2022 FEATURE AND TV PILOT WINNERS

We are honored to announce the Winners of our 2022 Feature and TV Pilot Contests.

It has been a pleasure to immerse ourselves in 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 graciously 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 post-contest timeline.

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

FINALISTS – FEATURE GENRE TOP 5 | TV PILOT 1HR | TV PILOT 1/2 HR 

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

QUARTER-FINALISTS – FEATURE | TV PILOT 1-HOUR | TV PILOT 1/2 HR

THE FIRST MICHAEL

When a bumbling podcaster chronicles his journey to Florida to confront his biological father and finds out he got the wrong guy, he learns he’s not just on the hunt for a good Christmas story he’s searching for the family he didn’t know he needed.

FEATURE TOP 5 GENRE FINALISTS
(in alphabetical order)

THE BERLIN AGENT

1956: A murder in Cold War East Berlin draws a disgraced British intelligence officer and a cynical German detective into a conspiracy of espionage, scientific discovery, and the future (and past) of the world.

IMMACULATE

When a modern-day New Yorker visits a rural Italian village following her mother’s death, her psychic connection with a 17th-century peasant allows her to uncover secrets about the town’s history of immaculate conception, making her a target of the local fertility clinic on a gory crusade for immortality.

TV 1-HOUR FINALISTS
(10 Finalists – alphabetical order)

	Anthony Povah	Morlock	When a Russian bomber, pursued by an RAF plane, crashes on British soil, a civilian air crash investigator is press-ganged into conducting an investigation that she knows should be military-led. Racing against her menacing Russian counterpart to seek out the truth, she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens global security.
	David Meister	House Left Behind	A woman travels to execute the will of her estranged mother and discovers a remote mountain town plagued by a string of disappearances, suspicious deaths, and an unsettling phenomenon known as collective dreaming.
	Jess Waters	Fountain	A photojournalist is sent to Fountain, Ohio to document the progress of its first integrated police force but soon begins to uncover the mystic reality of this dangerous small town.
	Jessica McLaughlin	Immaculate	When a modern-day New Yorker visits a rural Italian village following her mother’s death, her psychic connection with a 17th-century peasant allows her to uncover secrets about the town’s history of immaculate conception, making her a target of the local fertility clinic on a gory crusade for immortality.
	Kevin Noonan	The Berlin Agent	1956: A murder in Cold War East Berlin draws a disgraced British intelligence officer and a cynical German detective into a conspiracy of espionage, scientific discovery, and the future (and past) of the world.
	Kyle T. Cowan	Don’t Say Gay!	Set in the year 1999 in Albuquerque, two boys – one gay and one pansexual – work together to figure out their sexual orientations and quickly realize how easy it is to confuse sex with love, as well as how difficult it is to be your true self in a world that expects you to be something very different.
	Lillie Gardner	American Virtuosa	Based on a true story, a precocious young prodigy in nineteenth-century Boston must fight gender barriers and her own family to follow her dream of being a world-famous musician.
	Matt Thomas	Debbie	A high-flying defense attorney loses her job at a prestigious law firm and becomes a public defender.
	Michael Bradley Cohen	Don’t Vote For Me	A washed-up actor and a winless campaign manager run for Governor of Rhode Island, but they’re trying to lose so they can rake in the campaign contributions and walk away rich.
	Stephen Woodworth	The PSI Race	In an alternate history of the turbulent 1960s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union rush to cultivate a cadre of telepathic spies as the ultimate weapon in Cold War espionage.

MONKEY WRENCH

A geriatric punk re-forms a 1980s eco-terrorist group in a Cheshire retirement home to plot one last triumphant act of eco-sabotage against the UK’s nuclear future.

HIDDEN SPRINGS

A newly divorced pastor and her children must assimilate after accidentally moving into a secret swingers’ community in Idaho.

TV ½ HOUR FINALISTS
(10 Finalists – alphabetical order)

	Abby Cohen	My Boyfriend The Drag Queen	An unlucky-in-love woman meets the guy of her dreams… who happens to be a bisexual drag queen.
	Antonio Sacre	The Storyteller	A professional storyteller lands in the spotlight when he gets a little too honest about sex on the stage of a high school symposium. Leveraging this newfound fame for his own career advancement proves difficult with an ambitious politician trying to center him as the villain in an upcoming campaign.
	Carianne King	Broadway Books Pilot: “The Tipping Point”	Broadway Books – In aggressively gentrifying Manhattan, a group of 20-something hipsters, struggle to keep their independent bookstore in business using increasingly desperate measures while learning to grow up.
	Dan Martin	Playwrong	Everyone’s heard of Shakespeare and the great Globe Theater, but hath you heard of the troupe next door? Of course, you haven’t. No one hath.
	Dayna E. Clark	Missionary Mary	After her husband leaves her broke and heartbroken, a sheltered moralistic mother must take a questionable job in order to provide for her family.
	Ian Masters & Jon Smith	Monkey Wrench	A geriatric punk re-forms a 1980s eco-terrorist group in a Cheshire retirement home to plot one last triumphant act of eco-sabotage against the UK’s nuclear future.
	Jake Lynch	The Vegetarian Zombie	When the Princess of the Zombies is outed as a vegetarian she runs away from home, finding a portal into the monster multiverse and proof that her Father, the missing King, is still un-alive.
	Kate Johnson	Placebo	In 1347 France, grifters known as Singers of Placebo attend funerals falsely claiming a connection to the deceased in order to receive food or money, a profession Sanceline’s family has indulged in for generations.
	Sara Atehortua & Jillian Rezen	Villain	After megastar love and relationship podcaster, Valentina Valencia gets canceled for cheating on her long-term high-profile boyfriend, she embraces her newly ordained, villainous reputation as a last-ditch effort to save her career.
	Sydney Giacomazzi	Hidden Springs	A newly divorced pastor and her children must assimilate after accidentally moving into a secret swingers’ community in Idaho.

FEATURE SEMI-FINALISTS
(66 screenplays have progressed)

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

TV PILOT ½ HOUR SEMI-FINALISTS
(31 screenplays have progressed)

FEATURE QUARTER-FINALISTS
(133 screenplays have progressed)

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

TV PILOT ½ HOUR QUARTER-FINALISTS
(62 screenplays have progressed)