FILMARKET HUB PRESENTS ITS 2022 ‘EXCELLENT SCRIPTS LIST’
As we begin to wrap up 2022, we are delighted to present our annual ‘Excellent Scripts List’ with the best scripts submitted to Filmarket Hub this year.
The list includes feature film scripts and TV pilots that were awarded a certificate of excellence through our Script Analysis service. These scripts stood out for their writing style and other elements such as characters, premise, structure, dialogue, originality and a strong sense of writer’s voice.
Additionally, it showcases the winners and finalists from our international screenwriting contests: emerging screenwriters with fresh voices that we want to recommend to the industry.
All of these scripts are available on our online marketplace, ready to be matched with the right partners for further development.
How can I gain a Filmarket Hub Excellent Script Certificate?
Certificates are awarded if you gain a score higher than 8 out of 10 through one of our Script Analysis services. You could also be awarded the certificate as a winner, finalist or semi-finalist of one of Filmarket Hub’s international screenwriting contests.
What are the benefits of the Excellent Script Certificate?
If awarded, your script will be invited to join Filmarket Hub’s online marketplace where it will be featured in the Excellent Scripts section of the website. It will also be recommended via mail outs to Filmarket Hub’s international database of producers and companies. Additionally, the project info will be included in the annual ‘Excellent Scripts List’, distributed to all the Filmarket Hub community.
Congratulations to all the writers! We look forward to discovering many more in 2023!
EXCELLENT SCRIPTS 2022 LIST
SCRIPTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- FEATURE FILM 2021 SCREENWRITING CONTEST
WINNER
THE NIGHT LETTERS
Written by Tim Coleman (UK)
Horror
Zabi is a 14-year-old Afghan boy whose Father is killed by the Taliban for being a coalition interpreter. As the oldest male in the family the local Talib Commander starts leaving Zabi “night letters”, demanding he join jihad to atone for his Father’s “treachery”.
Traumatised and haunted by visions of his Dad, Zabi becomes convinced there is a folkloric monster roaming the hillside at night. As Mother tries to arrange his escape and the Taliban closes in, Zabi must decide what he is more afraid of, and whether this mythic creature means him help… or harm.
FINALISTS
ABILITY
Written by Benedict Cohen (UK)
Comedy · Drama
Phil is a veteran who lost both legs and his sense of identity when he was crushed by a logistics truck in Iraq. Stuck in a deadbeat town, all he wants is enough money for a new pair of robotic legs.
His cynical attitude clashes with the other claimants at the disability benefits centre. But when they discover that the corrupt CEO, Valerie, is skimming from their benefits for her own plastic surgery, Phil convinces them to steal back what is rightfully theirs.
It’s like Ocean’s Eleven, except instead of experienced operators with a unique skill set, they each have their own disability to contend with. But living with a disability means that just to survive you have to plan for every eventuality. The perfect training for a well-executed heist.
ANTIBODY
Written by Jason Collin (UK)
Thriller
When baby JJ is left in a vegetative state, his devoted father David vows that no other child should suffer so needlessly again and kidnaps the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist he holds responsible for JJ’s tragedy. Whilst the glimmer of hope remains of a new life with JJ’s carer, David faces a race against time to achieve his goal when his ex-wife suspects his culpability in the kidnapping. For in understanding that the public will never take up his cause unless he puts on a spectacle, David makes his hostage the focus of his next photography project and subjects him to the same trauma that JJ tragically endured.
SEMIFINALISTS
BATTLESCAR
Written by Mercedes Arturo, Nico Casavecchia and Pablo Sternbach (Argentina)
Drama
New York 1977. Lupe and Debbie, two teenage musician from opposite sides of the tracks, will be bound together by punk rock music, embarking themselves on a journey full of dreams and asses to kick.
GOING T*TS UP!
Written by Jay Wheddon (UK)
Drama
THE EXPATRIATES
Written by Katherine Street (US)
Drama
In 1929, a young Black couple reeling from a tragedy visits Paris at the height of the jazz age in the hopes of a more promising future while trying everything not to grow apart.
- TV PILOT 2022 SCREENWRITING CONTEST
WINNER
PROMISES TO MUM
Written by Olugbeminiyi Bammodu (UK)
Drama
8 episodes x 45 minutes
‘Promises to Mum’ follows Michael Okonwo and how he honours the promises he made to his mother on her deathbed.
1. To look after his brother and father.
2. To find a beautiful wife. (Typical of a Nigerian mother, thinking of her lineage even as her days come to an end.)
3. To find a hairdresser who can plait his hair nicely.
An exploration of what it truly costs to put family first and how far we are willing to bend for the ones we love.
FINALISTS
HOW TO ASSIMILATE AN ASTRONAUT
Written by Bodhrán Mullan (UK)
Road movie
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS
Written by Brendan O’Connell (Ireland)
Film Noir · Comedy · Crime
6 episodes x 60 minutes
When Helen Grealish arrives home to find her husband, Conor, murdered she is plunged into an emergency response that is at all times, at least part, sales pitch. Her situation is worsened when Michael Hunt, the insurance appraiser, informs her that Conor’s death was an accident and is not covered by her Criminal Justice Insurance. Supported by her sister Joan and with the help of jaded general crime investigator Alf Schaffer, Helen must navigate her way through a criminal justice system where the only motive that seems to matter is the profit motive. When a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign leads to serious crime specialist Killian Hunphreys taking over the investigation, it all goes from bad to worse for them all. Except Helen, who mistakenly believes she’s gotten justice for Conor.
