2015 Winners and Finalists

Contest of Contest Winners only accept entries that have been a Finalist or better in another qualifying competition (quarter- and semi- for prestigious competitions) during the past five years, so rest assured that these scripts have been vetted. You’re going to want to take a look!

To learn more about the Winners, just click on their name.

1st Place Winner:

Robo4ce

by Jeffrey Howe

{Qualifying Contest:  StoryPros 8th Annual;  First Place Family/Teen/Animation}

2nd Place Winner:

Grace

by Lynda Lemberg & Jeffrey Allen Russel

In 1830, Grace learns of the brutal expulsion of Gaelic Highlanders when she rescues a traumatized girl who has arrived in Montreal after giving birth on the passage over. Tragedy forces Grace’s return to Scotland where she quickly joins the fight to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Gaels, unaware of her own family’s complicity and the dangers that await her.

{Qualifying Contest:  NY Screenplay Contest 2014 Historical/Biographical Grand Prize; and 61 others}

Finalists:

(listed in alphabetical order, by script title)

Blind Spot

by Graham Parke

After discovering a loophole in reality that allows them to predict moments of invincibility, a young tech-savvy couple must stop a rogue government agent from using their technology to disable the country’s defense systems.

{Qualifying Contest:  World Series of Screenwriting, 2014 Thriller/Horror Gold Prize; (among others)}

Bottom Time

by Paul Murdock

A steamship rams U.S. Navy sub S-51 in 1925 and a national outcry demands the dead crew be recovered. Lt. Commander Ellsberg and his divers take on the heroic and “impossible” task of raising the submarine in very deep water.

{Qualifying Contest:  Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest 2014, Finalist}

Catch!

by Jerry Nield

The true story of a 10-year old, cross-eyed, Irish boy achieving the impossible by wrestling his way out of Hell and the coal mines of Wigan, England in the 1870s. He makes a better life for his family but at just 5ft 6in and 145lbs faces corruption, his disability, and losing everything in a wrestling match with America’s most deadly and brutal wrestler for the Heavy-weight Championship of the World.

{Qualifying Contest:  Aura Screenwriter Awards 2014; Finalist}

Debbie the Viking

by Graham Parke

After her mother dies, 12-year-old Debbie copes by fantasizing that she’s a Viking while her father gets lost in his work, but when their dysfunctions threaten to destroy what’s left of their family, they find Debbie’s fantasy life has attracted a real cast of characters to support them.

{Qualifying Contest:  Script Pipeline 2015, Semi-finalist}

Drink With a Stranger

by Anita Skibski

A troubled artist must confront his horrible past while packing up his dead father’s remote estate during an ice storm… and decide whether to answer a late-night knock at the door that could be an escaped killer.

{Qualifying Contest:  Austin Film Festival 2012, Enderby Entertainment Award}

Hobby and Fitz

by Jim Milton

Hired by a movie studio in 1939, F. Scott Fitzgerald gets a mentor: Pat Hobby, an alcoholic schemer left over from the silent era, who leads the novelist through farcical misadventures but helps him to create “the greatest movie ever written.” Based on “The Pat Hobby Stories” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

{Qualifying Contest:  Acclaim Scripts 2011, Runner-up}

Ignorant

by Anita Skibski

A coming-of-age story of accidental seduction by a painfully innocent schoolgirl in 1950s Kentucky coal country.

{Qualifying Contest:  Page International Screenwriting Awards 2015; Quarter-finalist (as Anita Justice)}

Peace Pledge

by George M. Johnson

A disillusioned First World War veteran, challenged by a reckless Anglican priest, reluctantly fights for peace in 1930s Britain, losing both friends and family but gaining a second chance in love. Based on the true story of Canon Dick Sheppard and the Peace Pledge Union.

{Qualifying Contest:  Euroscript Screenwriting Competition 2015, Finalist}

Pink Bunny

by Geoffrey Calhoun

A man kills his coworker and loses his grip on reality when she shows up to work the next day.

{Qualifying Contest: IndieGathering International Film Festival 2015, 2nd-place Suspense-Thriller}

Yellow Touch Red, You’re Dead

by Lauren Hoekstra

Trapped in a school bus by a gang fleeing the cartel, an impulsive high-school girl plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the maverick leader who’s keeping her till she sleeps with him, no matter the cost.

{Qualifying Contest:  Page International Screenwriting Awards 2015, Quarter-finalist}

Previous Year Winners:

2013

2012