Forastera (Feature)

By Lucia Aleñar Iglesias

Antonia (15) spends the summer at her grandparents’ in Mallorca when Grandma suddenly passes. Looking for new experiences, Antonia puts on the clothes of the deceased; a trivial gesture that’ll blur her identity.

Lucía Aleñar Iglesias is a Spanish writer/director living between LA and Madrid. She holds a BFA in Film from NYU and an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University. 

Lucía’s work is rooted in character-driven stories that examine stereotypes of femininity, family dynamics and traditions, and intergenerational and intercultural relationships.

Her short film Forastera has screened at festivals including International Critics’ Week, Curtas Vila do Conde, Les Arcs, Gijón, Portland International Film Festival, Oberhausen, Dresden, and was nominated for a Gaudí Award. 

Lucía is now developing her first feature, by the same name. Recently, Cannes Film Festival invited her to further develop the project at their 42nd edition of the Cinéfondation Residence. The script has also been through Critic’s Week Next Step Lab. 

Between Heaven and Earth (TV Hour)

By Adam Baroukh

After meeting brilliant and rebellious Rabbi’s daughter MIRIAM, closeted Orthodox Jew DANIEL GOLDWYN embarks on a covert journey to reorient his sexuality.

The Last Electrician (Feature)

By Harry Bartle

A boy discovers that his scientist father, long presumed dead, may be alive and must travel through a near future New York City riddled with blackouts to find him.

Harry Bartle is an award winning screenwriter and director born and raised in Manhattan. His short films and music videos have premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival, Indie Memphis and VICE. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University where he graduated with honors in English. He enjoys writing research-based scripts focused on dynamic characters in worlds well beyond his own. His faculty honors script The Last Electrician, set in a post-catastrophe near-future, was inspired by several years of living and working in New Orleans and witnessing the extreme challenges that city has faced due to climate change. His pilot script JASON, set in the world of super-secret American physicists during the Vietnam War, won Columbia’s 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Science Screenplay Award. He is currently revising his thesis screenplay based on extensive research within minor league baseball. 

JASON (TV Hour)

By Harry Bartle

A depressive, brilliant physicist joins a secret, super-elite group of scientific advisors known as JASON as they develop high-tech solutions to the escalating war in Vietnam. Inspired by the true story of the JASON group.

Bite The Hand (Feature)

By Minka Bleakley

16-year-old Lula travels to her estranged father’s rural property in an effort to reconnect. Her trip is rocked by a volatile discovery that challenges her family bonds and threatens the stability she covets.

Riversong (TV Hour)

By Minka Bleakley

In a desperate bid to continue her research and effectively change the world, a young scientist escapes with a billion-dollar seed patent to the commune where she was raised, unwittingly entering into a dangerous world fraught with power politics, eco-terrorism, and new-age ritual.

An excerpt from this project will be performed as part of Screenwriting Night on Friday, April 23 at 7:00pm ET

Minka Bleakley is an Australian-American writer and director currently based in Sydney, Australia. She graduated from Bard College with a BA in Film and Electronic Arts, and graduated with Honors from Columbia University with an MFA in Screenwriting. Her work addresses the female experience, tackling such topics as motherhood, relationships, and societal expectations of womanhood and gender. Her films have screened at the Academy qualifying Seattle International Film Festival and beyond. During her time at Columbia, Minka was awarded the Teaching Fellowship, was the recipient of the Sloan Foundation Treatment Grant, and the Indian Paintbrush Grant. Her latest film, After Dark, stars Pauline Chalamet and McKinley Belcher III. Minka is currently in pre-production on a proof-of-concept short film for her feature, Bite the Hand.

Gadsden (TV Hour)

By Glenn Brown

When a right-wing border militia tracks down a family of migrants, two men end up dead and a local deputy's investigation into the murders unearths some hard truths about his family, his past, and his country.

Glenn Brown is a screenwriter and director from the suburbs of beautiful Union County, New Jersey. He graduated with a degree in Art History from Princeton University and realized that for the first time in his life, he needed to get the hell out of New Jersey. Subsequently, he co-founded and ran a bilingual news website called The Isaan Record about politics and society in NortheasternThailand. Upon returning to the United States, Glenn investigated police misconduct for the City of New York - a job that led him to interview hundreds of cops, as many civilians, and even, improbably, came with a badge. 

His screenwriting tends toward high-genre - Westerns! Noir! Horror! Musical! - but all of it is grounded in contemporary understandings of class, race, sexuality, and privilege. 

He has been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

New Hampshire Boy (Feature)

By Patrick Clement

With a cross country trip less than a week away, two homeless punk rockers come to a crossroads when sexual exploration and street violence test their complicated friendship.

