I was motivated to write this poem because I wanted to hold that moment in time and placing it on paper made that a reality.
3) How long have you been writing poetry?
I’ve been writing poetry since 2018.
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
If I could have dinner with one person, it would be Eugene O’Neill. I think he is the one writer who uncovered the truth in every word of his craft.
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I didn’t actually know that the work would be performed.I thought it was only for the winners of a contest.I read my own work aloud as part of the editing process, but having someone else read it certainly opens a new perspective.
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
Yes. All of my published works can be found on my website http://www.juliannedemartino.com. I’ve also written several pilot episodes, including D.E.B., De/teched, and Startup, as well as adaptations, which are two features and many short films.Some of these works can be found on the ISA Network. https://www.networkisa.org/profile/julianne-demartino
7) What is your passion in life?
My passion in life is writing.There are so many talented writers at the moment. I feel literature is having a moment, especially with books being adapted into film.Being a writer is not easy and often costs us more than we expected, but not writing would feel like a slow death to me.I write in order to live.
Reply
—–
POEM:
Death has come
praise, no doubt
with/rooted in justification
the feral guise
hit so hard
with a force that
pushed like a great wind
away and in and back into her again
none remained
I ask you now
as gone is the thing
are there any who weep
perhaps one or two
to which birth was
given the bond that
flickered, yes, the
praise would be possible
when that time and
space would be considered
the heart wanted to love
permeable was it not
the dark was let in
where the splinters lived
and therefore, the dim
tree was never seen in all
green youthful roots of hope
its glory lived
buried. Waiting
but there was nothing. The rays could not
permeate. The self could not help
the self and so
death is comfort
Performed by Val Cole
Get to know the poet:
1) What is the theme of your poem?
I lived in the abandoned farmhouse the poem describes for a year or so with my sister and our boyfriends. While we enjoyed our life there—sweating in the “outhouse-turned-sauna” and then jumping into the icy creek—it was a peculiar place. Well suited with its moribund feeling for the suicide some years later by a distant friend of my sister’s.
2) What motivated you to write this poem?
When I heard about Roger’s suicide, I was living in Catalonia, Spain. The news startled me and took me back to the farmhouse. The poem reflects my memory’s attempt to capture it.
3) How long have you been writing poetry?
Ooph! Some 50 years!
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
My sister Melinda, whose earlier death–possibly also by suicide but unconfirmed–shaped me. We started life in cribs placed in a T shape, where we chatted with each other before we’d learned to talk (or so my mother told me).
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
To be honest, I didn’t understand what the submission would mean. Now that I know, I’m thrilled. I’m sharing the readings with those who shared my life in Minnesota.
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
No. Poetry it is!
7) What is your passion in life?
To transform this world into a better place for all.
—
POEM:
TO WARREN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
I
Oh Warren at the bottom of the sea,
You never return to me.
Every day your distance grows
As you’re carried out by the tide’s flows
Farther and farther, o deep-sea floater.
Oh Warren at the bottom of the sea,
Won’t you come back to me?
With each day your distance grows
I succumb to memory’s throes
Over the death of you.
This is no lighthearted rhyme
But my futile protest at time
For having left me behind.
I stumble in the sand,
My hands grope for you.
II
Hark my love! And forgive the laden language.
The thick yellow crescent of the moon
Above the crest of the mountains
Casts gold across the black Bay
And sparkles on the dimpled water.
Hark Warren at the bottom of the sea!
Thrill to the beauty of the moon’s rays
Penetrating to where your body lays
To illuminate your gentle rest.
I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, swimming it its waters and sailing with my dad. This poem attempts to capture ot only what it meant, but how I learned to respect it.
2) What motivated you to write this poem?
After living in different states, I finally came home to the Bay and I wanted to create something that reflected that.
3) How long have you been writing poetry?
More than 20 years.years
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
This is a tough question. It’s nearly impossible to choose. I’d have to say it would be a writer, but which one? A poet like T.S. Eliot? Or one of my favorite contemporary writers, Greg Iles? Honestly, I cannot choose.
