Projects of 2026

A television writer navigates a zombie apocalypse by retreating into a sitcom world where everything is just fine...or is it? Jacob spends his days "clearing the perimeter" of zombies, then comes home to a chained-up zombie wife, Mary, who he still sees as his lovely, blond, happy, helpmeet. The facade begins to crack when Jacob's neighbors get a little too close, and discover what has happened to Mary in the worst possible way...

I am a recent graduate of Dodge Film School at Chapman University. I majored in Directing and Screenwriting, and since graduation, I have written and produced many short-form narratives in a variety of media genres. I have completed a graphic novel series (the first issue of which was published last winter), an animation series, multiple short films, several computer games, a tabletop game, and am working on a novel. I work part-time teaching filmmaking, game-making, and robotics to at-risk middle schoolers in LA, and write and create my own content during off-hours.

Eighteen-year-old Zach Gamble stars as Cameron Love on a popular sitcom, living behind a carefully constructed public image that helps support his family. Once known as Mike Thomas, Zach has been reshaped by his manager, Martin, into a marketable persona. When a heartfelt letter from a closeted teenage fan forces Zach to remember his own loneliness and unrequited feelings in high school, he begins questioning the life he has built. His attempt to introduce a meaningful LGBTQ+ storyline into the sitcom is rejected by Martin, who refuses to risk the show’s carefully protected brand.

During a family graduation trip to Florida, Zach meets Danny, an eighteen-year-old from Cleveland who is struggling with similar questions about his identity. Although Danny has a girlfriend, Stacy, he admits that he does not feel the way he is expected to. Away from the pressures of home, Zach and Danny form an unexpected connection. For the first time, Zach feels safe enough to reveal the person beneath his public persona, while Danny encourages him to stop performing and be honest about who he is.

As paparazzi begin watching Zach’s every move, the two hide their growing relationship, communicating through stolen moments and the touch of their hands beneath the sand. When the trip ends, Danny must return to Cleveland and Zach to the sitcom and the persona that made him famous. Their separation forces Zach to confront what he is willing to sacrifice. For the first time, he must choose between protecting Cameron Love—and risking everything to become Zach Gamble.

David Mills is an award-winning screenwriter specializing in character-driven dramas and LGBTQ+ coming-of-age stories. His screenplays have earned Best Screenplay at The Indie Gathering International Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Screenplay Festival; Best Queer Screenplay at the Swedish Independent Film Festival; Best Characters and Best Tone at the Hollywood International Film and Screenplay Festival; and a Gold Award at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival. His screenplay BEYOND THE ARC was also selected as a Scriptapalooza Fellowship winner.

Mills writes emotionally grounded stories centered on identity, relationships, and the defining moments that force characters to confront who they are. His work combines strong character arcs with accessible emotional stakes, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ stories that resonate beyond the community they depict.

Set in early 1980s Ohio, SOMEWHERE ELSE follows Billy, a quiet and introspective teenager approaching adulthood while struggling to understand where he belongs. He maintains a relationship with his girlfriend Michelle and moves through familiar routines, presenting the outward appearance of a normal life. Beneath the surface, however, Billy feels increasingly disconnected from the person everyone expects him to be.

His growing connection with Jay, an older and more confident young man, becomes the catalyst for Billy to confront feelings he has spent years keeping buried. Jay represents something Billy has never allowed himself to imagine: the possibility of being comfortable with who he is and living outside the expectations of his small-town world. Their relationship develops through shared moments, growing trust, and an attraction neither fully acknowledges. For Billy, Jay becomes more than someone he is drawn to; he becomes a glimpse of the person Billy might become if he stops living according to everyone else’s expectations.

As Billy’s feelings deepen, maintaining the life he has built with Michelle becomes increasingly difficult. Unable to reconcile his outward identity with what he is beginning to understand about himself, Billy grows more isolated and uncertain.

Ultimately, Billy leaves town for college, carrying unresolved feelings but a new awareness of who he might be. SOMEWHERE ELSE is semi-autobiographical, drawing from my own experience during the summer between high school and college—a story about the person who awakens something in you and the courage to follow where that awakening leads.

