WINNER: INÉS MICHELENA // ANGIE
“A fourteen-year-old Latina girl is left to process the rippling effects of her first intimate experience after her best friend pressures her into going on a double date with an older high school boy.”
MADISON HATFIELD & JONOTHON MITCHELL // JENNA GETS AN ABORTION
“In the not-so-distant future, a fiercely independent woman recruits the one-night-stand who got her pregnant for a cross country trip to get an abortion in one of the few remaining states that allows them.”
ASAD FAROOQUI // THE IMMIGRATION GAME
“When Majeed’s US visa is on the brink of expiration, he enters a fraudulent scheme to remain legal, as everything he cares for—his business and family back in Pakistan—is threatened.”
KATHERINE BALSLEY // LAIKA
“At the height of the Cold War, a dutiful military scientist prepares a small dog for a one-way mission into space. But before he proves his loyalty to the Soviet Union, he must prove his humanity to his family and to himself.”
Shaun M Mathis // 18
“With no college acceptances Percy faces imminent homelessness when his loveless father plans to kick him out of the house in 3 days on his 18th birthday. It isn't until Percy discovers his girlfriend lied about leaving for college that he realizes he's about to be forced into a world of adulting that his schooling nor his upbringing has prepared him for.”
MALERIE GRADY & SKYLAR DENNEY // ABERRATION
“Incorporating movement and dance, Aberration explores a violent one-night stand between two women.”
MEGAN DAHL // LILY'S MIRROR
"A woman’s hand gets chopped off on a date, leading her on a journey of self realization, female empowerment, and justice - with ghosts!”
PATRICK MORGAN // THE DUCHESS OF GRANT PARK
“A woman dons a crown and claims Grant Park as her duchy, while a reporter searches to uncover who is the Duchess.”
ERNESTO FUENTES & JANE BARR // HINDSIGHT
“When his brother is shot and a boy is targeted by the same police officer in the aftermath of a church bombing, he must find the strength to make it home alive.”
SHANNON DEAN // SUMMER
“It's the late 70's in Atlanta, Georgia and the presence of a child serial killer threatens an 8-year-old girl's innocence leaving her desperate to get back to the place she once couldn't wait to leave...home.”