2021 FEATURE AND TV PILOT WINNERS

We are thrilled to announce the Winners for our 2021 Feature and TV Pilot Contests.

It has been such an honor to immerse ourselves into these fantastic stories and proudly share them with our award-winning industry Judges.

And now the Judges have spoken!

We want to congratulate all the writers who have shared their work with us this year. With so many great stories from talented writers, we are in no doubt that a large number of this year’s entrants will go on to have successful careers in the industry.

For full details of what happens next, check out our Feature & TV Pilot post-contest timeline.

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 FEATURE WINNERS | TV PILOT 1 HR WINNERS | TV PILOT 1/2HR WINNERS

FEATURE FINALISTS | TV PILOT 1HR FINALISTS | TV PILOT 1/2 HR FINALISTS 

FEATURE SEMI-FINALISTS | TV PILOT 1HR SEMI-FINALISTS | TV PILOT 1/2 HR SEMI-FINALISTS

FEATURE | TV PILOT 1-HOUR | TV PILOT 1/2 HR QTR. FINALISTS

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!

Social outcast Vincent Leaphart establishes a new philosophy based on the laws of Mother Earth, forming a movement that changes a generation, and incurs the wrath of the Philadelphia police. Based on true events.

FEATURE TOP 5 GENRE FINALISTS
(in alphabetical order)

THE BLESSED

When a young nun confined to a life of labor, starvation, and flagellation reaches her threshold, she draws attention and takes control by performing possessions and miracles, electing herself a holy conduit of God’s word. Not only is she tasked with perpetually maintaining her charades, she must also please the papal powers that be, while sussing her own thirst for power and for her fellow nuns.

SUGAR’S PARADISE

Sugar’s Paradise chronicles an unlikely hero’s rise from burlesque starlet and part-time working girl to ruthless Queen Pin among Harlem’s Black social elite in the 1940s.

TV 1 HOUR FINALISTS
(10 Finalists – alphabetical order)

	Andrea Lawson	The Repatriots	An archeologist joins up with a lawyer and an anthropologist to fight universities, museums, governments, tomb robbers, and thieves to restore valuable antiquities to their rightful owners.
	Andy Lyberopoulos	Harley	After serving 41 years in prison, a newly released elderly inmate seeks revenge for the wrongfully accused, starting with the murder mystery of his younger sister
	Daniel Grove	Transhuman	In Berlin 2050 a brilliant but reclusive programmer prepares to release the Patrick 7 – the world’s most seductive comfort-bot – amid blackmailing her boss, being headhunted by the competition and honey-trapped by a humanoid-robot more advanced than anything she’s seen.
	Dave Paterson	Fearing Delilah	A girl missing for 20 years suddenly reappears in her country town with no recollection of her time away, sending the secretive community into chaos, and triggering a dormant serial killer to kill again.
	Frances Flannery	Awake	After a series of strange events, a young woman starts to suspect that her beautiful new home is built on the site of a terrible tragedy. As domestic bliss turns to paranoia, she sets out to uncover the truth…
	Jeff Osborne	The Isthmus	The first true crime story retold through the eyes of a CIA operative who becomes a drug smuggler, a dictator, and a target of U.S. invasion.
	Jonhenri Alston	Ferguson	The lives of several St. Louis community members collide in the aftermath of the death of an unarmed teen by a Ferguson Police Officer.
	Lauren Smith	Sugar’s Paradise	Sugar’s Paradise chronicles an unlikely hero’s rise from burlesque starlet and part-time working girl to ruthless Queen Pin among Harlem’s Black social elite in the 1940s.
	Sarah Grodsky	The Blessed	When a young nun confined to a life of labor, starvation, and flagellation reaches her threshold, she draws attention and takes control by performing possessions and miracles, electing herself a holy conduit of God’s word. Not only is she tasked with perpetually maintaining her charades, she must also please the papal powers that be, while sussing her own thirst for power and for her fellow nuns.
	Tyler Ellzey	Forward Family	The life of an audacious realtor is forever changed when he and his husband must return to his hometown and conservative mother to raise his brother’s four children.

PAUL RUDD’S IN TROUBLE

Famous Actor Paul Rudd’s guest appearance on the reality TV show Getting Wild with Bear Grylls goes awry when a terrible accident befalls the show’s titular host—forcing the reluctant movie star and the show’s motley production crew to band together to survive.

YOUNG GRANDMA

A former teen mom who missed out on the hedonistic pleasures of her twenties is ready to make up for lost time now that her daughter has flown the nest. But her hopes of a wild time and a sexual awakening get disrupted when she unexpectedly becomes a grandma at age thirty-five.

TV 1/2 HOUR FINALISTS
(10 Finalists – alphabetical order)

	Annie MacKinnon	Young Grandma	A former teen mom who missed out on the hedonistic pleasures of her twenties is ready to make up for lost time now that her daughter has flown the nest. But her hopes of a wild time and a sexual awakening get disrupted when she unexpectedly becomes a grandma at age thirty-five.
	Ben Berkman	Deliverance 2	Two government employees battle for the soul of the small Georgia town where the movie “Deliverance” was shot.
	Claudia Paterson	Calm, Ordinary	In an attempt to escape her demons, a lonely London service worker signs up for an online service offering Friendship for Rent.
	Keniesha Nesbitt	Dying My Hair Red	Miri, a sketch artist, and devoted Christian is crushing hard on her fellow coworker. Torn between her stern, religious grandmother, her innate loneliness, and complete lack of any experience, she plans to give herself to love but at the cost of awakening the secret family curse.
	Laurie Magers	Youth Ministry	In the tight-knit, mostly Filipino Catholic congregation of St. Anne’s Church, the new group of Youth Ministers go on their first religious retreat, where they toe the line between devout and ungodly.
	Melanie Zoey Weinstein	Fake Rabbi	When a broke, radical feminist painter/burlesque dancer seeking belonging, takes a gig teaching bar mitzvah kids, she pretends she’s a real rabbi and starts to fight the patriarchy from within.
	Nick Madson	Down & Out	A young man with Down syndrome experiences his sexual awakening after discovering the work of international sex symbol Joe Pesci but struggles to come out to his family.
	Nick Williams & Marty Abbe-Schneider	Paul Rudd’s In Trouble	Famous Actor Paul Rudd’s guest appearance on the reality TV show Getting Wild with Bear Grylls goes awry when a terrible accident befalls the show’s titular host—forcing the reluctant movie star and the show’s motley production crew to band together to survive.
	Rishan Dhamija, Edwin Joseph & Sola Fadiran	Alien of Extraordinary Ability	Edwin Thomas, a 20 something Indian immigrant, knows he has what it takes to be the next “Tall, Dark and Handsome” leading man of Hollywood. Now all he has to do is beat the US immigration system and an industry hell-bent on inflaming his bubbling identity crisis.
	Ryan Manns & Jocelyn Manns	New Chapter	When a lonely teenage girl tries to summon her hero from a young adult novel she gets more than she bargained for when the villain shows up instead.

FEATURE FINALISTS
(35 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1 HOUR FINALISTS
(10 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1/2 HOUR FINALISTS
(10 screenplays have progressed)

FEATURE SEMI-FINALISTS
(66 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1 HOUR SEMI-FINALISTS
(55 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1/2 HOUR SEMI-FINALISTS
(41 screenplays have progressed)

FEATURE QUARTER-FINALISTS
(132 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1 HOUR QUARTER-FINALISTS
(109 screenplays have progressed)

TV PILOT 1/2 HOUR QUARTER-FINALISTS
(82 screenplays have progressed)