David Mills is an award-winning screenwriter specializing in character-driven dramas and LGBTQ+ coming-of-age stories. His screenplays have earned Best Screenplay at The Indie Gathering International Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Screenplay Festival; Best Queer Screenplay at the Swedish Independent Film Festival; Best Characters and Best Tone at the Hollywood International Film and Screenplay Festival; and a Gold Award at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival. His screenplay BEYOND THE ARC was also selected as a Scriptapalooza Fellowship winner.

Mills writes emotionally grounded stories centered on identity, relationships, and the defining moments that force characters to confront who they are. His work combines strong character arcs with accessible emotional stakes, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ stories that resonate beyond the community they depict.

After a violent shipwreck leaves them stranded on a remote island, Ethan and Michael—two teenage boys with very different relationships to the lives they left behind—must learn to survive in an unfamiliar and unforgiving environment. Ethan is determined to return home and reclaim the future he had planned, while Michael, already uncertain about where he belongs, begins to see the island as a place where he can finally escape the expectations that defined him. Alongside an older survivor, Jim, they adapt to island life, building a fragile routine based on necessity rather than trust. When Jim dies, the boys are left entirely alone, forcing them to depend on each other.

As days become months and rescue never comes, survival becomes routine. Their tension and emotional distance gradually give way to an unexpected connection as isolation strips away the identities and expectations they carried from home. Their growing intimacy develops into a romantic relationship, giving them comfort and stability in a world where nearly everything else has disappeared.

But the possibility of rescue creates a growing divide. Ethan longs to return to the life he lost, while Michael begins to question whether that life ever truly belonged to him. When rescue finally becomes possible, they must confront whether what they have found together can survive beyond the island—or whether it exists only because they had nowhere else to go.

David Mills is an award-winning screenwriter specializing in character-driven dramas and LGBTQ+ coming-of-age stories. His screenplays have earned Best Screenplay at The Indie Gathering International Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Screenplay Festival; Best Queer Screenplay at the Swedish Independent Film Festival; Best Characters and Best Tone at the Hollywood International Film and Screenplay Festival; and a Gold Award at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival. His screenplay BEYOND THE ARC was also selected as a Scriptapalooza Fellowship winner.

Mills writes emotionally grounded stories centered on identity, relationships, and the defining moments that force characters to confront who they are. His work combines strong character arcs with accessible emotional stakes, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ stories that resonate beyond the community they depict.

Inspired by tales of crime and revelation, the story of Solomon – The Keymaster – brings elements of detective mystery and adventure thriller into the tradition of classic horror. At ist core lies a dilemma – a hereditary mage seeks to wash away the sins of his ancestors and renounce the dark gift, but the inhabitants of the cursed hotel refuse to release such precious prey: the mage himself, Jacob, a bounty hunter lured into the hotel, and Lyssa, the restless ghost of a Victorian woman who has her own score to settle with the hotel’s ruling demon.

Dr. Victoria Polzer is a German award-winning screenwriter, director, and philosopher, and a member of the German Screenwriters' Association (DDV).

Her work, including music videos, documentaries, a short horror film, and screenplays, has received recognition at over 50 international film festivals worldwide.

She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Heidelberg University and studied screenwriting and directing with Alexander Mitta, as well as completing masterclasses with Mark Travis and Neil Landau.

In 2012, she wrote and directed the short film Naiads, created as part of Michel Gondry’s Film Factory project and later exhibited at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.

Her screenplay Once Upon a Town (Es war einmal eine Stadt), about the destruction of Mariupol, was proposed for the German Screenplay Award by DDV.

Her creative screenwriting portfolio spans numerous works across science fiction, horror, drama, and dark mythological fantasy.

Alongside her filmmaking, she continues her research in the aesthetics of ancient theatre and visual perception, integrating these concepts into her screenwriting practice.