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor? I have never heard onne of my poems read aloud. Now, I wish I had done this sooner!
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I mostly write poetry, but I have written a few small things such as a children’s book, and have attempted MANY novels, all yet to be completed.
7) What is your passion in life?
Love. Freedom. Equality. The belief that we are all human and no one person is better than another. A wish for peace, a desire to put all of this in words every single day.
—– POEM:
We lived two hundred yards from the Chesapeake Bay, close enough to hear it breathing in the dark, close enough that salt was in our blood before we ever knew the word for it. Spring came and we ran barefoot over cold sand. Summer turned the bay to hammered gold. Autumn brought us storms we stood inside of. Winter, we went anyway — we were bold. We dug our castles, knowing they would fall. We laid out flat and worshipped the sun. We sailed on days when the wind was almost nothing. We swam in days when the chop was serious. Our father was always there with a lesson Reminding us we were friends with a wild thing. He said: the water never gets tired. Remember that, and nothing else matters. You may grow weary. You may want to stop. Your arms will feel weak and you may be crying, The tide makes no allowance for your courage. Respect the wave before you choose to fight. We learned to read the pull beneath the surface, to trust the tides but never trust them fully, to love the water the way you love a wild thing.
1) What is the theme of your poem? We cannot escape our pasts.
2) What motivated you to write this poem? I spent a Saturday afternoon at my brother’s bedside in an ICU ward, then went home and wrote the first draft of Intensive Care. Two days later, my brother died, so revising the poem became a sort of tribute to him.
3) How long have you been writing poetry? Since 2021.
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Bruce Springsteen
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I don’t send poems out often. When I do, it’s usually in response to a call for submissions. Trump had been in the poem since the first draft, so I responded to your 47th President call.
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..? Yes, I write screenplays and flash fiction.
7) What is your passion in life? Photography
—- POEM:
Brother, while you were sleeping, hands crossed over your hot-wired heart, your friends, Smitty the gambler, and folk singer Rick, stood at your bedside, then slipped away. Now it’s just the two of us, and the urgent beeping in this dim room.
When you awaken, with a moan I know the pain is back, so I check the time, head for the nurses’ station.
LaTasha feeds the morphine into the IV. “This will fix you up.” “Thank you, darlin’.” Then she mutes the monitors, leaves us.
In the fragile quiet, you tell me your dream: the Walmart on Victory Drive has been torn down, and Baker High is back where it used to be. We are bleeding out on the practice field, and Trump, not Whiteside, is our coach.
I remember my broken leg, the team doctor who called it a bruise. We fought a kind of war with our teammates, while Vietnam festered in an open wound, half a world away,
Slowly, the painkiller spreads, and you drift away. But this time your hands are fists, one by your face on the pillow, the other chest-high, like you’re about to throw a punch. At whom? Our president? The tyrant of a football coach we all hated?
Untether, brother, go back to the south side, strap on your helmet, lace up your steel cleats, take this one last chance to settle the score
I was watching a show about a person saying goodbye to the love of their life. See the pain as they spoke of their journey.
3) How long have you been writing poetry? I have been writing poetry for over 30 years
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be? I would love to sit down with Mya Angelou.
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor? I am a spoken word artist. I wanted to see someone perform my work. Listen to the tone and texture of the delivery and see if my written words matched.
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..? No, I am a poet and spoken word performer
7) What is your passion in life? My passion is to speak through my art. I may not be remember for who I am but I want my words to live on.
—– POEM:
I hear the flatline Sounds of machine chirping between my ears Pounding again and again Like nails scratching a blackboard Taking over my brain Bee… beep…beep Interrupting my thoughts getting louder Wishing it was her heart moving in rhythm An imperfected dance moving through the machine Like our chemistry I tried to recall our last conversation Remembering the words The way she uttered each syllable But the sound of the damn machine kept creeping in Breaking my concentration Piercing my mind All I hear is the beep…beep…beep My mind flashing from present to past Remembering the very first kiss Savoring the way her lips grazed on my skin The laugh when she was attempting to be cheeky Beep…beep…beep swapping back to now At this moment, I hold her hand Never wanting to let go Soft and delicate Cool to touch but I couldn’t enjoy this moment Because of the beep…beep…beep Growing stronger and louder I looked into her eyes hoping she would say something Her body was void of life Yet she was so peaceful. The noise was booming Jolting me as it pierced my ears Beep…beep…beep Infiltrating my last moment Our last moment Beep…..beep….beep….then silence A feeling of relief A voice in the background whispering she’s gone BEEEEEP!
