BEST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
The "best scene" take from features and TV pilots of winning screenplays.
-
ROMANCE Festival BEST Scene: The Highwayman, by Patrick Norman (interview)
A deep and all-consuming romance set in eighteenth-century England between a highwayman and a landlord’s daughter tests their love, loyalty, and willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Logline: He met her on life’s darkest road, and her soul became his moon.
CAST LIST::
Narrator: Hannah ...
-
SCI-FI/FANTASY Festival Best Scene Reading: Simulation, by Peter Jang
In the near future, a man practices for a date with his dream girl by running simulations indistinguishable from reality.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Hannah Ehman
Grayson: Steve Rizzo
Frank: Sean Ballantyne
NPC CHEVELLE: Kyana Teresa -
SCI-FI/FANTASY Festival Best Scene Reading: Saviours, by Guy Ducker
An alien force, having occupied Earth to save us from corrupt governments and fix our broken climate, appoints Claire Burgess—an honest but inexperienced Green Party MP—as interim Prime Minister of the UK. Meanwhile, Trevor Daunt—a disgraced minister on the run—founds a resistance movement aiming...
-
FEMALE Festival Best Scene: The Electric Eye by Kimberly Butler, Marissa Lessman
A middle aged woman finds herself convicted of murder in the 1930’s. She is sent to an all male prison in deep Southern Illinois to await her fate for a crime she may not have committed. Based on true events.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Marie: Kyana Teresa
Young Roberta: Hannah EhmanGet...
-
FEMALE Festival Best Scene Reading: Ready to Mingle, by Olivia Belluck
Ready to Mingle follows Dr. Millie Ward, a defensive self-help columnist for the clickbait-dependent news site Nova Press. Millie thrives on applying her analytical mind to patients she cannot see, snuggled in sweaters that ensure that no one can ever see her. After a lifetime of being told she w...
-
ASIAN Festival Best Scene Reading: The Pear Tree, by Hong Zhou
Dong Sheng and Mei Ning’s cherished family pear tree bursts out in buds and blossoms, only to be wrecked by their friendly new neighbors. Heartbroken, they strive to help the tree heal and thrive, while at the same time feeling through a season of recovering from the incident themselves.
CAST LI...
-
DRAMA Festival Best Scene Reading: TERROR AND VIRTUE, by Ernest Pysher
A young, ambitious idealist returns home from war to find his king and country on the brink of ruin - and ripe for positive reform - until a bankrupt alcoholic becomes the unlikely leader of the movement instead and all hell breaks loose. The incredible true story of the French Revolution.
CAST ...
-
CRIME/MYSTERY Best Scene Reading: LENA'S RULES, by Ken Comer
WHEN A DETECTIVE'S YOUNG PARTNER IS BRUTALLY MURDERED IN AN AMBUSH. HER CAMPAIGN OF REVENGE TURNS INTO AN ACT OF REDEMPTION.
CAST :LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Paz: Kyana Teresa
Lena: Hannah Ehman
Deputy Chief Man: Steve Rizzo
Lt. Mann: Sean Ballantyne -
Toronto Comedy Festival Script Reading: SUPERLATIVE PICKLEBALLS!, by Dan Beeman
When disgraced former tennis champion loses his job, home, and mother on the same day, he must reinvent himself by reuniting with his former rival to compete in Pickleball tournaments for money as teammates to pay off debts. Living in an old RV while traveling across the country, they discover th...
-
DIVERSITY Best Scene Reading: Esperanza, by David Christopher Loya
In 1973 L.A., a spirited Chicano family rock band is discovered by an ambitious record exec. Catapulted on a rollercoaster journey from the barrios to pop stardom, they must rely upon their heart, talent, and street smarts if they’re to survive the prevalent racism, intolerance, sexual predation,...
-
Toronto Comedy Festival Script Reading: SUPERLATIVE PICKLEBALLS!, by Dan Beeman
When disgraced former tennis champion loses his job, home, and mother on the same day, he must reinvent himself by reuniting with his former rival to compete in Pickleball tournaments for money as teammates to pay off debts. Living in an old RV while traveling across the country, they discover th...
-
THRILLER/SUSPENSE Festival Script Reading: MAKWA, by Johnny Cole
A free-spirited indigenous bounty hunter teams up with her ‘by the book’ detective father and their robot sidekick to catch a killer and heal: themselves, each other, and the planet.
