Final Curtain

Award Laurel

Next month is the Indie Gathering International Film Festival. Back in May, I entered my crime drama feature screenplay Final Curtain in their screenplay contest. (I'd won honorable mentions last year with my adaptations of Death Sword and Exterminating Angel.)

To be honest, I hoped Final Curtain would at least get an honorable mention. I'd entered it pretty late, a few days shy of the final deadline. So I was surprised and delighted to get an email at the beginning of July telling me the screenplay had won first place in the Feature: Crime-Drama category. I reread that email several times, a part of me convinced I'd read it wrong. But no. I had won. And the screenplay is listed on Indie Gathering's website. It may also be a contender for another award, but I won't know til August or September. Meanwhile, I've entered Final Curtain in another contest.

Winning a screenplay contest is a great ego booster, but I'm not naive to think my screenplay writing career is about to take off, and I need to start planning my Oscar speech. I have another screenplay in a contest that I'm not expecting to win, and that's okay. Screenplay contests are subjective. A first place winner in one might only garner an honorable mention in another.

Remember that homicide detective? The one who, when I told him probably nothing would happen with this screenplay, said, "You never know."

I think I'll make that my motto. And if I ever meet him again, I'll tell him he was right.