1) What is the theme of your poem? The theme of both my poems, “Water in the Desert” and “There’s no need to rush,” is transformative love from Black women.
2) What motivated you to write this poem? These poems were inspired by personal reverence for a lovely friend of mine. I wanted to pay forward gratitude for the tenderness and softness of intimacy, where two people meet each other where they are at emotionally and spiritually.
3) How long have you been writing poetry? I have written poetry on and off since I was younger. For the last few months, I have dedicated my time to submitting poetry in hopes of getting my name out there and gaining recognition for my work.
4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be? I would love to have dinner with Tyler, the Creator! He’s my all-time favorite artist.
5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor? I have been submitting poetry to many organizations, and I was mainly curious about the process. It was surreal listening to the performance for the first time, and I want to continue submitting poetry to be shared in this medium!
6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..? I’m working on writing essays about my growth journey and commitment to self-exploration. My hope is that sharing them resonates with others as I present the multitudes of the self through trusting ancestral guidance to help me confront fears and celebrate the joys of life.
7) What is your passion in life? My passion is rooted in representation and sharing Black queer experiences, striving to help others feel seen and understood.
During the Great Depression, a troubled New Orleans beat cop gets a shot at redemption when he becomes the first Black federal agent in the Bureau of Narcotics—only to discover that the price of his status comes at the cost of persecuting his own community.
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
Reefer Madness is a one-hour historical crime drama set in 1933 New Orleans. It follows Gary O’Neill, a troubled but ambitious Black federal narcotics agent, as he becomes one of the first Black agents in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and is pulled into undercover work inside the city’s jazz clubs, dockside networks, and marijuana underworld.
At the same time, Commissioner Harry Anslinger begins transforming marijuana into a national panic, using propaganda, racism, and political fear to build the foundation of what would become the War on Drugs. Tonally, we often describe the series as Boardwalk Empire meets Sinners, with the grounded political-crime engine of Narcos: Mexico: a seductive period underworld, a Black music-driven cultural pulse, and a federal propaganda machine colliding in the making of America’s drug war.
At its core, the story is about what happens when a man’s biggest opportunity forces him to help enforce laws that harm his own community.
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?
Historical crime drama and political thriller.
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie/tv series?
This story should be made because the history behind marijuana prohibition is still shaping lives today. Cannabis is now legal and profitable in many places, yet many people, especially Black and racialized communities, are still living with the consequences of the laws, convictions, stigma, and policing that came before legalization.
That contradiction is at the heart of Reefer Madness: the distance between who profits from the plant now and who paid the price for it then. While developing the project, we travelled to New Orleans and saw advertisements for legal weed in a city deeply tied to jazz, race, policing, and survival, knowing that people are still imprisoned for cannabis-related offences.
As a series, Reefer Madness offers a rich and entertaining world of jazz, crime, politics, undercover work, family fracture, and moral compromise, while opening a necessary conversation about propaganda, racism, policing, and historical accountability.
4. How would you describe this script in two words?
Historical reckoning.
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
Dana: The Lion King — the original.
Mehdi: The Dark Knight
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?
We created our first draft of the television pilot in 2022, then did a major rewrite in 2024. Before that, we explored the material through related theatrical productions in 2018 and 2019, so the world, themes, and characters have been evolving with us for several years.
7. How many stories have you written?
Mehdi and I have both written across various genres independently, totaling about a dozen stories between us.
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?
