Eliot Glassman, 15, openly gay and precocious, becomes emancipated from his suburban parents and friends, following incidents of physical abuse. Freed from his troubled suburban origins, he navigates (often on a skateboard) the dangers and delights of his new urban surroundings. Through it all, Eliot remains a positive life-force -– the ultimate wise ass, the enemy of poseurs, the ironic (often unreliable) narrator of his own amazing story.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Geoff Mays
Eliot: Sean Ballantyne
Alison: Hannah Ehman
Ms. Benton: Elizabeth Rose Morriss

Get to know the screenwriter:

1. What is your screenplay about?

Eliot Glassman, 15, openly gay and precocious, becomes emancipated from his suburban parents and friends, following incidents of physical abuse. Freed from his troubled suburban origins, he navigates (often on a skateboard) the dangers and delights of his new urban surroundings. Through it all, Eliot remains a positive life-force -– the ultimate wise ass, the enemy of poseurs, the ironic (often unreliable) narrator of his own amazing story.

2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?

It's a coming of age dramedy.

3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?

It's actually a television pilot, but could become a movie. Along with my three other completed (and refined) pilots, it should be produced to tell the truth about LGBTQ lives, without the offensive stereotypes that usually appear on network tv. It also is an attempt to show the myriad of pitfalls faced by teenagers, whether LGBTQ or straight, in a society that uses fear and misrepresentation to label people (e.g., urban skateboarders).

4. How would you describe this script in two words?

Fictional truth.

5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?

The Graduate.

6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?

It started as a novel in the mid-1990s, when I moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts for two years and took a fiction workshop with Michael Cunningham (who eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for The Hours). It then became my first feature screenplay, after I took a workshop on screenwriting with Elaine Holliman (Oscar-nominated director of short film Chicks in White Satin) at the Iowa Summer Writers Workshops. Eventually I turned it into a tv pilot, then refined it in the UCLA Professional Program in Advanced TV Writing with instructor John J. Strauss (There's Something About Mary), and further refined in with acclaimed TV and Film story consultant Jennifer Grisanti. In other words, I've been working on it for decades.

7. How many stories have you written?

Five published short stories, 12 feature screenplays, 9 television pilots.

8. What is your favorite song? (Or, what song have you listened to the most times in your life?)

Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie. It's the ringtone on my cell phone.

9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?

When I started writing, I was a busy lawyer for New York State government. Then my mother and sister both got sick and needed economic and loving support in a city I didn't live in. The UCLA Professional Program kept me on track.

10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

Politics and justice, with a strong focus on LGBTQ social and political issues.

11. You entered your screenplay via FilmFreeway. What has been your experiences working with the submission platform site?

I like it. It's very easy to use. And the "gold membership" saves a lot of money in entry fees over the course of a year.

12. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?

The feedback was great. I grew up in Buffalo in the 1950s and '60s, which was then not a progressive place. Prior to cable tv, we got Toronto TV stations via antenna, which had talk show guests who were LGBTQ. My family also spent time in southern Ontario. Ontario, Toronto in particular, always seemed like a place a gay kid could face less fear. Canadian filmmaking, especially Canadian television, is a vibrant market that tv writers should not ignore.