Jade is staying with her brother Adam on a university break. She is training to become a teacher. Her and Adam have just visited their mother from a rural area somewhere and are driving home at night. Trees and bushland are on opposite sides of the road. Jade at the wheel in Adam's car. Adam takes a nap while Jade drives. However after some time, Jade thinks their lost. Some sort of light then flashes ahead of her and she feels the car shake. She wakes Adam up as they come to a stop on a dirt road/open area. They argue about Adam falling asleep and Jade going the wrong way. Adam realises their lost. There is a parked car ahead of them with it's doors open. Jade suggests they see if anyone's inside. Adam, who's profession is a cop, tells Jade to stay by him and they get out of their car. They reach the other car and see that no one is inside. They agree to wait to see if anyone else shows up. Jade sees blood on the seat inside the car, Adam sees this too. With cop instincts, he tells her and it's time for them to leave. When they do however, a woman emerges from the trees. Jade and Adam hide behind the car. The woman has a bloody rock in her hand. She sees Jade and Adam's car. Quickly, she throws her rock in the bushes. She then approaches Jade and Adam's car to check if anyone is inside it. Jade and Adam are hiding behind the other car, which is obviously the woman's. They watch her look in their car. Jade suggests Adam to arrest her but Adam does not have any police equipment with him at the moment. Jade then has the idea to honk the horn of the woman's car so they can get back to their car when the woman approaches. Adam agrees, and after some tension, Jade honks the horn. The woman, hearing the noise, runs back to her car. Jade and Adam then run back to their car. The woman sees them and runs after them. Jade and Adam make it to their car, Adam at the wheel this time. Adam drives them away from the woman who slams her fist on their car as they escape the area. Both taking breathes from the experience, Adam realises the woman looked familiar. He mentions he's seen old photographs of the car and it belonged to a woman named Mary Rane on a police report. He says she killed her husband in this area in 2006 but very confused how they just saw Rane right after she committed the crime just now, the rock she was holding was her weapon. Jade, slowly making sense of all this, tells Adam about the light she saw and that it felt like their car drove through it. Jade thinks the light took them to 2006 and they just experienced and event that happened there. Adam doesn't fully believe it but Jade knows it's true. They agree to continue driving to try and find the light again so they can get back to their present time. Will it appear again, and if it does, will they make it in time?

I have been writing and directing my own projects since 2015. I have always had a passion for filmmaking and love creating and telling stories that people can remember. I often make the most random thing happen to people at very inconvenient times in my stories. The genres/styles I usually incorporate are elements of science fiction, thriller and horror. I try to combine these things with human drama.

CHARACTERS: Protagonist - Wayne Talbot: A hunter way past his prime. He's a friend or partner to no one and all his enemies are dead. He's trying to save up 11 thousand to buy a used-car lot in Galveston and he's on the hunt for a big score. Clayton Moss is worth 5 grand. But add in what Wayne's got on-hand, and he's still 6 thousand short to retirement. He's hard-boiled, cold and calculating.

Antagonists Human – Leo Garrett: He runs the bounty-hunter operation from Law Town, temporary prisoner drop-off and pick-up way stations. But to him the law stops at the Rio Grande. Leo likes to sell his prisoners to traffickers across the border.

Supernatural – Werewolf clan: Men, women and children (15) who exist in the shadows and eliminate any loose threads. They have a mutated version of the Lycanthrope gene. Think THE WOLFMAN meets THE THING.

Supporting Characters Maria Torres: Car trouble on the way to grandma’s house. Tough; resilient. Silver vanity set. Clayton Moss: Wanted for murder and he did it. Remy Ramirez: Loves being a bounty hunter; lousy at his job. Javier Ramirez: Hates being a bounty hunter; good at his job. Tory Lake : A teenager and a loose thread. She’s been bit. Sweet Jane: Independent. A vamp and smart hunter. History with Wayne. Giorgi: Wolf clan chieftain. Leo captures him.

SYNOPSIS Act 1: Wayne is on the hunt. A brawl gets him a lead, but the trail runs cold. He drives past a stranded Maria but goes back. He’s looking for a honkytonk. She has an idea but needs a ride. He brings her along. In a sleazy bar, Wayne finds his bounty. Moss pulls a knife. Wayne fires a shotgun. He shuts the place down. He tells Maria to call the sheriff and leaves with Moss. Moss stirs, shot with rock salt. Wayne is taking him to Law Town. They camp in the desert. Wayne chains-up Moss and sleeps. He wakes to shouts. Something is in the dark. Wayne hears a child’s giggle. He fires. And hits a charging wolf. The animal stands on two legs and runs off into the night.

