Read more below about our feature screenplay semi-finalists!

A FISHERMAN’S VIEW by Michael Bernard

Michael Bernard is the author of 4 novels and 5 screenplays. His ‘midlife crisis' writing career began when his children and his money went off to college. Mike's work has placed in the NICHOLL FELLOWSHIP, BLUECAT, FINAL DRAFT Big Break and PAGE International screenplay competitions. Three of his screenplays were optioned and under development with production companies. Mike is a graduate of Providence College and Boston College High School. He resides in Medfield, MA with his wife Michele. He spends summers on the beaches of Cape Cod and winters roaming the aisles of Home Depot.

TILLIE by David Hal Chester

David Chester is an American screenwriter and prize-winning short filmmaker based in Tokyo. His genre is female-driven dramas focusing on dysfunctional families. To date, he has written five commissioned feature screenplays, four produced, two currently on Amazon Prime. His original screenplays have been multi-finalists in U.S. screenwriting competitions and his short film “The Lesson” won both the Tokyo Rainbow Reel “Grand Prix” and the Torino GLBT Film Festival “Best Short Film.” David’s writing has benefitted greatly from participation in Roadmap Writers’ Top Tier group and mentoring by writer/producer Ellen Sandler (“Everybody Loves Raymond”). www.davidchester.com

WHOSE NAMES ARE UNKNOWN by Joanne Dearcopp

Joanne Dearcopp has had an eclectic career including book publishing, sports marketing, and motor racing photographer, and is currently a writer’s coach and developmental editor. She collaborated with Zachary Haynes, formerly a Script Coordinator and Writer on shows at Warner Brothers Television Studio, on the screenplay Whose Names Are Unknown. Joanne continues to promote the work of Sanora Babb, the author of the Dust Bowl novel from which her screenplay is adapted, and lives in Old Greenwich, CT.

THE BIG O by Rebecca Gant

Rebecca Gant is an LA-based writer and production coordinator, born and raised in the comically suburban town of Thousand Oaks, California. In need of something more metropolitan, she fled to the Amish enclave of Lancaster, PA where she majored in Film & Media Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. While in school, Rebecca interned at production companies, a Youtube channel, and a documentary film festival before landing her current position at a visual effects company. Developing her passion for writing along the way, Rebecca typically pens half-hour pilots and comedy features. Self-taught and admittedly still learning as she goes, she is driven by a desire to tell funny and relatable female stories, as well as an almost pathological need to reference Lord of the Rings in her work.

MINOR MODIFICATIONS by Shia Labeouf

Shia LaBeouf is an American actor, artist, filmmaker, and writer. He most recently wrote and starred in HONEY BOY (2019), which Amazon Prime released to rave reviews. He also co-starred in THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (2019), which was the highest-grossing independent film of 2019.

MISEKAKERU (PRETEND by Diana Ly

Diana Ly is a Vietnamese-American screenwriter and playwright based in Los Angeles. Born in Oklahoma, where her parents settled as refugees, she grew up as an ex-pat in the Philippines. Ly moved to Silicon Valley to study at Stanford University, and after earning BS and MS degrees in Computer Science, worked at Google for eight years, including a stint at the YouTube Space LA. A drama and theatre student for much of her life, she attended UCLA’s Professional Programs in Screenwriting and TV Writing. She was a 2017 Project Involve Fellow at Film Independent, a writer on Season 2 of GodComplX, a web series funded by Google’s CS in Media initiative, and she’ll be a 2020 Ragdale Artist Resident. She recently worked as a features assistant to showrunner Karin Gist. Diana writes stories about immigrants, nerds, and women who defy stereotypes.

THE TERRIBLE CHILD by Becca Pecaut

Becca Pecaut is a proud Canadian from Toronto. She completed her undergrad at NYU’s Gallatin School for Individualized Study with a self-titled degree in “Storytelling” and received her MFA from USC’s John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television program. Becca’s writing explores the fascinating worlds of girlhood, coming-of-age, and queer cinema. Becca is a published poet who enjoys photography, experimental super-8 filmmaking, and being a bookseller at Book Soup in West Hollywood.

THOSE WE LEAVE BEHIND by Will Stewart

Will Stewart grew up in a tiny town in Mississippi called Okolona, population 3000. He graduated from Tupelo High School and attended the University of Mississippi, but after 19 years of living closeted in the South, He decided to drop out of college, pack up his car and move west to Los Angeles to follow his dream of working in the entertainment industry. Because of his encyclopedic knowledge of actors, Will was nicknamed “The Walking IMDB” so casting felt like a natural fit. In July 2003, he began a long and fruitful partnership with Linda Lowy, casting many hit TV shows including the Shonda Rhimes trio of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal, plus Friday Night Lights and numerous other pilots and movies. However, after several years of directing actors into winning roles, Will still had a persistent dream to tell stories of his own, and so in 2018 he left casting and wrote, produced and directed his first film, the award-winning All We Are, a drama about two men who embark on an anonymous fantasy-motivated fling and the repercussions that come when they develop real feelings for one another. He is currently creating an LGBTQ-focused anthology series using the All We Are storyline as the basis for the first season’s story arc. Those We Leave Behind is Will’s first feature script. He lives in Silver Lake, California with his loving husband, Steven.

HOLD WEST by Mack Velle

Mack Velle is an actor, screenwriter and playwright from New York City. A recent graduate from the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, Mack is working on both sides of the camera to bring the world he sees to light. At 22 years old, he put pen to paper for the first time and won the first place prize at the Manhattan Repertory Short Play competition with EXPRESS, in which he also starred.

SUNNY LOS ANGELES by Steve Young

For 25 years, Steve Young wrote for David Letterman's Late Night and Late Show programs. He has also written for The Simpsons and wrote the Matt Groening-produced animated Christmas special, Olive the Other Reindeer. Most recent credits: NBC's Maya & Marty variety show, Harry Connick Jr.'s show Harry, and HBO’s Night of Too Many Stars. He is the co-author of "Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals,” and is the main subject of the award-winning comedy music feature documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway.