney)
On Halloween, a late-night radio host shares the legend of the Crimson Witch with his listeners, unintentionally summoning her once again.
UNRIP (written by Geraldine Comiskey)
The last critic to drive a knife into Karina Stark gave her the fame she craved - and she’s not ready to RIP.
WIENER DELIVERY (written by Troy DeWinne)
An oblivious delivery boy working for a drug front accidentally grabs the wrong delivery box on his way to his longtime crush.