Act 2: Law Town is a temporary way station. It’s an abandoned oil town used as a prisoner exchange. One of the bounties is a girl named Tory. She’s the lone survivor of a werewolf attack. And she’s been bit. Leo wants to sell Tory and Moss to The Dance, a sadistic rodeo south of the border. Wayne wants them given to the proper authorities. Ramirez brothers arrive with money owed to Leo, and a gift from the sheriff. Maria. A storm forces everyone to stay put as a pack of clan members converge to kill Tory. They attack. In the aftermath, Giorgi is captured and put in a cell. The survivors fight among themselves. Wayne is forced into a leadership role, corralling cops and criminals to work together. They pool their resources and prepare for a fight. Leo is only concerned about his captured werewolf and taking him to The Dance.

Act 3: Some hunters want to throw Tory to the wolves. Wayne protects her. Leo wants his prize loaded onto a prison bus for Mexico. Leo sabotages vehicles so they’re forced to follow his plan. Wolf clan attacks. Using 1950’s weapons and a silver vanity set (comb, brush and magic mirror) the hunters fight back. Leo’s hubris gets him killed by Giorgi. Wayne, Tory, Maria and Moss make it to morning. Moss isn’t going to prison and wants a duel. Wayne talks him down. Moss is attacked and killed by Giorgi. Wayne kills the werewolf chieftain but not before Maria gets bit. Survivors prepare for a long walk to civilization. They split up. Tory will turn with the rise of the moon and Wayne leaves with Maria, knowing she might also transform.

MAIN CHARACTER STORY ARC RESOLUTION: A long-term loner is forced to be a leader. He brings good and bad together to fight and survive the night against a supernatural horde and corrupt ugly turncoats. At the end he leaves his old life behind for an otherworldly adventure ahead.

WHAT MAKES THIS STORY UNIQUE? WHAT’S THE MARKETING HOOK?: A spaghetti western / werewolf movie set in 1959. It combines genres into a unique period piece. It also subverts audience expectations. Starting off as a neo-western and shifts into a supernatural thriller. Also the practical and digital FX could play big. The mix of The Wolfman meets The Thing is something we haven’t seen before. This world-building story has a beginning, middle and end, but does leave some unanswered questions. Which could be addressed in a sequel (Bad Moon Rising )

Sean Bridges was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He’s an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and audio producer.

He’s the author of On the Bayou and Gunbarrel Highway. He’s a Stephen King Dollar Baby with his festival-winning audio production of One for the Road. His company Audible Parade created the serial audio thriller productions Triple Six and Parasite Zero.

He’s now developing High Moon, a spaghetti western/werewolf feature film, and he lives and works in the Texas Hill Country.

Nina Cartwright struggles to paint after a mysterious accident leaves her with a broken wrist and missing memories. When her older brother, Michael, begs her to return home as their grandmother MawMaw’s health declines, Nina reluctantly goes back.

MawMaw refuses to eat, surviving only on sugar water, while Michael refuses to answer Nina’s questions about her accident. Seeking escape, Nina meets fellow painter Alfer, whose interest in her coincides with increasingly frightening hallucinations.

After a final argument with Michael, Nina moves in with her best friend, Lizzie. Growing closer to Alfer, she agrees to stay with him, only to realize his home is a place she has seen in her visions. Hoping to awaken her creatively and spiritually, Alfer assumes the role of Shaman and sends Nina into an altered state where she travels through a wormhole and relives her accident.

Returning home, Nina experiences time non-linearly and finally sees Michael’s perspective, beginning to understand his secrecy. But MawMaw dies, and Alfer returns and attempts to remove Nina’s cast. When he attacks Michael, Nina kills Alfer with his saw, cuts off her own cast, and paints with his blood.

In the aftermath, Nina and Michael forgive each other, mourn MawMaw, and leave their familial trauma behind.

My name is Noelani, and I intend to use the art of filmmaking to open minds and raise awareness about psychological and invisible illnesses. My stories are told through the lens of humans struggling with things most people don't have to think about. I want my audiences to walk away enlightened and, more importantly, thinking.

