Screenplays 💻

(Produced work @ Films 🎞 )

• Callirhoe County U.S.A.
  (short  film / proof of concept pilot - seeking funding)
  
  By 1917, the Exodusters (Black homesteaders) who settled the prairie region of Callirhoe County, Kansas have a fully operational town, fit with a general store, church, printing press, and school. At the center of it all is the Freeman family, who tend to both the physical and spiritual health of the town’s residents.
  
  Through mutual aid and collaboration, the citizens of Callirhoe make meaningful lives for themselves – creating spaces of joy, challenging the status quo, excelling in their work, and finding love – despite the difficulties that come along with inhabiting a land ruled by fierce natural elements and World War One on the horizon.
  
  Starts Conversations About:  pioneers, Reconstruction, Du Bois, cowboys, the  prairie, buffalo, Juneteenth, Black families, community, ice cream, general stores, the soft life, infinite sunsets, Pride and Prejudice -- but Black people in the early 1900s
  * Selected for the 2024Tallgrass Artist Residency
  Learn more

• Squad Goals
  2012. A hangout-film about Black kids where no one gets shot in a drug deal. Set in the Conservative, affluent (white) suburbs of North Carolina. The five Black students of Carolina Prep's senior class are trying to get into college, but like also enjoy the best days of their lives under the gorgeous Carolina blue sky, and like also survive the KKK.
  Starts Conversations About:  summerrrrrr, college, the homecoming dance, driving, Tom Petty, binders full of women, the dougie, G-wagons, jollof, the SAT, Nike Elite socks, Sperry Top Siders, microaggressions, macroaggressions, fishing, student government, Black hair, Black excellence, the Black Table, avocado toast, nothing was the same...
  * Selected for the 2023 Athena Film Festival Writers Lab

• La Méduse  (The Raft of the Medusa)
  1816. After a period of great revolution, monarchy returns to France and with it, the nobility reclaim their power. The frigate The Medusa, with its mixed-class crew and passengers, journeys across the ocean to settle the colony of Senegal -- but with the dual punch of a tempest and tempestuous leadership, most never arrive. When the frigate is shipwrecked off the coast of Mauritania, the elite commandeer the life rafts and sail to safety, leaving the least-of-these to fight for their lives on a ramshackle raft in the treacherous tropical waters. Based on a true story. 

Starts Conversations About: shipwreck, politics, privilege, competence, nepotism, class, patria, the African diaspora, citizenship, equality, honor, resources, velvet robes, tradition, hazing, sailing, the open sea, SHARKS!, worst case scenario...  

• • • • "This script is a thoughtful period piece that engrosses the reader immediately from the first page. It effectively characterizes what life was like during nineteenth-century Europe and highlights a historical moment that has been under-represented on screen. The characters' dialogue and the overall world-building seem authentic to the period and help illustrate the political, religious, and social attitudes during this time and in French culture. This script also succeeds in exploring universally human themes and conflicts that still feel relevant today... this script has the potential to be a studio-produced period piece that can appeal to mass audiences. Like Titanic and Triangle of Sadness, The Raft of the Medusa reveals the best and worst of human nature through classism, prejudice, brotherly love, and survivalism. " - BlueCat Reader
        
        

      • "The writer did a great job of creating suspense and drama. Watching the passengers struggle to survive was gripping and I couldn’t stop reading." - A different BlueCat Reader
        
        

      • "Producers should note this writer as one to watch." - Blacklist Reader

• Black Gold
  1910. When Jones Morning becomes "property of the state" after a wrongful conviction in the backcountry of Chicory Creek, Alabama, Grace-- the matriarch of the Morning family-- treks into the dangerous world of Ashby Mines to rescue her husband and keep their family unit intact.
  Starts Conversations About:  criminal justice reform, Reconstruction, coal mining, the Black Family, the burden of Black Women, US history, displacement, authority, reification of the human body, literacy, sacrifice, Black-Indigenous relationships
  * advanced to the Second Round in the Drama Feature category, Austin Film Festival 2023
  * Scored within the top 15% of The Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting
  
  

  • • • "The writing is strong, with a good command of language and craft. Many of the sequences have a poetic feel yet they still propel the story at a good pace while painting a picture of the surroundings and times. The writing is clear and offers a voice which evokes beauty even in the midst of the terrible events that are portrayed. This contributes to the magic of the piece as well."  - Nicholl Reader One
        
        

      • "It’s a look into a world that in some ways still feels too familiar and that helps make this script relevant for today’s audience."  - Nicholl Reader Two
        
        

      • "The idea touches on an important and little recognized ugly history in the United States when these types of schemes were employed. (For that matter, a Judge in Pennsylvania was recently convicted in a similar kickback scheme involving juveniles). So this idea is both fresh and still timely in some ways."  - Nicholl Reader Three

• 14:23
  1970s -1980s. Based on a true story. A young boy from Camden, NJ discovers his talent in athletics and uses his abilities to achieve a better life for himself and his family despite the fact that the universe seems to be against his success.
  Starts Conversations About: football, high school, family,"underserved communities", NFL, ACL, KFC, perseverance, college, scholarship, Black athletes with non-traumatic backgrounds, Averi's dad
  * Quarterfinalist in 2016 BlueCat Screenwriting Competition

• DeSal
  Future. Romeo and Juliet in the not-so-distant future, set on an island without freshwater.
  Starts Conversations About: surfing, climate change, police brutality, love, prison, colorism, stereotypes, angsty youth, California, Willy Shakes, adaptation