Catherine Hardwicke’s Street Smart, a wildlife documentary narrated by Jeff Bridges, and a legal thriller starring Terrence Howard and Kate Bosworth are among the first selections announced for Your Script Produced! International Film Festival. The inaugural Los Angeles event runs Nov. 14–15, with programming at the Fox Studio Lot and screenings at AMC Century City 15.
Presented by Doval Bacall Entertainment, the two-day festival plans more than 30 screenings and more than a dozen industry panels. The lineup spans features, documentaries, and shorts, while the conference side tackles a question familiar to anyone with an independent film in development. How do you get it financed, made, and seen?
Inaugural lineup highlights
Street Smart follows young adults experiencing homelessness in Venice, California, as they navigate life on the streets and look for somewhere to belong. Hardwicke directed and co-wrote the film with Nic Sheff, with Gerard Butler serving as an executive producer. Skeet Ulrich, Bevin Bru, Isabelle Fuhrman, Yara Shahidi and Michael Cimino star.
In the Company of Wolves: An American Journey pairs Bridges’ narration with director Susan Kucera’s look at wolves and other wildlife in American history. The documentary uses that history to explore how people have shaped the American landscape and how it has shaped them.
Broken Ones, directed by Tim Gagliardo from a script by Alejandro Zavala, follows a man who takes on a trucking company over alleged negligence with devastating consequences for a family and its community. Howard, Bosworth and Hana Mae Lee star.
Redemption, written and directed by Asif Akbar, takes its story from Cleveland to Las Vegas in the 1980s. A young man named Leo Russo and his best friend are pulled deeper into organized crime, where ambition starts testing their loyalty.
Boris Is Dead finds a struggling actor waiting tables until his boss’s debts put him in the middle of a botched heist. James Cullen Bressack directed the dark comedy, with a cast that includes Dane Cook, Hana Mae Lee, Steven Bauer, Cam Gigandet, Jesse Metcalfe and Martin Kove.
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PUG, written and directed by Jason Velo, follows a young man who comes to Los Angeles after prison to pursue boxing. His estranged uncle draws him into the darker side of the sport. Danny Trejo, Mark Rolston, Wolfgang Bodison and Johnny Rey Diaz are among the cast.
Stakeout follows a man who enlists his aspiring detective best friend to spy on his new girlfriend. The amateur surveillance job turns up something more dangerous than either expected. Riker Lynch directed and stars alongside Titus Makin Jr., Bella Claire Martinez and Bobby Ulrich.
Among the standouts in the shorts program is Swipe, a Telly Award-winning proof of concept for a supernatural horror feature from award-winning director Patia Prouty. The short introduces the Cupid Killer, who gets a second shot at murder when a dating app brings him back from the dead. And yes, he uses arrows.
Beyond the screenings, a focus on how independent films get made
The inaugural Your Script Produced! International Film Festival plans more than 30 screenings and more than 12 industry panels over two days. The conference program will bring filmmakers into conversations with producers, financiers, distributors, acquisition executives, and network representatives about what it takes to move a project from development to production and, eventually, in front of an audience.
Organizers call the financing focus “Capital Unlocking.” For an independent filmmaker, that comes down to practical questions. What do investors need to see before they commit? What can an international partner bring to a production? And when should a filmmaker start talking to distributors or acquisition executives? Those are the kinds of questions behind a program that spans financing, production, distribution, international collaboration and emerging entertainment business models.
The mix of screenings and panels also gives filmmakers a chance to show what they can do before talking about what they want to make next. A short can demonstrate a director’s command of tone or show how a concept might sustain a feature. The industry conversations offer a place to discuss what that next step would require, from finding a producing partner to figuring out who might finance or distribute the film.
For Doval Bacall Entertainment, the festival builds on the Your Script Produced! initiative’s focus on connecting storytellers with people who can help move their projects forward. The inaugural edition takes place Nov. 14–15, with programming at the Fox Studio Lot and screenings at AMC Century City 15. Organizers plan to announce additional selections, screening times, participating filmmakers and conference details through the festival’s official channels.
Amy Pais-Richer is a published author, screenwriter, and former advertising creative director.