When Timmy discovers another classmate hiding in the playground after school, he approaches him to discover that he is avoiding an abusive father. The decision he makes at that moment would define the type of bond that would grow between the two of them. Timmy took him into his family to protect him and over the years they grew up together like brothers. Upon graduating high school, their lives would change and never be the same. Timmy went off to college and would meet his wife and start a family while Johnny would fall back to the routine he knew and would begin working for organized criminals. As their lives forked, Johnny would always keep tabs on Timmy. As Timmy and his family would begin to financially struggle and then collapse during the 2008 market crash, he would turn to drastic measures to save his family from ruins. After gaining inside knowledge on a fixed fight, Timmy decides to take drastic measures and borrow money from a shark to save his family from ruins. When the fix ends up getting turned over due to too many people knowing, Timmy ends up deep with the sharks. With only his life insurance to pay for collateral, Timmy has no way out until his lifelong friend and brother finds out and steps in to save him, unbeknownst to him.

After graduating from film school, I moved to LA where I would start my journey in film. After working on many projects for others, I decided to break off and start producing my own films. My first short film was called True Friend, which had an amazing run globally in the festival circuit, winning 50+. I followed it up with my first feature film, which I financed, called Wacko. After great success with the festivals, nominated best horror and actor by the European Film Awards and Screening at TIFF, amongst other festival wins, I am ready to produce my next feature True Friend, which was created from the short. It will be the first film in our "True" trilogy, which I will be looking to follow up with True Love and True Bond. I've been writing stories since I was in first grade and also winning a Young Author's Award as well as directing since I was making home videos for school projects in eighth grade.

NOOR sits in a graveyard, cries. The gravestone reads: ‘ASTER JAMES VITALIS. 1987 - 2024’. Noor strokes her large, heavily pregnant bump. A cat circles her. Noor responds to the creature wit familiarity, follows the cat toward a clearing in the shadows: ‘THE CERBERUS ARMS - Welcome to the Underworld!’ A shadow of a man stands in the porch way: DAN THE BILLBOARD MAN. Noor cannot turn to look into Aster’s eyes on returning to the living world. Noor accepts, makes her first step. Noor and Aster’s small wedding ceremony in a church; witnessed by NELL, Noor’s foster Mother, ANDROULLA, Aster’s Grandmother and ADAM the best man. The rings are exchanged, followed by the kiss. The wedding reception: A celebratory explosion of people, dancing, drinking, confetti thrown. Noor declines a cigarette Aster offers, makes the announcement that she is pregnant. Inside: A shadowy figure of a BARMAN serves Aster and Adam snakebite shots. Aster starts to mysteriously choke, runs outside. Aster collapses, dies. Aster’s funeral. Noor watches Aster’s casket: the new, APPARITION ASTER, emerges. He tells Noor that she is the only person who can see him. After the service, NELL and NOOR agree that she is coming to live with her in Noor’s childhood home of the Phoenix Centre for refugees. Noor performs, plays her qanun in a market square, busks. DAN THE BILLBOARD MAN approaches, he knows about Noor’s deceased husband. Dan asks Noor if she wants to see Aster again. She replies, “of course I do”. Dan the Billboard Man tells Noor to call him to receive instructions on how to enter the Underworld. Dr. LINDA ALOKA and Noor in the psychiatrist’s office. Dr. Aloka is concerned about Noor’s visions. Apparition Aster watches them. Noor admits that she can see Aster as though he were there with her; Apparition Aster disappears at this moment. Dan the Billboard Man appears to Noor in visions around Kingston town centre. Dr. Linda Aloka calls Nell, tells her that Noor is being prescribed antipsychotics. Noor holds the mysterious phone number in her palm, calls it. Dan the Billboard Man answers the phone, instructs Noor to the war memorial in town and look for a black cat; bring her qanun. The black cat will guide her to the Underworld. Noor faces the THREE-HEADED DOG, animate, difficult to get past. Noor plays her instrument, lulls them to a calm sleep. Noor seizes the opportunity to step forward. A large nightclub. Across the dance floor is Aster. Noor tells Aster that she has come to rescue him. Aster tells Noor that he wants their unborn daughter to be called Aurora. There is a dock of small boats with oars. As they drift to the human world, Noor looks back at him, Aster disappears. Above on the bridge, Dan the Billboard Man declares his obsessive love for Noor, tells her that he killed Aster, proposes to Noor; she defiantly refuses. Dan metamorphoses into a black cat, runs away. Noor is on a hospital bed, gives birth to the child: Aurora Sky Vitalis. Two years later. Noor attends Aster’s grave; leaves a bouquet of red roses. AURORA, 2, toddles through the grass, points, "Mama! A cat!" Out of the corner of Noor's eye, the tail of a black cat whips in the growth.

