2016 ScreenCraft Action & Thriller Screenplay Contest Winners Announced!

The Timbermen by Colin Dalvit & Andrew Lahmann (with story contributions by Ben Eisner) has been selected as the Grand Prize Winner of the 2016 ScreenCraft Action & Thriller Screenplay Contest. A bold and character-driven action-horror hybrid, The Timbermen is set in 1878 Washington Territory and centers on a desperate father and son who join a group of rough lumberjacks on a dangerous mission, then must fight to survive ferocious monsters deep in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.  The script deftly blends genres and features authentic characters, a strong emotional core, elevated dialogue, and excitingly rendered action sequences.

The Poacher by Travis Opgenorth has been awarded the Runner-Up prize. Ambitious, original and thematically complex, the script tells the story of a Serengeti resident, and haunted former militiaman, who's forced into poaching ivory to feed his starving family and finds himself gaining unwanted notoriety after shooting a ruthless warlord who comes looking for revenge. 

Dalvit & Lahmann will receive $1,500 and a phone call with legendary Die Hard, 48 Hrs. and Commando screenwriter Steven E. de Souza and a top literary manager. Opgenorth will receive $500 and a phone call with a literary manager. Their projects will be submitted to ScreenCraft’s network of agents, managers, producers and studio execs, as will the following finalist scripts:

• Sawbuck by Mark Strauss
• Another River by Kimba Henderson
• Hemophilia by Guy Francisco Polin
• Jacaranda by Ryan W. Smith
• Mark of Cain by Jamie Bircoll
• The Killing Of Sweet Molly Malone by Danny Matier
• Dispatch by J.M. Levine
• The Dragon Run by Bradley Stryker

In addition to de Souza, judges this year included: Tanner Mobley, creative executive at Nu Image; Jeanette Francis, development executive at STX Entertainment, and formerly Warner Bros; Ryan Wickers, Director of Development at Luc Besson’s company EuropaCorp; and Fred Specktor, agent at CAA with iconic clients including Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren.