Jax Film Fest 2011 - Fun and Pitching Opportunities!

For the second year in a row John Leary and I had one of our scripts, Girl in Trunk,  make it to Finalist in the Jax Film Fest Screenwriting Competition. We were there last year with Heaven Sent. Once again, the screenwriting program for the festival was coordinated by the indomitable, inexhaustible, and ineffably cheerful Jennie Jarvis, a treasure of an organizer that every film fest that doesn't have her on their roster must envy. And once again she was assisted by the incredible  Mike Masson.

Because I had to be in NY to attend the DGA Honors event in which Alice Guy Blache was inducted to the DGA posthumously, I missed the opening of the festival, but John was there and you can read all about it on his blog. I got to Jacksonville just in time to catch the tail end of Jennie Jarvis's presentation on character arc (Jarvis is the course director for the creative writing masters of fine arts at Full Sail University).

 

Front: Jarvis, McMahan, Portman, Fogg, Pfeiffer; Rear: Flynt, Carlson, Leary, Shulruff.Front: Jarvis, McMahan, Portman, Fogg, Pfeiffer; Rear: Flynt, Carlson, Leary, Shulruff.

Last year I was the only woman in the group of twelve finalists, but this year there was one more woman: Lorraine Portman, a director of theater and film, who has already made a feature, Saving Sophie, now a contender with a comedy script entitled Peace, Love, and Law Enforcement, about the crossroads of police academy training and low-budget porn. Eric Carlson came in with Under Pressure, an action script based on the true story of a sinking submarine. Larry Shulruff came from Chicago with a romantic comedy entitled Trial and Erin. Jeff Ryback was a no-show as he got a better gig in Abu Dhabi, but his script was called The Wind Riders. Jeff  Pfeiffer  brought his coming of age comedy about a teenage magician, The Amazing Martin Greenbaum, and John Flynt brought his thriller The Silence. Zack Smith, who wrote Indianapolis, never got to the festival as he got caught in airport hell in Atlanta.

Just as we dreamed last year, a few of the 2010 "Jacksonville 10" as we called ourselves (even though we were actually twelve) returned: Jeff Piercey brought his satirical comedy Life with Zombies. Last year Piercey was represented by his friend Cole Pepper, and this year Cole Pepper came and ate and drank with us whenever he wasn't smoking cigars with Khris Baxter. Drew Fogg was back, with the completed draft of the script he practice -pitched in Khris Baxter's  Art of the Pitch Workshop last year, The Fast and the Fullest. Dan Solomon and Allen James  and Alan Gorney were volunteering at the fest and spent all their free time with us.

The award winners for the festival are listed here. The winners of the screenwriting competition were:

 


Drew Fogg with his First Prize for Fast and the FullestDrew Fogg with his First Prize for Fast and the Fullest

 

1st Place - Andrew Fogg, The Fast and The Fullest
2nd Place - Zack Smith, Indianapolis
3rd Place - Jeffrey Pfeiffer, The Amazing Martin Greenbaum

Best Pitch - Jeff Piercey, Life With Zombies

 

Although Girl in Trunk did not win anything this year, the panelists at the Art of the Pitch Competition were full of praise for our script: High Concept, Low Budget, and the pitch kept everyone on the edge of their seats, hardly breathing. I can vouch for this as John pitched it while I watched, as with me being at the DGA awards, we didn't have time to prepare a tag-team pitch, so I just stood there watching everybody listen to him. Girl in Trunk has won numerous other awards, which are all listed here. It was wonderful to see the agonies of the pitch competition described in the local Jacksonville newspaper.

 

One of the biggest pleasures of the awards ceremony was that it started with a screening of the 48 hour project penned by Mike Masson called The Fenimore. Mike has won other awards in the past, so Mike, we look forward to your next project, Velvet Road!

 

The Producers We Pitched to at Jax 2011The Producers We Pitched to at Jax 2011

The closing night film, Kinyarwanda,  directed by Alrick Brown, written by Brown and Ishmael Ntihabose and starring Cassandra Freeman was a stand-out experience. A very moving film written by  and also of great interest because of the way it was written, a series of interlinked stories, showing how the lives of Tutsis and Hutus, Christians and Muslims, men and women, were all interwoven even during the darkest days of the Rwandan genocide. Freeman is a native of Jacksonville and was there to accept all the awards that were justly given to the film. Find it and watch it, then put next year's Jax Film Fest on your calendar!

 

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