Screenwriter | Filmmaker | Visual Artist Eleanor Veness is Cannes Script winner for Best Female Screenwriter, Winter 2026. Her Feature Film script, 'Aurora Sky’, has won and made Finalist in multiple international awards, including ‘Best Fantasy’ at Hollywood Indie Festival 2026. Her specialist sub-genre is magical realism. All of her stories are in synthesis within rich, encapsulating world-settings, constructed by character-driven narratives. Eleanor’s stories carry other-worldly or fantasy aspects, grounded in humanistic realism. Eleanor’s work is unconventionally told, often breaking traditional structures with a desire to innovate storytelling method and inspire imagination from gritty reality. Eleanor writes to get to the core of humanity and communicate those messages. In ‘Aurora Sky’, the central imperative to ‘not look back’ carries the weight of generational trauma and the protagonist Noor’s Arab refugee heritage. Noor must accept the traumas of her past in order to face a brighter future of stability. ‘Aurora Sky’ explores the concept of oral histories and migrational diasporas as told through commentary on refugee rights in the United Kingdom. Her portfolio demonstrates a wide range of genres and formats, including Drama, Comedy Drama, Historical, Biopic, Memoir, Horror and Thriller. Eleanor is currently adapting a 2024 novel into a feature film screenplay. She has written for feature, TV series and short, a play and another book adaption. Eleanor became 4 x award-nominated for her TV pilot/series 'Sam: A Teenage Girl' in 2020 - 2021. Eleanor also works as an artist and lives in South-West London with her husband and their cat, Pixel.

After surviving a near-death accident at his dangerous steel-mill job, John Gattrick embraces life with a new sense of urgency. His search for excitement and love, however, repeatedly leads him into relationships and situations that don’t turn out as expected. His indiscretion costs him his relationship with Raheem, whose reaction has life-threatening consequences.

When John meets Evan, he believes he has finally found the man of his dreams. Instead, the relationship draws him into a nightmare involving drugs, deception, and an FBI investigation that puts John directly in the agents’ sights. As his increasingly dangerous choices lead to yet another brush with death, John is forced to confront the consequences of the life he has been living.

In an unexpected reversal, John ultimately finds himself rescued by the very man whose life he once saved, bringing his turbulent journey of love, loyalty, danger, and survival full circle.

George Petrick is the creator and owner of Birds of a Feather, a feature inspired by true events. He commissioned the screenplay and remained closely involved throughout its development, providing extensive story input and substantial editorial revisions that helped shape the completed script.

Ken Breniman enters the Bornean rainforest carrying unlikely offerings: a singing bowl, a book, and a question about what it means to be human. As he shares sound, stillness, and story with an orangutan, the encounter becomes a mirror. What might our closest relatives still know about belonging, presence, and survival that Homo sapiens has forgotten?

The film then turns sharply toward the devastation surrounding them: forests stripped for palm oil, habitats collapsing, and an apex species destroying the very systems that sustain its own life. Why?

Ken’s own journey offers no easy answer. A near-death experience, psychedelic healing, queer resilience, planetary grief, and a reckoning with power and privilege have pushed him to ask whether a person can consciously evolve within a single lifetime.

Rather than suggesting easy solutions, the film invites deeper questions. What do we do with the privilege we possess? What does healing demand of us? And what if evolution now means becoming more humane, not more dominant?

We do not need to wait for aliens, apocalypse, or some distant future to save us. Our great-ape relatives are already here, reminding us that another way of being is possible.

I came to filmmaking sideways. I am a licensed psychotherapist, death doula, yoga therapist, educator, author, and Brainz Magazine Executive Contributor whose work has long explored grief, mortality, queer resilience, psychedelics, privilege, and what it means to live more consciously. For years, my creative work lived mostly in books, classrooms, therapy rooms, and community spaces. Then life became more urgent.

After a near-death experience, the death of my brother, and the loss of Dr. Jane Goodall, I felt a powerful need to create something that could hold grief and possibility at the same time. My volunteer work with great apes, including time at Matang Wildlife Centre in Borneo, deepened that urgency. Watching orangutans up close while witnessing the destruction of their habitat made the central question impossible to ignore: why would an intelligent species destroy the conditions that allow it to survive?

