Below is a list of all the screenplays that made it into the quarter finals of SYS’s Six Figure Screenplay Contest.
A big congratulations to all the writers who had screenplays make it into the next round. Congratulations.
We will be announcing the semi finalists on Wednesday Oct 21st, 2026.
With each round it becomes increasingly difficult to judge the scripts and the decisions become more and more subjective. We’ve taken this responsibility very seriously and tried hard to look at each script as thoroughly as possible, hopefully finding a few that our industry judges would like to option and potentially produce. So without further ado here are the screenplays that have progressed to the quarter finals of SYS’s Six-Figure Screenplay Contest (listed alphabetically by screenplay title):
Feature Film Screenplays:
A Grave Obssession (horror) by James Bandsuh
Log Line: When paranormal investigators discover the grave of an infamous witch, one of their group ,with greedy intentions, desecrates the gravesite, unleashing a curse that will kill them all unless they can break the spell.
Benjamin (drama) by Ranjani Arun
Log Line: Coming soon
Ghosts of Cape May (drama) by Tom Frangicetto
Log Line: Two suicidal people — a 31-year-old alcoholic ex-psychologist and a 19-year-old brilliant college student — help each other exorcise the ghosts that haunt their lives in a hotbed for paranormal activity–beautiful and spooky Cape May by the sea.
Herb Jenk (comedy) by Adam Seidel
Log Line: When Jenk is released from prison after doing time for drug trafficking, he’s determined to turn his life around. To facilitate, he can make one final run. The only problem? He needs to bring along his five-year-old daughter.
Local Talent (dramedy) by Vincent Scarsella
Log Line: When a down-and-out actor, Steve Wilson, is duped by a phony Hollywood producer into raising $60,000 from other local actors and film crew, family and friends, to shoot a demo reel for his Baywatch-style remake — set not in Malibu, but on the shores of Lake Erie with plus-sized lifeguards – and the producer then vanishes with the money after shooting the demo reel for peanuts, Steve makes everything right by turning the fiasco into a film about the scam itself.
Meet The Hitlers (dramedy) by J.A. Brown
Log Line: An Israeli documentary crew travels to a small Alabama town to investigate a quiet family carrying the Hitler name, but their fears escalate when a charismatic teenage descendant runs for student body president and unintentionally begins to resemble the history everyone fears.
Mother Knows Best (thriller) by Rebecca Summers
Log Line: Desperate to protect her daughter from the trauma that once shattered her own life, an overprotective mother finds herself powerless when her daughter suffers the very trauma she vowed to prevent.
Skunk Hour (thriller) by Steven Snell
Log Line: A conscience-stricken uni student brings the friend he gave a false alibi to—and now suspects is a killer—to his ex-con older brother, the only person capable of uncovering the truth and ensuring the body disappears for good.
MR INBETWEEN meets DEATH & THE MAIDEN
The Monarch Project (thriller) by Jeff Warrick
Log Line: When a filmmaker’s documentary on schizophrenia leads him to investigating claims of a government mind-control program — and evidence that his own sister was one of its victims — his obsession with exposing the truth costs him his family, his crew, his sobriety and eventually his own grip on reality.
The Other Side of Life (drama) by Steffany Lohn Sommers
Log Line: A grieving mother believes the boy carrying her son’s heart is the last piece of him she has left, but her increasing attachment threatens to unravel the lives of both families forever connected by this extraordinary gift.
Tough Out (thriller) by Pat St. Phat
Log Line: On a sweltering night in 1955, three ad executives celebrating a career-making pitch are confronted by a mysterious young boy who knows impossible truths about their lives, forcing them into a harrowing, claustrophobic unraveling of secrets, faith, guilt, and fate as the night spirals toward violence inside a Brooklyn bar.
Short Film Scripts:
A Quarterback Flight To Anywhere (drama) by John Ravitz
Log Line: On the day of the national game of the week, a star quarterback going through the worst slump in his career must decide if he can step onto the football field one more time.
Arden (drama) by Dale Wolf
Log Line: At a creative writing summer camp, a girl with cerebral palsy looks for love while she competes for a full college scholarship.
Blood Enough (drama) by Saeid Ghasemi
Log Line: When Rasta’s brother commits an accidental murder, she invokes the ancient Blood Enough ritual to save him only to discover the price is her younger sister.
Miami Runion (crime) by Timothy O’Brien
Log Line: An aging Tony Montana, long thought dead, reunites on Miami Beach with former allies he betrayed decades earlier. As old wounds resurface and uneasy forgiveness emerges, the past catches up with him in a final, inevitable reckoning.
The Salt Shaker (drama) by Michael J Volpe
Log Line: At a seemingly ordinary dinner, decades of friendship comes undone over MAGA politics, woke progressive ideals and a salt shaker – until a life-threatening event offers one last chance to repair what’s been broken.
Youniverse (sci-fi) by Justin Fontenot
Log Line: In 2035, history is a place you can rent by the hour. A woman spends one as a man — and idly becomes the greatest musician alive, humiliating the giants whose world runs on without her.
Ashley Scott Meyers