SEMIFINALISTS
DEAD MAN’S HILL
Written by Martin Bell (UK)
Crime · Drama
8 episodes x 60 minutes
“Clear my name,” Jimmy begs his family the night before his execution for the now-infamous A6 Murder. Meanwhile, surviving victim of the crime Valerie is asked how she can be sure it was really him, when there is so much evidence to suggest it wasn’t?
Rewind to the day of the crime: a man shot dead, execution-style, in a car beside the A6 road. His illicit lover, Valerie, near death. The questionable methods of Scotland Yard’s Det. Acott will soon draw several extraordinary personalities into the investigation, including hapless two-bit crook Jimmy, violent fascist drifter Peter Alphon, the victim’s widow and her own lover, and a flamboyant alcoholic gadabout named Jean Justice who is determined to prove what really happened that night on Dead Man’s Hill…
RABBIT HOLE
Written by Simon Kay (UK)
Comedy · Drama
6 episodes x 30 minutes
THE GIRL WITH THE DEVIL EYES
Written by Toby Marks (Canada)
Crime · Drama
8 episodes x 60 minutes
20 years after being sentenced to life for murder, a woman with haunting red eyes, Rowan Flynn, must finally uncover the truth about the crime she doesn’t remember, determining if she’s the monster that everyone thinks she is, before she too becomes a victim. Set in Dyna, Kentucky, this story follows Rowan Flynn and Everleigh Dawson, a wannabe journalist, who team up to find the truth, no matter what it is. Zachariah Whittle, the former DA is hellbent on getting Rowan back in prison at any cost. Then, a third player emerges, a man identified only by the cigarettes that he smokes. The same brand found at the crime scene 20 years ago. The man seems to be stalking Rowan. Hunting her. But Rowan isn’t the prey type. Everyone knows that Rowan is the monster. Or is she?
EXCELLENT SCRIPTS 2021
from Script Analysis service
(Alphabetic order)
- Feature Films
1
COLLISION — 8/10
Written by Seth Hopewell y Igor Boskov (UK)
Drama · Thriller · Experimental
Two worlds collide in this intense contemporary drama set in London. Mark, a BBC Arts presenter, is married to Ella, a charity worker who suffers from severe OCD about global warming, but his friendship with artist Arabella and a terrible act of violence brings them into contact with hit man Leon, and his feckless accomplice Rob, with fatal consequences. The words of an Iranian philosopher that Mark interviews have never been more apt: “We all have primeval urges that shape our every action in spite of our virtue-signalling, our veneer of values. The truth is people do what they are compelled and destined to do from the very beginning of time.”
2
THE CHANCER (8/10)
Written by Fiona Graham (Ireland)
Comedy
It’s 1989, in the West of Ireland. Donnie McNamara, fed up being a family disappointment and small town nobody, schemes a plan for a one-way ticket to Tinseltown, to pursue his ridiculed dreams of acting. Abe Lewis, a once legendary star, now wallows in the dive bars of Venice Beach. Their worlds are about to collide, where Abe will become an unlikely mentor, wrangling Donnie through botched auditions, broken romances, family dysfunction, and brushes with the law. The journey to stardom will change both their paths forever.
- Scripted Series
1
IRL (IN REAL LIFE) — 8/10
Written by Blake Newhem-Valenzuela and Angel Newhem-Valenzuela (US)
Sci-Fi
12 episodes x 60 minutes
No adults, rules, or technology. How would kids today survive? When everyone 19 and older dies a gruesome death on a single day, young people must fend for themselves and discover the cause of the disaster before they, too, die on their 19th birthday. Ultimately, though, they discover that reality itself is infected by the virus.
A diverse Squad of 8 teens bands together in the Rockies hoping to reach the safety of an oil rig off the California coast. Alejandro, a shy Mexican-American gamer; Connor, the US President’s bad boy son; and Grace, a quirky Korean-American college DJ, depend on each other and fall in love — the threesome’s the heart of the show. Tobias, an enigmatic Native American survivalist who’s lived off grid his entire life, holds the key to the fatal mystery — and the cure.
2
MORLOCK — 8/10
Written by Anthony Povah (UK)
Thriller
When a Russian bomber — pursued by RAF aircraft — crashes on British soil, civilian air crash investigator Jayne Kendal is press-ganged into conducting an investigation that she knows should be military-led. Racing against her menacing Russian counterpart to seek out the truth, she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens global security started three decades earlier…
3
PLANET RISING — 8,5/10
Written by Tasmin Larby (UK)
Drama · Mistery · Thriller
4
WHAT THE ACTUAL — 8/10
Written by Shona Tuckman (US)
Comedy · Drama
If you want to meet the Spanish language Excellent Scripts click here.