That question became this film.

I wrote and produced the story as an extension of my larger work around primates, privilege, and possibility. Stop-motion gave us a humble, handmade language for an enormous subject. I am not interested in pretending I have answers. I am interested in asking better questions, using art as a form of witness, and inviting audiences to imagine that becoming more humane may be humanity’s next evolutionary act—and perhaps our most necessary act of survival.

"CEREBRAL" is a tragedy about a family torn apart by a traumatic brain injury. Ruben Esteban, a beloved husband and father, is violently attacked while saving a student, leaving him with a severe head injury. When he awakens from a coma, his personality is altered, developing erratic behavior, catatonic states, and a disturbing hyper-sexual disorder. His wife, Sonia, is thrust into the role of caregiver, fighting to save the man she loves while protecting their teenage daughter, Jessica, from the increasingly dangerous stranger her husband has become. As Ruben's condition deteriorates, with his moments of lucidity becoming rarer and his dark impulses more uncontrollable, Sonia is forced to face the horrifying reality that the man she married may be gone forever. Her mother urges her to institutionalize him, but Sonia clings to hope until Ruben's inner darkness takes a violent turn. The film builds to a devastating confrontation where Ruben attacks his own daughter. Sonia, holding a gun, is paralyzed with horror. In a final moment of heart-wrenching clarity, Ruben's true self emerges, recognizing the terror he has caused and, to save his family from himself, forces Sonia's hand to pull the trigger, ending the profound tragedy of his lost life.

Alex Avila is an Austin-based filmmaker, journalist, and educator with a PhD in Journalism. He attended film school at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1990s. A former NPR producer with 25 years in journalism, he co-founded the Chicano/Latino Film Forum in 1993 – active throughout the 1990s. He has written and produced several award-winning feature films. His first feature, "Closer to Bottom," won Best Texas Feature at the inaugural Austin Indie Fest, followed by the rom-com "Vecinos: Love thy Neighbor," which earned multiple festival honors. His third feature, a psychological thriller titled CEREBRAL won accolades in over a dozen scriptwriting contests. Avila founded TexMex FilmWorks in 2022 to produce Latino stories with mass appeal beginning with the psychological thriller Cerebral, which premiered late April 2026 at the Mexican-American Film & Television Festival in Los Angeles. The film was also a finalist at the San Antonio Film Festival 2026. A master filmmaking fellow with the Mexican American Cultural Education Foundation, he’s currently developing "A.I. Dad" as his 4th feature film. The screenplay, completed in April 2025, won “Best Screenplay” at the San Antonio Film Festival in July 2025. When he’s not working on films, Avila teaches journalism and mass communications at Texas State University.

Alma, una economista mexicana radicada en Buenos Aires, es desplazada de su cargo en un instituto tecnológico. Cuando un delegado sindical la descalifica llamándola “una aborigen que no sabe ni escribir”, presenta una denuncia formal y obtiene una respuesta institucional favorable. Mientras reconstruye su lugar profesional, retoma una vocación nacida en la infancia: escribir. Se inscribe en un Máster en Guion Audiovisual, combina el trabajo con las clases, termina sus estudios y comienza a presentar sus proyectos. Entre selecciones, rechazos y nuevas oportunidades, su trabajo la lleva a colaborar profesionalmente con una productora y a ser seleccionada para un laboratorio de guion en Madrid. Allí, frente a quienes antes habían descartado trabajar con ella desde Buenos Aires, Alma continúa escribiendo y convierte aquella descalificación en el título de su propia historia.

Guionista y directora mexicana-argentina, radicada en Buenos Aires desde hace más de veinte años. Máster en Guion Audiovisual por The Core School (Madrid). Ha desarrollado cortometrajes, largometrajes y series, con obras seleccionadas, semifinalistas y finalistas en festivales y convocatorias internacionales. Su videominuto La Aborigen que no sabía escribir fue seleccionado y exhibido en el Festival La Mujer y el Cine en el MALBA, Buenos Aires. Actualmente continúa desarrollando proyectos audiovisuales entre Argentina y España.