A big congratulations to all the semi finalists. Congratulations!
We will be announcing the finals on Wednesday, October 22nd.
We had a lot of great scripts this year and it’s never easy to figure out which ones should progress. I’m incredibly proud to present the semi finals of SYS’s Six-Figure Screenplay Contest.
Feature Screenplays:
Echo (sci-fi) by Daniel Elkayam
Log Line: An impoverished young inventor finds himself the target of a mysterious conspiracy after he inadvertently creates a machine with the ability to send information back in time.
No Going Back (thriller) by Donald Goldmacher
Log Line: When a NASA scientist exposes Big Oil’s responsibility for climate change, corporate America and the US government collude to silence her.
One Little Push (drama) by Paul Clarke
Log Line: To help his gravely ill daughter, a desperate father robs a suburban home, but finds the homeowner with a gun in his mouth. The man cannot pull the trigger and offers everything he owns in exchange for finishing the job.
Poems of Yore (comedy) by Quanah Jay Hicks
Log Line: An aspiring painter’s works unexpectedly go viral as a result of poetry he receives through dreams.
Reverie (sci-fi) by Giada Curiale
Log Line: After receiving an experimental chip that lets him rewrite his memories, a grieving nurse alters his past — but each change pulls him further from reality.
Sanctuary (thriller) by Brian McQuery
Log Line: A terrified woman in witness protection mourns her murdered husband and grapples with paranoia that she is in danger while she desperately tries to connect with the new people in her life in order to retain some semblance of herself, but her paranoia soon proves to be true.
Underneath the Daffodils (drama) by Isaiah Mouw
Log Line: A quiet, reserved man in his 70s, who spends his days gardening, has his life turned upside down when a true crime podcast reignites the painful rumor that he was responsible for the unsolved disappearance of his teenage daughter 20 years ago.
Short Screenplays:
Lluvia De Peces (horror) by Andrés Mejia and Jonah Ocuto
Log Line: In a surreal dystopia where asylum seekers compete on a game show for the chance to win citizenship, a Honduran mother is forced to relive the traumas that brought her to the U.S.—and make an impossible choice between her daughter and her sister.
The Inheritance of Purpose (family) by Alex Mehta
Log Line: An elderly professor obsessively searching for traces of his long-dead brother on a beach encounters a mysterious boy building elaborate sandcastles, who challenges him to stop searching for what he’s lost and start rebuilding what truly matters before the tide comes in.
Ulis (drama) by Fabiana De Bellis
Log Line: On a remote island, Gaia, a hard-of-hearing girl, shocks her classmates by auditioning as Ulysses in the school play. As laughter ripples through the class, Gaia sets out to prove she can face her demons and pass the rocks without falling under the spell.