An excerpt from this project will be performed as part of Screenwriting Night on Friday, April 23 at 7:00pm ET

Patrick Clement is a Kansas-based screenwriter and filmmaker. His short films have screened at festivals in the US and around the world including Reykjavik International, Bolton, Cardiff, Uppsala, Dances with Films, Cucalorus, the Florida Film Festival and more. His film ‘Rabbits’ won Best Student Short at the New Hampshire Film Festival and his Columbia thesis ‘Three Corner House’ (starring Orange is the New Black’s Michael J. Burg) won Best Actor at the Tallgrass Film Festival for newcomer Ty Baumann’s portrayal of a sexually adventurous teen in the subversive drama about family secrets. His feature screenplays have been finalists at Screamfest, Nashville Film Festival, and in the top five on the Blacklist’s real-time Screenplay List. He’s a seven-time Kansas Press Association Award winner, a Catwalk Artist Residency fellow and a card-carrying member of the Wichita Postcard Club.

Regurgitate (TV Half-Hour)

By Kristin Curtis

After going through open heart surgery, shy and soft-spoken YoYo Lee discovers she's been left with the worst possible side effect: she can’t stop blurting out her true feelings! It’s as if the doctors opened her heart and forgot to sew it shut.

Kristin Kairo Curtis is a Taiwanese-American bilingual writer, born and raised in Hong Kong. She graduated from Columbia’s MFA Screenwriting program in May 2020 and now lives in Los Angeles, working for writer/producer Carter Bays. Her feature script, Bag Lady, based on the true story of paper-bag-machine inventor Margaret E. Knight, won the Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Award in 2020. Her work often centers on women in comical stages of self-reinvention. As a survivor of five heart surgeries (soon to be six), Kristin is no stranger to the unfunny-ways that life throws curveballs in your plans. But pushing through it all, she promises to channel big heart energy (we’re talking medical-intervention-big!) into her work and collaborations.

Cicada (Feature)

By Jade Edwards

A humanitarian journalist grappling with the grief of her recently deceased twin brother takes a holiday with her fiancé to meet his parents at their home in Monaco. But paradise is fast lost when a boat of African refugees wash ashore, prompting her into an investigation that will uncover the dark underbelly of human trafficking.

An excerpt from this project will be performed as part of Screenwriting Night on Friday, April 23 at 7:00pm ET

Jade Courtney Edwards is an English-Irish writer/director hailing from London. She is drawn to stories concerning humanitarian issues and her work reflects an acute interest in moral ambiguity, social injustice, underdogs, outsiders and female-driven narratives.

She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she obtained a BFA in Film Production with a minor in Entertainment Business from Stern School of Business. She is a current scholarship recipient of Columbia University's MFA program in screenwriting and directing. She has been selected as a BAFTA 2020 Newcomer.

Jade started her film career as a creative executive for Pandemic Films and co-produced their debut feature starring Jeremy Irons. She has worked on projects with Smuggler, Sony Screen Gems, Nu Image, SHFT, and Deltree.

Head First (TV Half-Hour)

By Jade Edwards

A hot-shot lawyer's life spirals out of control when she is forced to take maternity leave to have a baby that was designed to save her failing marriage.

Bin (Feature)

By Asad Farooqui

When a recently immigrated Pakistani Imam is fired for a crime he didn't commit, he is forced to teach Koran to a ten year old boy to continue supporting his family back in Pakistan. The problem: the boy has lived a largely atheistic life.

The Islamic Boys (TV Half-Hour)

By Asad Farooqui

Tired of the exclusive students and fake intellectuals at school, a university student starts hanging out with a crew of blue collar, wannabe Muslim gangsters.

Dream to Awakening (TV Hour)

By Shu Gao

Laixia, a Chinese high school girl falls in love with a boy named Wangzhe, who only shows up in her dreams instead of reality. While dealing with the stress from her study, friendship and family, Laixia finally finds out what “grow up”means and also the real identity of Wangzhe.

The Dead Ones (TV Hour)

By Esteban Garcia Vernaza

In the beginning of the 1300s European Bubonic Plague, a mentally unstable doctor volunteers to find a cure for the unknown disease.

Station: New York (TV Hour)

By Kenneth Green

Station: New York is a character driven procedural about the working class men and women of the United States Coast Guard. After learning of a new skills test, crews at Station New York must compete for the top spot, while keeping up with their duties.

34 Joy Killers (Feature)

By Eden Hadad

For reasons yet to be known, a middle aged Israeli woman arrives in Charlottesville to take care of a neo-nazi community.

Under Construction (TV Hour)

By Donggyun Han

A coming of age story of two architect students.

The Last Mall (TV Half-Hour)

By Samuel Harwood

Krystal, a seventeen-year-old foster child, works as the concierge at the last mall in America. When Sahara, an Amazon-like online megastore, threatens to close it down, she and the other store clerks join together in resistance.

Ilford (Feature)

By Louis Lagayette

Ilford, East London. Sameer and Johnny grew up in one of London's most deprived areas. The day they decide to hold up an illegal card game, they quickly discover that their friendship might not resist the violence they've unleashed.