Here is the list of 2023 screenplay winners from the LA LGBTQ+ Festival.
Watch the 15 winning screenplay best scene readings:
8 Feature Scripts:
BLOOD ON THE SADDLE, by Olivia Marguerite Fouser
Feature Script
Robin Hood of the Wild West Ray Robinson makes trouble for herself wherever she goes, defending women and conning men. Now four of these men want revenge, and if she’s to survive she’ll have to confront her past, outrun her present, and race to reach the love of her life before it’s too late.
LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: BLOOD ON THE SADDLE, by Olivia Marguerite Fouser
Queer Cowfolk: The Gay Rodeo Musical, by Bear Kosik
Feature Script
One is confused. One is growing older. One is afraid of settling down. They all take their chances on rodeo weekend amid the dancing, riding, and drinking.
LGBTQ+ Festival: Queer Cowfolk: The Gay Rodeo Musical, by Bear Kosik
THE WHITE FENCE, by Claudia Dato
Feature Script
It’s 1953 and Helen Parker’s husband has been MIA in Korea for 18 months. When a local bully graffiti’s her white fence, handy woman Lou Taylor shows up to paint the fence and steal her heart. In the end Helen must decide on which side of the fence to live.
HOLIDAY CAROL, by John Woodard
Feature Script
Modern day adaptation of Dickens “A Christmas Carol.” Evan Scrooge lives his life as a rich, greedy, bitter, closeted gay man, who despises the holidays. Until one Christmas Eve night, when his dead, ex-lover and business partner, Jake Marley, along with the three spirits of Christmas Present, Past, and Yet to Come, show Scrooge the errors of his ways. Leading Scrooge to open his heart and love for the holidays, as well as his sexuality.
LGBTQQ+ Festival 1st Scene: A HOLIDAY CAROL, by John Woodard
REQUIEM FOR A BANTAMWEIGHT, by Enrique Berumen
Feature Script
Bantamweight boxer Alfonso ‘Panama’ Brown, the first Latin American world champion, gains fame and fortune while living a torrid love affair with poet Jean Cocteau in 1930’s France; until the Nazis goose-step into Paris.
Winning LA LGBTQ+ Festival Best Scene: REQUIEM FOR A BANTAMWEIGHT, by Enrique Berumen
NEPHEWS, by Andrew Child
Feature Script
Aaron was an actor until he started dating the much more successful, older actor, Richard Hanes. When Richard develops an interest in Aaron’s younger brother, Aaron grapples with returning to his life before notoriety as a kept man.
DOG PARK, by Harold Taw
Feature Script
In the comedy-drama DOG PARK, the deliberate poisoning of a dog forces three lonely people’s lives to collide.
LORDS OF HOGTOWN, by Pat A. Brown
Feature Script
On his 37th birthday, a licentious gay reprobate discovers he has a 21-year-old son from a high school fling he doesn’t even remember. Now a promise made to a dying woman force the pair together to find each other.
LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: LORDS OF HOGTOWN, by Pat A. Brown
7 TV PILOTS:
The Xenakis Family, by Spiro Skentzos
TV Pilot
A mid-career stop-motion animator struggles balance his work with his family’s demands to run their restaurant.
LGBTQ+ Festival Best Scene: The Xenakis Family, by Spiro Skentzos
Good Pussy: The Anatomy of a Crazy Cat Lady, by Bree Wyrd
TV Pilot
When a suicidal comedian is involuntarily hospitalized by her family, her ride-or-die drag queen BFF, and her unorthodox psychiatrist devise a plan to break her out, recover her eight cats, and help her to discover her reasons to live.
BEST SCENE LGBTQ+ Festival: Good Pussy: The Anatomy of a Crazy Cat Lady, by Bree Wyrd
KILL YOUR DARLINGS, by Neil McNeil
TV Pilot
When a group of queer friends in East LA try to turn their struggling weekly party into the hottest spot in town, they seek out unconventional methods to bring success.
LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: KILL YOUR DARLINGS, by Neil McNeil
SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY, by Kate Harbert
TV Pilot
With the help of her best friends, a strongly-spirited girl must do whatever it takes to keep her family on the right track no matter how desperate the antics become.
LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY, by Kate Harbert
THE BLESSED, by Sarah Grodsky
TV Pilot
When a young, queer nun confined to a life of labor, starvation, and flagellation reaches her threshold, she draws attention and takes control by performing possessions and miracles, electing herself a holy conduit of God’s word.
A-Okay, by Casey Seline
TV Pilot
Merritt and Hylan are returning to their high school for their ten year reunion. Friends and roommates, the two complete each other in being completely different; Hylan — a confident, sexually active and adventurous extrovert, and Merritt — a shy, hopeless romantic who is struggling with her sexual identity. Unlike Hylan, Merritt does not enjoy sex or physical intimacy and believes she may be asexual.
Out in the West, by Claire V. Riley
TV Pilot
In 1865, when it was a crime to be queer, a sharpshooting gender outlaw poses as a man so she and her southern belle lover can escape a brutal husband and create a new life as a married couple out in the west.
LGBT Los Angeles Film Festival 