BEST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
The "best scene" take from features and TV pilots of winning screenplays.
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WILDsound Festival Best Scene: LIBIDO ON STEROIDS, by Nicholas J Szegedi
Libido on Steroids unveils the tumultuous life of Michael, a high-powered executive who appears to have it all—a devoted wife, Isabella, and their beloved son, Scott. Yet, beneath the façade of perfection lies a decade-long rift in their marriage, simmering with unspoken issues.
CAST LIST:
Nar...
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THRILLER/SUSPENSE Festival Scene: LET ME IN, by Jared D Tagliaferro (interview)
This gritty thriller follows Boston Detectives David Carr and Ryan Fowler as they hunt the infamous Block Killer, a brutal murderer who targets the quiet neighborhoods surrounding Boston, leaving each block with nothing but silence and bloodshed. After Carr seemingly killed the Block Killer a yea...
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FEMALE Fest Scene: MATHEMATICAL MERMAID, by Sandra Fox-Sohner, Maria Kaur Bedi
For centuries, mathematicians chased an elusive dream: one formula that explains the mystery of Saturn's rings, rotating celestial spheres, and spinning tops. The puzzle was known as The Mathematical Mermaid. Many men tried and failed. Then, one extraordinary mind defied tradition and dared to so...
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ROMANCE Festival Best Scene: LEGACY, by Lisa Baggio
Summary: Mila, Bella & Savy all navigating their adult lives and the challenges it brings.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Savy: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Charlie: Sean Ballantyne -
FANTASY/SCI-FI Festival Best Scene: GEMYND PROJECT, by Nazila Azizi
Gemynd follows two executives debating over how to launch a memory chip. While Gemynd has an interesting basic premise, it lacks a strong narrative arc, context and set up about the chip, clear stakes, and a message for the audience to take away.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Hannah Ehman
Oliver: Shaw... -
ACTION/THRILLER Festival Best Scene: Feral Mountains, by Terry Luke Podnar
A man with stricken anxiety is forced to move his family to a remote area of the Appalachians where they make a shocking discovery lurking in the mountains when their dog captures a baby monkey.
https://instagram.com/terry.podnar
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Hayden: Geoff Mays
Warren: Shawn ... -
Best Scene: On the Corner of Eden and Grace, by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus
Between the moon walk and Woodstock, a 17 year old aspiring photographer struggles to save her boyfriend from slipping into heroin addiction without destroying herself.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Shawn Devlin
Boone: Shawn Ballantyne
Rosie: Elizabeth Rose Morriss -
FANTASY/SCI-FI Festival Best Scene: Miracle Makers, by Beatriz Talerico
In a future where fertility is rare and tightly controlled, an eighteen-year-old girl is publicly selected as a Miracle Maker after failing to comply with a mandatory wellness check. As she is celebrated and subjected to months of ritualized spectacle broadcast to the world, she comes to believe ...
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LGBTQ+ Festival Best Scene: Ladyboy Blues, by Richard Lanoix
A midwestern All-American man escapes his mundane and limiting world back home for a new life in Thailand, but he gets more than he bargains for when he falls in love with a mysterious restaurant owner who harbors a secret and a dangerous past that sweeps them both into the cutthroat criminal und...
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WILDsound Festival TV Pilot Scene: Burnout, by Izzie Mantese
After a drug-induced near-death incident gets her kicked out of college and lands her in treatment, a newly-sober young woman moves into an all-women’s Los Angeles sober living house, where she must grapple with her past demons while rebuilding her life – all while surrounded by an eclectic group...
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WILDsound Festival Best Scene Reading: DRAGOON, by Matthew Kosinski
A duelist disguises herself as a man in order to become the best fencer and confront the man who murdered her family during France's religious purges.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
Marguerite: Hannah Ehman
Julie: Elizabeth Rose Morriss -
FEMALE Festival Best Scene: Desert Belles, by Candace Egan (interview)
After the death of her father and the loss of her racing partner, a veteran off-road driver enters an all-women desert rally with an unlikely teammate.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Shawn Devlin
Otto: Sean Ballantyne
Geri: Hannah EhmanGet to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
DESERT...
