PROVIDENCE – Winnowed down from 463 entries, on Tuesday, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival announced the 14 finalists of its 2017 Screenplay Competition.
The Best Screenplay Grand Prize was awarded to Barry Brennessel from Silver Spring, Md. for his screenplay “Anh Sang,” set in French Indochina in 1917. In the script two teenage boys discover they feel more than friendship for one another, but their actions are hampered under French colonial rule and World War I.
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“Brennessel’s script is both an intimate love story and an epic depiction of French Indochina in the throes of World War I. The script is a defining work that chronicles an often underrepresented perspective in history,” said Shawn Quirk, RIIFF program director, in a statement.
He will be recognized during the opening night of RIIFF’s 2018 festival and attend the ScriptBiz program where his screenplay will be a central focus of the curriculum.
Quirk called called the collective finalists’ work “inventive and re-defining.”
Scripts were judged by a group of international experts on character, dialogue, setting, plot, structure and technique, he added, and sorted into seven categories. They are:
- Best Screenplay
- Best International
- Vortex Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror
- Best LGBTQ
- Spotlight on New England
- Best Short Screenplay
- Best Television Pilot
Among the 14 finalists were three Rhode Islanders. Amber Nardolillo, from West Warwick, was awarded the grand prize in the James L. Seavor LGBTQ Screenplay category for “Secondhand Heart” and Providence’s Alexia Kosmider and Marianne Messina took home first prize in the same category for their “Small Steps in Black Birkenstocks.”
The first prize in the Spotlight on New England category went to Robert Lucas out of Providence for his “Hernandez Square” script.
Prizes awarded vary per category but include a script listing and a magazine listing from InkTip – an online script writers’ source – final draft software and passes to the 2018 Flickers’ RIIFF and ScriptBiz™ Screenwriter’s Workshop.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
