Check back soon for information on the 2012 Screenplay Competition!
2011 News
Congratulations to the Top Three Finalists of this year’s NHFF Screenplay Competition:
Barry Leach – Saving Sergei (War Drama) On a Nazi-occupied British island, Libby risks imprisonment for hiding Sergei, an escaped Russian slave laborer. When Sergei is captured, to perform a daring rescue, Libby must do what is unthinkable: trust a German.
Kenneth Lemm – Reunions, and Other Lies (Comedy) Would you risk the future to find something you lost in the past? Haunted by the idea he may have let true love slip through his fingers, a tightly wound attorney with a picture-perfect life risks everything to attend his high school reunion and face the love he may have left behind.
Kevin O’Malley – Bananafish Sandwich (Coming of Age) To get into college it used to be just good grades, two teacher recs, a kick-ass personal essay and, when all else fails, a donated building. Nick Ellis, a high school senior at Hanover High, New Hampshire, thinks a little philanthropic burglary might improve his chances – with college and maybe even the trustee’s daughter.
The top three screenplays have advanced to the final round where they are being read and scored by our featured guest judge Buzz McLaughlin of Either/Or Films, who will determine the Grand Prize Winner of this year’s competition.
2011 Industry Judge:
Buzz McLaughlin is an active independent feature film producer and partner in Either/Or Films that produced The Sensation of Sight starring Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn; the film won the Best Feature Award at the New Hampshire Film Festival. He is currently in development with Either/Or Films’ next feature Someplace Like America.
A writer who has written many plays and screenplays, including Sister Calling My Name that won the National Play Award, Buzz is also the author of the best-selling book The Playwright’s Process and has spent over three decades as a dramaturg/teacher/consultant working with hundreds of emerging and established writers in theatre and film. He holds a Ph.D. in dramatic literature, taught scriptwriting as Playwright-In-Residence for many years at Drew University, founded the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, a professional theatre currently in its 25th year dedicated to the development of new plays, and currently runs a Script Consulting Service. He also maintains a blog on scriptwriting.
2011 Screenplay Competition Director:
Dana Biscotti Myskowski, is an Emmy-nominated, Telly Award-winning writer and producer of a PSA and a short non-fiction video project with Smoky Quartz Productions, originally founded in 2010 as an agency team in the inaugural 7DayPSA Competition of FLICKERS, in which SQP won the top prize as well as several “Best of” prizes (Directing to Adam Jones; Editing to Marc Dole; and Cinematography to Gary Anderson).
An award-winning screenwriter and founding producer of Green Chair Pictures, Dana is currently at work on two projects with friends and colleagues. The former professor of screenwriting and media writing at UNH serves as a Member of the Board of Directors for the NH Film Commission, as a founding member of Granite SoFFA (the NH Society of Female Film Artists), as a judge for the NH 48-Hour Film Project, and as Editor of the soon to launch Green Chair Reader, a journal of short screenplays (with partner and Managing Editor Patrick Witherell).
2011 Screenplay Competition Committee:
Kevin Timothy Mason, Assistant Director; Heather Anderson, Intern; Andrew Gibson; Dahvin Greenfield; Dan Black; Emily Chapper; Elizabeth Longfellow; Hilary Weisman Graham; Jonathon Millman; Karen Sampson; Kate Wiswell; Maria Moy; Abby Myskowski; Jeffrey Somerville; Matthew Stevens; Susan Tinkham; Jim White; Lowell Williams; Van McLeod; Patrick Witherell, Aaron Wiederspahn, Ben Robertson, Karen Iacobbo, Paul Davis, and John Campanello.