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COMEDY Festival Best Scene: Children of the Night, by Mark B. Newbauer
A jilted teen races the clock to win back his born-again virgin ex-girlfriend as she is targeted for her unique abilities by a charming outcast vampire looking to reclaim his legacy as ruler of the underworld.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
Mina: Hannah Ehman
Jonathan: Shawn Devlin -
ROMANCE Festival Best Scene: Being First, by Lynne Jones (interview)
Florence is invited to Katsumi's wedding ceremony in Tokyo. Excited for the opportunity to see Katsumi again & have time away with her boyfriend - she learns that not all is as it seems and that some changes will be made in order for her to be happy.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
Dais... -
WILDsound Festival Best Scene: Seahawk, by Evan Langston, Frank Orsatti
A green young seaman signs onto the freighter Seahawk for his first trip across the Pacific and is thrown into a world of salt, sweat, and steel. As he learns the brutal rhythms of life at sea, he falls for the captain’s goddaughter — a woman as tough and capable as the men around her. But when a...
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CHICAGO Festival Best Scene: One Way Out, by Alyxandrya Prynce
During World War II in Germany, young American soldier Dirk Dawson is singled out as the weak link in his squad. Mocked and humiliated by both his peers and his superiors, Dirk survives a chaotic patrol that ends in injury and a hollow Purple Heart, an act meant to honor him but instead deepens h...
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FANTASY Best Scene: The Demon Core of Fresh Kills, by Colin Dodds (interview)
A grieving tourism commissioner and a physicist on probation rescue a relic of the Manhattan Project from the world’s largest landfill.
Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
Blanche: Hannah Ehman
Brendan: Shawn Devlin
Pearl: Elizabeth Rose MorrissGet to know the writer:
What is your screenplay about?
Th...
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ANIMATION Festival 1st Scene: Carlsbad, by Eleanor Christina Cain
Over 4,000 years ago in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico, a gentle Indigenous teen at odds with his tribe’s gender expectations discovers a magical cavern world that forces him to confront who he is and who he is meant to become.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Sakwa: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
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BEST Scene Reading: THE FINAL FIGHT, by Todd J. Stein
When Hollywood producer Scott Cohen returns to Brooklyn on an unexpected trip, he’s shocked to find his father, Martin Cohen, a former Golden Gloves champ, living in squalor under the control of his manipulative second wife and her mob-connected relatives. The full horror comes into focus when Sc...
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EXPERIMENTAL Festival Best Scene: A Glimpse of the Moon, by James Wiliam Tuttle
A socially invisible college dropout in Maine is finally seen when coaxed into performing as The Unknown Stripper. Reveling in newfound attention, he sets off to make a name for himself at a famous Boston strip club. Battling insecurities and a malicious headliner, he gets one chance to win his p...
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BLACK Festival Best Scene: The Weight of Wind, by d.b. Roderick
Blown off course into abolitionist Bermuda in 1835, the U.S. brig Enterprise carrying 78 enslaved people forces a desperate mother and a conflicted captain into a collision with law, conscience, and profit where one storm at sea becomes a reckoning that could free them all.
CAST LIST:
Narrator...
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ROMANCE Best Scene Reading: Act Three Problems, by Matthew Lowe
At the altar, Julian cannot go through with his wedding to Rose, but the pair are forced to work together for a part reshoot of their latest movie. With the studio determined to keep the breakup a secret, the pair must keep up the pretence of a couple which creates plenty of onset tension. Howeve...
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FANTASY Best Scene Reading: THE ORION QUEEN, by Howard "Buddy" William Lewis III
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
It is a tale of redemption and what it might take to push the worst villain in the Orion Colonies to seek it. The answer is a psychic tie to a native Orion alien who plays the memories and experiences of all of her victims through Charli...
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BEST Scene Reading: ETERNAL LIFE, by Jaaered Brown
Waking in a future with floating cities topping thousands of stories, run by radioactive intelligence, where imagination blends with machine, an amnesiac finds her destiny.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
Anne-Marie: Val Cole
Alis: Elizabeth Rose Morriss