THRILLER/SUSPENSE Best Scene: THE LANGUAGE OF WOLVES, by Nan Schmid

After being embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, which ends in tragedy, a journalist heads to rural Maine to fully recover and finds herself on the frontlines of another battle, between a family of wolves and the ruthless land developer who wants them hunted down.

After a comrade dies in a horrific incident on the frontlines in Afghanistan, a war correspondent, forced to take time off, travels to Maine, only to stumble upon a exotic-animal hunting resort that threatens the local wolf population. When two wolf pups come under her care, she risks everything to stop the corruption and return the wolves to their pack.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Shawn Devlin
Joey: Val Cole
Mrs. Petrona/Wren: Hannah Ehman
David: Sean Ballantyne

THRILLER Best Scene Reading: EXECUTED AND RISEN, by Salvatore A. Bono

After a wrongful execution sends rock star, John Santo to the morgue, he rises from the dead, thinking he has a second chance to clear his name, but when he’s thrust into a life-and-death struggle to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Angela from renegade pastor, Sonny Romeo — Satan stands in John’s way, demanding his soul as recompense.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
John: Geoff Mays
Vicente: Shawn Devlin
Newscaster: Hannah Ehman

FANTASY/SCI-FI Festival Best Scene: OLIVER, AGAIN, by Robert Benjamin

After using a cutting-edge “memory machine” to relive the best moments of his past, Oliver Parks wakes in a timeline where he never met his wife and his daughter no longer exists — and to undo it, he must outsmart a rival genius, manipulate time itself, and convince the machine’s washed-up inventor — who no longer remembers building it — to help him undo the devastating consequences of a device that was actually a time machine.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Hannah Ehman
Erica: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Oliver: Geoff Mays

ENVIRONMENTAL Festival Best Scene: POLAR BREAK, by Thomas M. DiGiacinto

Set in Churchill, Manitoba—The Polar Bear Capital of the World—Polar Break is a survival thriller where climate change isn’t exposition, but existential pressure. As the ice-free season pushes past record limits, starving bears flood the town. What begins as a containment mission spirals into a siege, forcing unlikely allies to face ecological truth, institutional failure, and their own breaking points. The Polar Break screenplay was recently selected for participattion in the 2025 Enviromental Film And Screenplay Awards.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Hannah Ehman
Cnn Anchor: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Jimmy: Geoff Mays