The NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema have announced the winners of a citywide screenwriting competition focusing on stories by, for, or about women. According to a press statement, Robin Rose Singer’s “Adult Behavior” and Patty Carey-Perazzo’s “Half-Life” were selected from more than 300 submissions.
The contest’s jury panel members included Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and Made in NY Media Center, Julie Menin, MOME Commissioner, and Nadia Manzoor, “Shugs & Fats” co-creator/performer and Paprika Productions founder.
Feirstein grad students will develop both “Adult Behavior” and “Half-Life” into pilot episodes this summer, under the guidance of project EPs Wacks and Zelermyer. The pilots will eventually air on NYC Media, a public broadcast channel that reaches 18 million viewers.
After both pilots are produced, one will receive an order of four additional episodes, which will be broadcast summer 2018 on NYC Media.
“Adult Behavior” centers on Nurse Jessica Applegate, who begins a new job at senior living facility Shady Breeze. “If she expected anyone to lay out the welcome mat, she expected very, very wrong,” the project’s official synopsis reads. “Her supervisor Lynnetta is tough as nails, the only person she seems to connect with in New York is 76, and the other senior residents are not above a little good-natured hazing. As Jessica struggles to acclimate to life in the Bronx, she starts to realize that the life she imagined for herself might be an impossible dream in the modern world.”
Meanwhile, “Half-Life” is about a woman struggling to meet the demands of her jobs and the demands of her children. The synopsis reads, “On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a mom needs to bring her A game, but Jessy’s feeling like a C. Her kids just want a hug and maybe a slice of bacon, but who’s got time to grocery shop? Her director needs his cinematic vision brought to life on the streets of New York, and it’s Jessy’s job to make that happen, if she can win his trust. And what about her own creative self that’s been simmering on the back burner? Can she turn up the heat and break through the celluloid ceiling, or is it time to call it quits? Moms can have a mid-life crisis too.”
“This opportunity is unparalleled,” said Carey-Perazzo, who holds a day job as a film location manager. “I’ve been working in film and television production right here in NYC for over 20 years, but I’ve always worked on someone else’s show. To have this opportunity to break through to another level and see my own project come to fruition means everything to me.”
The screenwriting contest will be followed by several other initiatives targeting the underrepresentation of women in the film, television, and theater industries. Among the other projects are a $5 million fund for female filmmakers; a $5 million grant for women-centric or -created film and theater projects; pitch workshops; a film financing conference; Channel 25 programming “focused entirely on women and their perspectives”; and a report on gender disparity in film.
