2015 Virginia Screenwriting Competition Winners

• Kristin Swenson

  Tell Mister Lincoln

  When an escaped slave discovers there’s more to freedom than getting free and family can be wider than blood, her indomitable courage and extraordinary friendships will change the nation forever. Tell Mister Lincoln is based on the true story of Harriet Tubman.

• Victoria Ellis Nye

  Far From Home

  Harlan was just a young man of 18 when he went to jail for seven years for a DUI manslaughter conviction that killed his girlfriend’s sister. He’s being released back into the world and coming home to a father in the midst of a mid-life crisis and a mother who is carrying on an illicit affair with one of her under-age patients. FAR FROM HOME tells the story of a man trying to find his place in a world where everything went wrong when it wasn’t supposed to.

• Via Buksbazen

  The Radish Baby

  A comedic drama rooted in magical realism, THE RADISH BABY tells the story of a Latino garnish chef who must confront the memory of his cruel father in order to become a loving parent to a radish that has magically come to life.

Finalists

• Perry McGrath

  In Time With Thomas Jefferson

  Jimmy Brooks is an African-American exterminator who lives in the 21st century. One day, on his way to a call at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, he stumbles across a man claiming to be Thomas Jefferson himself, who insists that he has traveled through time from the year 1809 and requires assistance in getting back. With the help of a physics professor, Jimmy plays along with the man’s claims, which eventually leads to the discovery of the true identity of this eloquent stranger.

• Patrick C. Taylor

  Counterclockwise (television Pilot)

  In the month since his fiancée died, Aaron Sever’s life has spiraled out of control, landing him in a mental facility.  On the brink of ending it all, he discovers that every time he saves a life, he wakes up the day before.

• J Darin Wales

  The Witch Of Pungo

  The true story of late 17th century Virginia in which a widowed mother of three, doing what she can to run a farm in a man’s world, repeatedly finds herself at the end of pointed fingers, offered as a scapegoat, alleged to be a witch, and put on a trial where innocence means certain death.

• Cara Hanson

  Fourth Down And Love

  Lizzie, an uptight English Lit. professor, will do anything to keep her unemployed brother, Darcy, from moving in with her.  Worlds collide when she’s forced to date Montana, a sports-obsessed rock star who can jump-start Darcy’s music career.  Pride and Prejudice meets Monday Night Football as the unlikely couple goes to extremes to find common ground.

• Rob Raffety

  Muck

  Muck is a show about an ambitious, young podcast journalist from Washington, DC on his first field assignment – a missing person cold case in the foothills of rural Appalachia. He’s out of his element, over his head, and deep in the muck. Fargo meets Twin Peaks through the lens of the Serial podcast.

• Bonnie Eaton

  Mothership

  It’s the turn of the millennium. With shy teenage daughter in tow, Julia, a 40-something ad professional escapes a bad marriage and returns to the center of her childhood universe on the banks of the Potomac. Reuniting with her estranged mother—a germ-phobic, self-proclaimed New Age prophet answering to Commander Ashtar of the Galactic Federation of Light—she discovers that love often takes on strange, alien forms.

• Alex Rafala

  The King

  A young man, despite resentment for his profession, uses his gang affiliation to track down and extract revenge on a mysterious other whom he believes drastically altered the course of his life.

• Samuel Theodros

  Captain John Brown

  John Brown, a passive farmer, evolves to become a radical abolitionist who goes to extreme lengths to hasten the end of slavery.

• Brenda Rezvan

  Ch4

  As a small town man must struggle to put his life together after an accident, he tangles with Big Oil.