2008 IFFF Winner Best Feature Drama Screenplay
TRUE NORTH
SCREENWRITER: Eric W. Carlson
SYNOPSIS: In the summer of 1972, a hard charging usually absent father roars home on his Harley to reunite with his shy and studious son. Together they rediscover the courage to face life, love, and personal loss.
Finalist
LOVE, ZOE
SCREENWRITER: John Aldriedge
SYNOPSIS: The story of a 12-year-old piano prodigy named Zoe whose main goals in life are to prevent her widowed father from re-marrying and to locate a missing piano piece composed by her late mother. Things go smoothly until a child-averse piano teacher named Melody enters her and her father’s life.
THE ACE OF ACES (Australia)
SCREENWRITER: Geoffrey Breuder
SYNOPSIS: To combat low morale, America’s top Ace from WWI sparks a race of aces – challenging the fighter pilots in the South Pacific to break his old record. On his quest to become the new heavyweight of the skies, one young pilot is forced to confront the realities of war and the sacrifices he must make.
DANCING MORRIS (Canada)
SCREENWRITER: W.T. Mitchell
SYNOPSIS: Shy, asthmatic Tyler wants a swimming pool for his backyard. His bawdy extended family pulls together in support of his dancing for the prize money in a talent contest.
FIRST CLARINET
SCREENWRITER: George Morgan
SYNOPSIS: An egotistical music prodigy gets knocked off her perch when she attends an elite music academy and discovers, to her shock and dismay, that compared to her new classmates she is merely average.
FOR MY BEST FRIEND
SCREENWRITER: Leigh Ann E. Bell
SYNOPSIS: An emotional journey of lost pre-teen Meredith, struggling to love again after the sudden death of her mother, is nurtured into adulthood by her best friend, Emily, as she confronts her demons and finally breaks away from her turbulent childhood upbringing and realizes the significance of friendship, love, and death.
FOUNDATIONS
SCREENWRITER: Tom Basham
SYNOPSIS: Angel is 17, and her life is coming down brick by brick. Jack’s been cut down after a knee injury ends his college football career. Do they have strong enough foundations to build a future together? Or is the damage in Angel’s past too much for even Jack to repair?
HANS CAN DANCE
SCREENWRITER: Brianna Chatters
SYNOPSIS: Hans is a shy German boy with a stutter. His American nanny discovers…Hans can dance…and learn to love himself.
THE HAS-BEENS
SCREENWRITER: Michael Raymond
SYNOPSIS: An ‘over-the-hill’ man hopes to define his legacy by risking his marriage and life savings on the outcome of his softball team’s game against an arch rival – a team they have never beaten in the last fifteen years.
I WAS A TEENAGE WAREHOUSE
SCREENWRITER: Mark Daniels
SYNOPSIS: When a glamorous but conceited teenager becomes mysteriously overweight, she must overcome being an outcast until she makes new alliances with those she saw as inferior in the style of ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’
LONG OVERDUE
SCREENWRITER: Eric W. Carlson
SYNOPSIS: A famous band leader, trapped behind enemy lines with eight American soldiers during the first two days of the Battle of the Bulge, learns that a successful escape from pursuing Germans and harsh weather depends on two long neglected aspects of his life: cooperation with others, and faith in God.
THE OBITUARY WRITER
SCREENWRITER: Jason R. Carroll
SYNOPSIS: Connor James is an award-winning writer attempting to finish his most anticipated novel while dealing with the tragic death of his fiancée and the betrayal of his brother.
PEOPLE THAT DREAM, WHALES THAT DANCE
SCREENWRITER: Barbara Meyer
SYNOPSIS: Chloe, twelve, longs for a permanent home. Her dad Julian uproots her again to move to a new town. When they’re unexpectedly stranded in Provincetown, Chloe befriends a teenage thief and a gay man. With their friendships, she mobilizes her courage and finds a most unusual way to force her dad to settle down and stop running from his broken marriage.
SERENA’S THUNDER
SCREENWRITER: Jean Hunter
SYNOPSIS: A Native American girls’ relationship with a horse named Thunder helps her recover from an accident that killed her family and left her an amputee.
WHEN I FALL IN LOVE
SCREENWRITER: Clint Morey
SYNOPSIS: A self-centered girl’s perfect, well-planned world is turned upside down when she has to care for her grandparents.
WHITE WATER
SCREENWRITERS: Eric Stein, Michael S. Bandy
SYNOPSIS: Obsessed with the desire to taste the water from the “White’s Only” drinking fountain, a seven year-old black kid in segregated 1963 Opelika, Alabama sets out on a quest to do the unthinkable: drink from it.
WHO NEEDS THIS?
SCREENWRITER: Peter Fraser
SYNOPSIS: A dating-challenged, fix-everybody-except-herself single-mom tags up with an eccentric Indian tribe after she loses her job and home. She fights to save their rundown, trailer park reservation from her mega-developer, former employer and in the process, learns that family includes much more than just her and her son.