The motivation came from a combination of personal experience, historical curiosity, and frustration with the hypocrisy surrounding cannabis legalization. While we were in university studying theatre and English, we began asking a simple question: why did cannabis become illegal in the first place?
That question led us into the history of propaganda, racism, jazz culture, policing, and the early drug war. Over time, especially through work and research connected to cannabis, it became impossible to ignore how legalization had grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry while so little attention was being paid to the people and communities harmed by prohibition.
That feeling became even sharper when we travelled to New Orleans during the development of the project. Seeing weed advertisements in a city so tied to the history of jazz, race, policing, and survival, while knowing people are still imprisoned for cannabis, made the story feel even more urgent.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
One major obstacle was learning how to reshape our instincts from theatre into television. Coming from playwriting, we had to become more disciplined about screen pacing, visual storytelling, pilot structure, and what a first episode should reveal versus what it should hold back for the series. Our mentor, Adrian Colussi, helped guide us through that process and encouraged us to keep sharpening the script as a television pilot.
COVID was also a major disruption. Like everyone else, we had to keep creating while the world was turned upside down. Thankfully, we received two grants from the Ontario Arts Council for creative research, and that support helped motivate us to keep developing the project with seriousness and care.
The other challenge has been learning how to “kill our darlings.” The world of Reefer Madness is big, with many characters and historical threads, so part of the process has been learning what belongs in the pilot and what should be saved for later episodes.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
Dana: I’m passionate about mental and physical health, fitness, history, mixed martial arts, and truth. I’m especially drawn to stories, ideas, and practices that help people understand themselves, their bodies, and the world more clearly.
Mehdi: I’m a huge believer in trying new things and experiencing as much of life as I can. I’m passionate about good food, current events, staying in shape, and my family.
11. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?
Our mentor, Adrian Colussi, encouraged us to enter more screenwriting competitions and festivals. The Black Screenwriters Festival felt like a strong fit for this script, and the possibility of receiving a recorded reading was especially exciting because Reefer Madness has such a strong sense of voice and character.
We really appreciated the feedback. It recognized the promise of the pilot, the strength of the dialogue, the depth of the research, and the potential for the series to live on a streaming platform. The main note was to trust the script more by making the pilot more concise, especially by saving certain storylines for later episodes. That was helpful because it confirmed that the world is working, but also reminded us that the pilot needs room to breathe. It is always hard to kill your darlings, but we value feedback that helps the pilot become leaner, sharper, and more producible.
Sasha, a rising star athlete with Olympic dreams, sees her future derailed after a brutal assault in college leaves invisible wounds that never fully heal. Years later, the pressures of work, marriage, and motherhood ignite a storm inside her that she can no longer control. As her manic episodes intensify, Sasha finds herself colliding with police stations, hospital wards, and a mental health system that repeatedly fails her.
Get to know the writers:
1. What is your screenplay about?
The Inside Fight centers on Sasha, a rising star athlete with Olympic dreams. Her future is derailed after a brutal assault in college leaves invisible wounds that never fully heal. Years later, the pressures of work, marriage, and motherhood ignite a storm inside her that she can no longer control. As her manic episodes intensify, Sasha finds herself colliding with police stations, hospital wards, and a mental health system that repeatedly fails her.
Her husband, Leon, and her devoted cousin, Bianca, fight desperately to reach the woman they love before she’s lost to the chaos consuming her life. But each attempt to help is met by a system that overlooks the safety, pain, and humanity of Black women.
Raw, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, this story exposes the fragility of the mind and the immense courage it takes to advocate for oneself when the world refuses to listen.
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?
Drama, Psychological Thriller
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
Mental Health, especially in the black community, is rarely depicted realistically and respectfully in film.
4. How would you describe this script in two words?
Heroine misconstrued
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
Niki: The Color Purple
Bernita: White Chicks
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?
Niki: Two years
Bernita: Two years
7. How many stories have you written?
Niki: Five
Bernita: Three
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?
Niki: This screenplay is based on challenges black women with mental issues face. Sharing the facets of black women’s lives is what I’ve dedicated my writing to. I was honored to take on this project to enlighten audiences and possibly help someone battling the aftermath of a traumatic experience and provide hope for those that love them.
