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VIRGINIA FILM OFFICE ANNOUNCES 2024 VIRGINIA SCREENWRITING COMPETITION WINNERS

The Virginia Film Office announced the three winners of the 2024 Virginia Screenwriting Competition. The annual event, founded in 1989, was created to promote Virginia’s in-state talent and encourage aspiring screenwriters.

The winners and their screenplays, all feature-length, are Gina DeAngelis (Williamsburg) for The Knocking at the Marsh, Kenneth Maitland (Richmond) for Lynnhaven, and Kayla Helmkamp (Newport News) for Setting Up Elwin.

The Virginia Screenwriting Competition was created by the Virginia Film Office to celebrate the accomplishments of Virginia writers, as well as to promote the future of filmmaking in Virginia.  It provides screenwriters with a forum for their work and an opportunity to present their scripts to experienced members of the film industry.  The competition accepts both feature length screenplays and hour-long episodic pilot submissions.

Virginia Film Office director Andy Edmunds acknowledged the winners on stage at the Paramount Theater at the 2024 Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville on Saturday, November 2nd, prior to a screening of the critically acclaimed musical crime thriller Emilia Pérez, which took home Best Actress and the Jury Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

2024 VIRGINIA SCREENWRITING COMPETITION WINNERS:

 

Gina DeAngelis (Williamsburg, VA) | The Knocking at the Marsh

When her widowed mother vanishes during a blizzard in 1850s Virginia, a biracial teenager must defend herself, her vulnerable little sister, and their isolated farm against their slaveholding uncle and the torments of an angry spirit.

 

Kenneth Maitland (Richmond, VA) | Lynnhaven

A pill-popping, professionally irresponsible young doctor, assigned to a Richmond public housing complex in the early 1980s, must make a moral choice when a 10-year-old confesses to her his murder of an elderly neighbor.

 

Kayla Helmkamp (Newport News, VA) | Setting Up Elwin

In the romantic wasteland that is her mother’s third wedding, a wannabe matchmaker tries to keep things on course, but a case of mistaken identity threatens to upend everything.

 

11.04.24

Margaret Finucane

Press