The 2016 Blue List
Jezebel Angel / Jamie Sisley '15
Strangers / Sonya Goddy '15
Promised Land / Josh Carlebach '13
Demimonde / Matthew Nolte Evans '11
Ace of Spades / Jesse Gustafson '15
Ithaca / Mike De Caro '12
The Border / Tesia Walker '15
Pretty Near Perfect / Jennifer Gerber '13
The 2016 Industry Panel
Adam Kolbrenner / Partner (Madhouse Entertainement)
Brad Petrigala / Talent Manager (Brillstein Entertainment Partners)
Ross Dinnerstein / Producer (Preferred Content)
Chris McCoy / Director/Screenwriter, Good Kids
Tom Wellington / Partner (WME)
Jenette Kahn / Partner (Double Nickel Entertainment)
Jesse Ehrman / SVP of Production (Warner Bros)
Dan Halsted / Manager (Manage-ment)
Jonathan Sanger / Producer (Jonathan Sanger Productions)
Scott Rothman / Screenwriter, Draft Day
Nicole Romano / Manager (Anonymous Content)
Mark Holder / Partner (Zero Gravity)
Rosie Alison / Head of Development (Heyday Films)
Nish Panchal / Agent (Curtis Brown Ltd.)
Tom Lassally / Manager (3 Arts Entertainment)
Ruth Underwood / Development Executive (BBC Drama)
Dylan Golden / Producer (Protozoa Pictures)
Ben Coren / Development Executive (Film4)
Robert Kessel / SVP of Production (Participant Media)
Ravi D. Mehta / SVP of Production (Warner Bros.)
Michelle Ashford / Screenwriter, Masters of Sex, The Pacific, John Adams
Jenny Maryasis / Talent Agent (UTA)
"I have been consistently surprised at the high level of writing that I have judged the past two years. I have been on the Nicholl Fellowships committee of the Motion Picture Academy to judge scripts and I can say that the Blue List entries I have read are in a class with the best Academy scripts."
Jezebel Angel
By Jamie Sisley
[email protected]
Charlotte Rhodes and her brother, Tyler, have been playing Country and Bluegrass music in Austin’s dive bars for years with no success. When one of their songs is found playing at the scene of a murder, Charlotte suddenly finds herself at the center of a media frenzy.
Strangers
By Sonya Goddy
[email protected]
A promiscuous neuroscientist investigates a man whom she suspects took advantage of her as a child, only to fall in love with him.
Promised Land
By Josh Carlebach
[email protected]
Swept up by the ideals of the civil rights movement of the early 1960’s, Diane Nelson, a headstrong student organizer from Chicago, journeys to the deep south to register black voters where she collides with reality and John Macy, a powerfully entrenched juke joint owner who aims to keep business as usual in his corner of Mississippi. Promised Land portrays the civil rights story we’ve never seen— the complicated life and death struggle between unity and self-preservation — Where junk joints thump and echo blues into the night and foreboding violence looms in the shadows.
Demimonde
By Matthew Nolte Evans
[email protected]
Demimonde is a one-hour drama about the creation of America’s first legalized red-light district—“Storyville”—in 1897. Set against the historical backdrop of New Orleans, petty gambler Tom Anderson navigates political corruption, the Sicilian Mafia, Jim Crow violence, and the beginnings of jazz as he builds an empire of brothels that would last until World War I.
Ace of Spades
By Jesse Gustafson
[email protected]
Baghdad, 2003: A burnt out war reporter tricks an Iraqi school teacher into helping him investigate a mysterious bombing in order to land a big payday and ends up uncovering the story of a lifetime.
Ithaca
By Mike De Caro
[email protected]
Lost for two decades, Trojan War veteran Odysseus returns home to Ithaca only to discover that his kingdom has been stolen and his name now a crime to utter. He must rely on his survival instincts and combat skills to get back all that was once his despite violent opposition from the abusive new rulers.
The Border
By Tesia Walker
[email protected]
A sheriff living in a sleepy Texas border town, struggles to keep the fact that she is cartel royalty a secret from her town, all while protecting them from the most dangerous criminals of all—her own family.
Pretty Near Perfect
By Jennifer Gerber
[email protected]
While struggling to keep her family together in the face of her mother’s bipolar illness, a young pageant contender enlists the help of a hardened former beauty queen in the hopes of becoming the next Miss Teen Arkansas.
"The Blue List completely changed my career trajectory. As a result of being named to the Blue List, I got a manager and sold my feature script. I currently have three feature scripts in development and hope to make another sale in the near future."