Bernita: Mental health has affected my family for years. There are a few aunts and uncles that I personally know that deal with it. Having a mental health diagnosis is shunned upon in the black community. At-least it was when I was coming up, you’d be called crazy and labeled. Writing this story helped me in understanding what the mentally unstable endure.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
Niki: Editing down to a cohesive story.
Bernita: Time, my partner stays focused all the time, and I have so many running parts in my life, it’s hectic. It got to a point where I sat down one day and wrote 50 pages and completed my portion.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
Niki: Everything film production. I especially enjoy directing and working with actors to bring out their best performances.
Bernita: I am very passionate about youth. Giving them a fair chance at careers and education. A lot of youth are misunderstood. They just need someone to talk to and show that they care.
11. What influenced you to enter the festival?
We wanted objective feedback for our script.
What were your feelings about the initial feedback you received?
Niki: I was excited to receive feedback in a relatively short period of time. The feedback was comprehensive and we are applying the feedback to strengthen the script.
Bernita: I was elated to say the least. I felt like, finally, someone will see that I am talented too! I work in the shadows while everyone else shines. Now it’s my turn.
A relentless authentic punk rock dreamer from 1988 Hoboken becomes the unwitting “poster boy” for a megalomaniacal media mogul’s lifestyle makeover scheme, and must fight to reclaim his identity and stop the mogul from destroying his community.
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
It’s about a budding teenage punk rocker in 1978 Hoboken, New Jersey, with little talent but lots of passion, who refuses to sell out for musical success and fades into obscurity. Ten years later, he’s stuck in a dead-end job at a mall record store in the 1980s when corporations are taking over every aspect of our lives.
The 28-year-old Loser becomes the poster boy for the ultimate lifestyle makeover company that’s part of a Disney-like multimedia empire, which is remaking entire cities so it can brainwash residents into buying their entertainment products from the cradle to the grave. In effect, remaking the Loser who sells out his dreams and even his Punk Rock Girlfriend to become a Winner in the Corporate Empire.
But in the end, he uncovers the corporation’s sinister plan and reverts to his punk rocker persona to make a “loud noise” that snaps the residents out of their brainwashed stupor. In short, it’s about staying true to yourself and your dreams regardless of commercial or critical “success” in the public’s eye.
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?
It started out as a satirical comedy about 30 years ago, then recently I modified it into a musical movie. Instead of straight dialogue, I envisioned actors singing or talk-singing lines.
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
It’s funny, smart, and makes you think about the world we now live in. I wrote the original version over 30 years ago, which was optioned by the co-writer of ROBOCOP (Michael Miner) and shopped around to music-related movie prodcos such as MTV Films and Island Films.
But they didn’t get it — this was before studios and big companies started remaking old movies, TV shows, and music for new generations of consumers. It foresaw a time in which corporations recycle and commercialize whatever they can, including our own social media content.
In my script, Lifestyle Consultants & Developers (LCD — Lowest Common Denominator, get it?) literally recycles human shit and sells it back to the consumers who produce it as sanitized, homogenized, pasteurized yogurt. Frozen yogurt or Fro-Yo to be more precise. Because when it starts to melt, it smells like shit.
Coincidentally, the term “enshittification” has come into use to describe how consumers are ensnared by services or platforms that then monetize the product to such a degree the experience becomes really shitty.
4. How would you describe this script in two words?
Bizarre satire.
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
It’s a tie between The Wizard of Oz and Network, my two favorite films of all time.
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?
It was the second feature script I had written — about 30 years ago as I mentioned. But when the Robocop co-writer and his producer partner were unable to get it made, I shelved it. Then I saw Spike Lee’s movie version of the theater performance of PASSING STRANGE which is about a young black musician’s coming of age story and I was inspired to rewrite my script as a musical movie.
7. How many stories have you written?
Dozens of feature and TV screenplays, hundreds of newspaper articles, columns, and blog posts. Several of my scripts have been optioned or won money and prizes in major contests, shopped around by producers and managers. None produced yet though.
