BEST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

BEST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

The "best scene" take from features and TV pilots of winning screenplays.

BEST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
  • 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
    ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • FANTASY Best Scene Reading: THE ORION QUEEN, by Howard "Buddy" William Lewis III

  • 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

  • LGBTQ+ Best Scene: FOULED OUT, by Rodrigo Varandas

    Ricardo's dad is a big shot basketballer who only wants the best for him. However, what his dad wants and what Ricardo wants are totally different. With his mother passed on, Ricardo and his dad Jorge are trying to spend more time together. But a surprise visit leaves Ricardo's hidden life expose...

  • LGBTQ+ Festival Scene: GOLD, MYRRH, FRANKINCENSE & MURDER, by Hary S. Mudaliar

    Ben-Hur meets To Wong Fu in this whirlwind adventure when a time traveling priest, devoted to the blood cult of Cybele threatens the life of Jesus both past and future unless the Three Magi, with a propensity for being tardy, can stop him. The fact that the Magi are gay adds an inclusive spin on ...

  • FANTASY/SCI-FI Festival Best Scene: Lifeboat, by Mason Mendoza & Bill Baber

    LIFEBOAT IS A SCI-FI DRAMA - FEATURE FILM - BASED ON THE ACCLAIMED GRAPHIC NOVEL.

    Three souls cheat death when they escape the destruction of their spaceship. Now their tiny “lifeboat” is adrift at the end of the universe. Their days are numbered. Every minute is precious. If you know the end, h...

  • THRILLER/SUSPENSE Best Scene: The Bait, by Bernardo Barreto

    The Bait is a visceral survival thriller based on a true story. It follows João, a disillusioned real estate executive suffocating under the weight of his domineering family’s expectations. When his carefree friend Patrick invites him on a windsurfing trip to Búzios, João seizes the chance to rec...

  • WILDsound Best Scene Reading: The Confessor, by Melissa Birks

    In 1935 New York, an ambitious psychiatrist faces jeopardizes his career, marriage, and his own mental health when he fights to spare the life of confessed child killer Albert Fish. Inspired by true events.

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Val Cole
    The Confessor: Sean Ballantyne
    Dr. Gregory: Shawn Devlin

  • LGBTQ+ Festival SHORT Script Reading: THE GREAT BIG LESBIAN YANKEE SWAP

    Aging lesbian couple Debbie and Jean are hosting their annual gay Christmas party in the gayborhood of Boston -- but when their messy adult son Corey (30) shows up in need of a place to live, he threatens to disrupt their retirement plans.

    CAST LIST:

    Narration: Sean Ballantyne
    Mary Ellen/Barb/D...

  • BEST Scene Script Reading: MRS. O'LEARY, by Melissa Birks

    Inspired by the Great Fire of Chicago 1871 following the investigation of Mrs O'Leary, a woman the newspapers blamed for starting the fire that spread all the way to Lincoln Park.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
    Patrick O'Leary: Shawn Devlin
    Mrs. O'Leary: Val Cole

    Get to know the writer:...

  • FEMALE Festival Best Scene Reading: MANIPULATIVE WAYS, by Cheryl Smith

    Susan Passaretti embodies the stereotypical millennial – entitled and a little delusional. By day, she works as a waitress in a greasy spoon diner, and by night, she is a stripper. Fate introduces an extraordinary turn of events when she meets Jonathan, a habitual lottery player who finally belie...

  • FEEDBACK Festival HORROR Best Scene: Saturday Night Slaughter, by Michael Hansen

    Saturday Night Slaughter follows a group of friends who reunite at the local spooky festival, decades after a disco era massacre committed by the mysterious killer known as Dr. Funkenstein. As the music and memories return, so does the bloodshed.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
    Bob: Shawn...

  • COMEDY Festival Best Scene: Tequila Express, by Thomas J Kearns

    A sequence of events leads a bunch of friends on a fun musical journey in time. One where they may not come back from.

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Val Cole
    Bailey: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
    Maria: Hannah Ehman
    Slimy Guy: Shawn Devlin

  • CRIME/THRILLER Best Scene: The Devil's Right Hand, by Algis Danaitis (interview)

    Lee is hired to bring the seducer of a young woman to daddy for his particular vengeance. Daddy is an Arizona drug baron. The seducer works for daddy’s Mexican partner. Then too many people with guns and the wrong ideas intrude. And the job just got complicated.

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Val Cole
    Le...

  • ACTION Best Scene Read: To Lie Among The Sugarcane, by Trey Randle (interview)

    Omar & a group of boys manage to escape the Sudan Civil War & make it to America after experiencing the most horrific fight for their lives.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Omari: Shawn Devlin
    Michael: Sean Ballantyne

    1. What is your screenplay about?

    It's about the Sudanese civil war. The ...

  • FEMALE Festival 1st Scene: CRYSTAL MAGICIAN OF ATZLAN, by Mui Rah

    A hot-shot Crystal Magician puts domestic life on pause to strike back against the big business that ordered a mercenary “hit” on her Animist Kijutsu Temple...and, really, to send a message to all the Atzlan “haves”: nature and Ancient wisdom are more powerful than any human law.

    https://www.f1c...

  • AWAKEN THE MEDIUM, by Lee Bice-Matheson, Kevin Matheson (interview)

    Awaken the Medium is a feature-length script that follows the story of Maggie Samson, whose latest near-death experience thrusts her into discovering her gifts and powers. Maggie is a librarian in her forties. Married to Chris, a professor, with whom she has a son, Justus Samson, now eleven years...

  • TV Best Scene: The Victorian Ladies' Detective Collective, by Patricia Milton

    Two eccentric sisters and a fan-fighting American actress thwart a serial killer in Victorian London, defying society’s expectations to become private detectives. A 50-minute TV pilot.

    http://patricia-milton.com/

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Loveday: Hannah Ehman
    Katie: Elizabeth Rose Morriss

  • SCI-FI Festival Best Scene: CE-V (The Fifth Kind), by Deb Havens & Brad Havens

    It’s Halloween night in the late 1980s. Three kids return from trick or treating with their mom and their dog, hang out in their tree house to sample their loot. That night, on a botanical survey of planet Earth, an alien space craft collecting samples mistakenly uproots the highly unusual “famil...

  • HORROR Best Scene Reading: 666 Challenge, by Gary B. Haley

    When a haunted house draws spectators across generations with a supernatural challenge, the investigators get more than they bargained for. 

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Monty: Sean Ballantyne
    Male Student: Geoff Mays