2003 Winners, Semifinalists and Quarterfinalists:

 

FEMALE PROTAGONIST CATEGORY

 

GRAND PRIZE WINNER:  Wilbur and Sully (Romantic Comedy) by Molyneaux Paul Mathews III

LOGLINE:  A female pro wrestler takes a job as a high school boys’ wrestling coach, falls in love with the nerdy Physics professor, and learns to get in touch with her sexy feminine side.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER:  Molyneaux Mathews studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and recently completed USC’s graduate screenwriting program.  He lives, works, and plays in LA as he finishes his fifth feature screenplay.  While the writer has never dated a woman who could body-slam him, he does insist that he’s open to new experiences.

 

SECOND PLACE:  Coaster Girl (Family) by Thomas Sinsky

LOGLINE:  A child prodigy at designing rides becomes rich, avaricious, and less appreciative of her parents until she is kidnapped and forced to create the ultimate roller coaster, which she does, but her ride also captures the villains and allows her to return to her family.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER: Tom Sinsky earned an MFA in screenwriting from USC in 2001 to go with his law degree and masters in English literature.  His three previous scripts ("Warhol's Disease," "Dealing," and "Cage Match") each advanced in multiple screenwriting competitions. 

 

THIRD PLACE:  Strike Back (Drama) by Holly Villa

LOGLINE:  Corazon Atencio risks everything in order to gain precious little as she, a quiet housewife, galvanizes her community during a protracted strike in a Colorado mining town.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER: Holly is extremely pleased that Strike Back, her second screenplay, has done so well; in addition to the Cynosure award, it placed in the semi-finals of Five and Dime and the quarter-finals (second round) in the Austin Film Festival contest. Married and 45 years old, she believes she has more life experience to put into her writing and, now that her two boys are grown, more time. She started learning the craft in 1998, completing her first screenplay, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim in early 2002. She is currently writing about a disastrous mid-nineteenth century voyage of discovery.

 

MINORITY PROTAGONIST CATEGORY

 

GRAND PRIZE WINNER:  The Triple Nickels (War/Action/Drama) by Paul Davison

LOGLINE:  When a young African American sergeant learns that the government refuses his all-black paratroop unit from fighting overseas in World War II, he trains them for combat nevertheless, and is soon called to battle a far more serious threat -- a secret Japanese attack on a US nuclear facility building the atomic bomb.  Based on true events.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER:  Paul Davison is a fifth-generation graduate of West Point.  After graduating, he served as a paratrooper infantryman in Fort Benning, Georgia, where he met Walter Morris, the Army’s first African American paratrooper, and the inspiration for the hero in THE TRIPLE NICKELS.  Upon leaving the military, he served as a military advisor for the Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers, and is now working in the film and television industry in New York, most recently as a story editor – a reality TV writer – for MTV’s Making the Band 2, starring hip-hop performer P. Diddy.

 

SECOND PLACE:  Amnesty (Drama) by Marie Manilla

LOGLINE:  By caring for her war-damaged cousin, a Latina widow learns to release her dead husband’s ghost and accept love and hope for the future.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER:  Marie Manilla is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  Her stories and plays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mississippi Review, Carve, Toyon, Yemassee Review, Timber Creek Review, and others.  Her short story “Crystal City” is currently a finalist in the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award.

 

THIRD PLACE:  American Indian Money (Road Trip Comedy)  by Luigi Scarcelli

LOGLINE:  Donny White is the last remaining member of the Chipanole, but when the developers he's working with tell him he needs a tribe to get his casino project off the ground, he only has one week to get on the road and find a three member tribal council.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER:  Luigi Scarcelli is a graduate of Boston University's M.F.A. Film Program. He currently resides in Maine, but plans to move to L.A. in the fall. As well as writing scripts, he has directed award winning shorts and documentaries. His recent Documentary 'Landsdowne Street' was shown in the Full Frame Documentary festival in Durham North Carolina, as well in The Short Ends Festival in London, England.

 

FEMALE QUARTERFINALISTS

Anna the Artist (Family) by Rebekah Lovat Fraser

Antigone Bound (Drama) by Regina Marubio

Bad Girl (Suspense) by Kelly Anelons

Bread and Roses (Historical Drama) by Mary C. McKay

Cornered (Thriller) by William DeSeta

Crystal River (Drama) by Emily Carpenter

Dark Blood (Sci-Fi/Horror) by Wendy Wheeler

The Devil's Bind (Biopic) by Morris Fink

Diane Heath Lives in Rural Georgia (Drama) by Donna Trousdale

Endgame (Erotic Thriller) by Paul Gulino

Faith (Drama) by Loretta Ivory

Final Journey (Drama) by Michael Lee Barlin

First Lady (Romantic Comedy) by Christine Lenig

A Good Death (Drama) by Tom Deiker

Hope Whispers by Kevin and Melinda Lasit and Steven and Marilyn Harrington

I-17 (Drama) by Kerry Kent

Karma, Incorporated (Romantic Comedy) by Jennifer Quintens

Missing Tarsila (Drama) by Miriam Kim

Nevermore (Coming of Age Fantasy) by Tamise Van Pelt

Not in this Lifetime (Drama) by Ellen Tarlin

Purified (Thriller) by Elizabeth Savage Sullivan

The Retrievers (Comedy) by Lynn Speier

Sanctuary (Thriller) by Marvin Cotlar

Stripping Bliss (Romantic Comedy) by Ashly Woo

The Summer of Elizabeth by Michael D. Zungolo and Joseph DiSante

Tsunami (Romantic Drama) by Grant Ching

Widow's Peak (Detective/Crime) by Clea Frost 

 

 

MINORITY QUARTERFINALISTS

40 Acres and a Mule (Western) by David Rakowiecki

Bach Double (Drama) by Barbara Marshall

Big City Dreams (Urban Drama) by Tracy King-Sanchez

The Certainty Principle (Thriller) by William Wolff

Halfway Home (Drama) by David Schroeder

Shattered Pearl (Historical Drama) by Debora Mawji

Song of Silence (Historical Drama) by Miranda Kwok

SoulSaver (Sci-Fi) by James Stevens-Arce

Speaking for the Dead (Mystery) by Cliff Gravel, Melody Sarah Groves and Katherine Marie Fredericks

Spyjinks (Action/Adventure) by Eric Kratsa

Sympathetic Nerve (Political Drama) by Gia Gordon

The White Deer by Gayle Brown