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?
At the time, I was reading books about screenwriting that listed key ingredients such as 3-act structure, likeable or interesting characters, clear goals and stakes, etc. It felt stifling and boring to follow the rules, so I set out to do the opposite of all that! And when Michael Miner, the Robocop writer, read it as part of a screenwriting workshop I signed up for at the University of Hawaii, he took me aside and said he thought I had something he could sell to his contacts since he started out doing music videos.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
It was early in my screenwriting career when I had more energy and sheer passion back then, so it wasn’t difficult to finish. I had just gotten out of rehab, which is where I realized I had a second chance to reinvent myself and do what I loved—writing—instead of simply trying to make a lot of money doing things I didn’t care that much about such as sales and marketing work. Fortunately, my wife was completely supportive and since we didn’t have kids, we could afford my decision to be a writer.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
Reading. Art. Listening to music. Politics. Science. Sports. I have very eclectic tastes, which is reflected in my characters and stories that draw on everything from folk tales and mythology to art, classical music, punk rock, and jazz.
11. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?
I saw a post on Blue Sky about the Political Screenplay Festival and thought, hmm, that’s different! I’ve won or placed as a finalist in a bunch of respected competitions, beating out thousands of other entries. But they all mostly promote the standard genres that are the most commercial. My I GOTTA BE ME script goes against that grain and is a commentary on mass consumerism, driven by conservative—and political—desires to go back to the Good Old Days that weren’t so good to minorities, women, and LGBT people.
Your reviewer really seemed to get what I was going for and the feedback was spot on. His suggestions were actionable too and made sense. I have paid for Black List professional reader evaluations and feedback in other contests before, and felt the WildSound notes were as good or better overall. I was very impressed with the accuracy and his insights as well.
Madison and her estranged dad, Daniel spend time camping in the forest when an earthquake hits and pushes them further away from civilization.
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about? A Place of Beauty is about a former Navy corpsman with PTSD and his 12-year-old daughter who get stranded in the wilderness after an earthquake, and are forced to survive together while confronting the death of the girl’s mother. It escalates to a cougar attack that nearly kills him, and the daughter, using survival skills he taught her, keeps him alive and signals a rescue helicopter with her mother’s locket. Thematically, it explores concepts of grief, emotional avoidance vs presence, and forgiveness.
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under? Survival drama, with family/relationship drama as the emotional engine. The script also dips into man-vs-nature thriller in the back third once the cougar attack hits.
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie? From a story perspective, we don’t see too many two-hander survival stories, particularly ones that focus on the parent-child relationship. Most other wilderness/survival films focus on spectacle over relationship, but this one prioritizes the relationship above all else. The setting is also beautiful and unique. From a more practical perspective, there are only two characters and they are complex and would potentially attract strong actors, its (mostly) a single location/area type of film to shoot, and the budget would likely reflect this simplicity.
4. How would you describe this script in two words? Earned forgiveness
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life? Braveheart, which is my favorite! Although Predator, my guilty pleasure, might be a close second.
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay? About 12 months.
7. How many stories have you written? 12 feature screenplays, with another 4 or 5 in development.
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay? I really enjoy parent-child themes and exploring that dynamic and the power and responsibility adults have to children. I wanted to do a story where the father must overcome all kinds of obstacles to keep his child alive against all odds, but the richness of the story really comes from how the two of them interact and support each other and ultimately find a way to forgive and grow. Being from Northern California originally, I knew the Sierra Nevadas could make for a great location for such a story.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay? Balancing spectacle scenes vs emotionally intimate scenes, editing and polishing my subconscious mistakes out of the drafts.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about? Reading, learning, music & composition, nutrition and exercise, baseball, youth sports & coaching, volunteering with my city, donating blood, financial literacy, and leveraging technology to improve quality of life.
11. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received? I wanted some feedback and to see how this story would fare. The feedback was pretty sparse and reiterated the story, character, and themes more than constructive feedback, but I’ll take what I can get!