In a near-dystopian future, Alaska Rainmaker, a Native American bounty hunter still troubled by her mother's murd...
-
Female Festival Script Reading: TEN TO MIDNIGHT, by M Mantero De las Casas
Dead set on her environmental mission, a quixotic civil servant assembles a ragtag team of multinational oddballs to fight the system from within
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Luiza: Hannah Ehman
Mara: Kyana Teresa -
POLITICAL Festival Best Scene Reading: HAMMER AND NAILS, by Lowell Williams
What if someone when into the seminary to bury his own anger? Jonathan Daniels stumbles into the Civil Rights movement and finds himself face to face with moments that viciously try and pierce his peaceful personality. Based on a true story, he joins Stokely Carmichael and other Black activists d...
-
LGBTQ+ Best Scene Reading: OFFSIDERS, by Kate Holland, Marlowe Mitchell
Get to know the writers:
1. What is your screenplay about?
Playing with the old-as-time concept of the genderbending sports romcom (She's The Man, Ladybugs), Offsiders sees Max dressing up as a boy in order to take her gay best friend's place on the boys' soccer team. The story then takes a dis...
-
FANTASY/SCI-FI Festival BEST Scene Reading: Condolexia, by Allison Hanna
In the eternally twilit city of Condolexia, 18 year old human Brian Marlowe befriends 18 year old vampire Jeremy Liu. But their new friendship is threatened by Brian's family legacy of vampire hunting, a series of vampire attacks in the city, and Brian's own budding conflicted feelings about Jere...
-
CRIME/MYSTERY Festival BEST Scene Reading: A Death In The Family, by Alex Surowitz
Former detective August Cavett and his new wife Elizabeth return from their honeymoon to learn that Elizabeth's father has died. Now the family matriarch is threatening to cut ties with the rest of the family and keep the inheritance. When she ends up dead, the Cavetts are reluctantly drawn into ...
-
HORROR Festival BEST Scene Reading: Cannibal Mukbang, by Aimee Mayumi Kuge
Mark, a nerdy introvert, falls into the dark and twisted world of a mysterious mukbanger named Ash after she accidentally hits him with her car.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Steve RIzzo
Ash: Julie Sheppard
Mark: Allan Michael Brunet
-------- -
DRAMA Festival BEST Scene Reading: Chaos In Paradise, by Jay Paul Smith
Tim and Becky Smith, a salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar couple, become foster parents in their opioid ravaged, rust-belt town, battling dysfunction, poverty, and addiction in order to save foster children, who, but for the grace of God, could have been their own. "Our family's chaos could be some c...
-
LGBT Festival 1st Scene Reading: I'm A Bad Person, by Chance Fuerstinger, Brandon Freeman
After an engagement announcement, the best man of the groom-to-be tries to express his love for him, but he cannot bring himself to do it. In an attempt to forget about it, he and the other groomsman drink themselves into oblivion, and the rest of the night goes awry.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val ...
-
FAN FICTION Best Scene Reading: ROBIN (Batman Series), by Kaley Chandler
When Dick Grayson is taken in by billionaire Bruce Wayne, he begins to uncover a secret side to Gotham - and to his new guardian.
CAST LIST:
Narration: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Ringmaster: Geoff Mays
Dick: Sean Ballantyne
Alfred: Bill Poulin
------ -
FAN FICTION Best Scene Reading: BARRY: Spark Joy, Jessica Montanez Prince
No-Ho Hank manipulates Barry into another job, Barry accidentally lands a big acting role, Sally has trouble on her new job and Fuchs has a close call with the Chechens.
CAST LIST:
Narration: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Fuches/Noho Hank: Bill Poulin
Barry: Geoff May
------ -
FAN FICTION TV Best Scene Reading: WOOSUNG 2020, by Janet Oh
This script is a greatly structured story about the challenges of someone who isn’t familiar with her culture and is trying to integrate herself into it. Dealing with that while also being appointed CEO makes for a story with high stakes. Mixing the chaebol culture with an Americanized protagonis...
-
BEST Scene Script Reading: BLACK MO, by Peter Noel
In the early 1800s a young girl and her family from Africa are abduct, taken to the United States and tortured as they try to salvage their humanity. Escaping from her captors, the young girl evolves from battered slave to successful businesswoman. (Based on a true events.)
CAST LIST:
Narrat...