The following screenplays are the Top 10 Short Form Pilots and Top 7 Long Form Pilots and Official Selections for the 2025 FilmQuest Best Unproduced Screenplay Competition. We added the new unproduced pilot category this year when we noticed how many quality pilot scripts were submitted that deserved their due. If you are a producer or filmmaker, collaborating with these writers may produce your next film, so feel free to explore these great projects waiting to be made. Featured here are some of the best unproduced genre screenplays on the circuit today and one of these screenplays will become our eventual Best Unproduced Short Form and Long Form Screenplay Winners. If you would like to find out more about the screenplays or read them for production consideration, please feel free to reach out to the festival director at jmartin@filmquestfest.com and he will put you in contact with the writers.
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ARIS
Written By: V.P Evans
Synopsis: A man strives to craft a utopia on Mars while a battle for change on a broken Earth unfolds between a rigid system and a faction that demands nothing less than total revolution.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: An all-around writer. From books and travel stories to articles and YouTube scripts. His books have been included in The IAP Select Collection aka “Best Books of the Year” according to Library Journal, and in The BookLife Elite Collection for the “Top Indie-published Books” by Publishers Weekly. As a screenwriter, he’s been selected by BIFA, BAFTA and Oscar-qualifying festivals, and other prestigious fests.
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BRAIN WORMS
Written By: VJ Mancuso
Synopsis: A cursed manifesto is turning young men into mass murderers. In a bid for social media fame, an ambitious teen becomes the face of a youth movement trying to make the madness stop. EUPHORIA meets EVIL DEAD.
Genre(s): Horror, Sci-Fi
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: VJ is a two-time Black List Recommended screenwriter whose work has won or placed at Nightmares Film Festival, HorrorHound, and other genre fests around the globe. He is also senior editor at Backstage and the host of “In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast,” where he’s conducted candid interviews with guests like Emma Stone, Tom Hiddleston, and Angelina Jolie.
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BURIED BY THE DARK
Written By: Joe Mitchell
Synopsis: When two estranged sisters reunite in the desert to scatter their father’s ashes, they discover the land is cursed — the dead rise, memory rots, and their father is still walking, waiting for something far worse to crawl out of the dirt.
Genre(s): Horror, Comedy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Joe Mitchell is a comedy writer and director specializing genre blending. Specifically horror/comedy.
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CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
Written By: Brian R. Hausser
Synopsis: An aspiring actress discovers that Hollywood is full of monsters both metaphorical and…less so.
Genre(s): Horror
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Brian Hauser is a filmmakers, screenwriter, and novelist from Carter-era rust belt suburbia.
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GILGUL
Written By: Adam Shiri
Synopsis: After witnessing a child’s abduction, a timid delivery driver and a stranded troublemaker race to save him—uncovering the roots of a sacred tradition abused long ago, preying on the town’s children.
Genre(s): Horror, The Beyond/Fantastic/Other
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Adam Shiri is an actor and first-time screenwriter whose multicultural background and performance career inform his storytelling across mediums. He has appeared in acclaimed television series including Blue Bloods, Tulsa King, Ray Donovan, and Mr. Robot.
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GOODY
Written By: Julie Sharbutt
Synopsis: N/A
Genre(s): N/A
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: N/A
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HEKATE – “THE AWAKENING”
Written By: Christina Barsi
Synopsis: Under the rule of an oppressive government party called “”The Giants”” who have outlawed all magick, Triv, (who has yet to become “”Hekate””) is haunted by a childhood accident that may—or may not—have caused her mother’s death. While others dabble in secret love spells in hidden covens, Triv has sworn off magick entirely, locking her powers away…but when tasked with awakening her dormant magick to rescue the kidnapped Persephone from Hades, Triv is thrust into a high-stakes quest that forces her to decide whether reclaiming her power -and her truth – is worth the risk.
Genre(s): Fantasy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Christina Barsi is an audio fiction playwright, a filmmaker, podcast producer, and an entrepreneur. Having entered the podcasting landscape over a decade ago in 2013 with her science fiction noir audio drama DIMENSION, continuously ranking as a top 10 podcast in the physics category by goodpods, Barsi also produced the documentary about the making of the project and the power of paving your own path with podcasting called Is Anyone Listening – A Podcast Story, which debuted at Sci-Fi London and was nominated for best documentary film by Filmquest in 2017. Barsi hopes to produce the officially selected audio fiction musical “Hekate – The Awakening” under her label Reimagined Studios or option the works with the right partner.
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JACK’D
Written By: Mike Ede
Synopsis: Jack wakes up in a dystopian future full of sex, drugs and violence. One slight issue…he has no idea who he is, how he got there, or why he owes money to some very bad people!
Genre(s): Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy, The Beyond/Fantastic/Other
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Mike is an unrep’d writer who is taking the screenwriting scene by storm. Jump on…it’s going to be a wild ride!
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KENNY, CAMERA!
Written By: Michael Clifton
Synopsis: When a true-crime content creator wins a storage unit linked to the original Woodsboro murders, he uncovers a new Ghostface determined to control the narrative by any means necessary.
Genre(s): Horror
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Born in Appalachia, Michael cut his teeth in New York City’s fast-paced art world. Today he writes stories about outsiders caught between real and imagined horrors. In the past year, he was featured on Killer Shorts’ list of LGBTQIA+ writers to watch and his scripted film Bath Bomb picked up an award at Fantasia. His script Kissyfoot is in post-production, starring actress Dale Dickey.
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LILY AND THE KID
Written By: Shane Morrisun
Synopsis: Henry, A 15-year-old from New York, suddenly finds himself alone in New Mexico. With his horse by his side, Henry is pursued by a local sheriff, who stops at nothing to find him as he becomes famously known as Billy The Kid.
Genre(s): The Beyond/Fantastic/Other
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Shane Morrisun is a multi-talented filmmaker based in Park City, Utah. After being involved in several film projects as a Producer, Director, Actor or Crewmember, the Lily and the Kid series is the first screenplay by Shane. Shane is currently working on a new feature length screenplay about pirates.
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MONARCH
Written By: Mauricio Herrera Manzur
Synopsis: In a futuristic Mexico-Tenochtitlan where wealth and poverty collide, twin investigators Atzin and Yaotl join forces with a journalist and a detective to hunt a ritualistic killer targeting global elites, uncovering corruption and secrets that test their limits.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Mauricio is a screenwriter and director whose storytelling grows from his Latino roots and deep understanding of culture. A proud SCAD alumnus with degrees in Film and TV and Playwriting and Screenwriting, he crafts narratives that explore family, loss, and personal discovery with a touch of fantastic realism. His short film Candid was selected at the Atlanta Horror Festival and became a semi-finalist at the Hollywood Horrorfest, leading to his signing with MoJo Global Arts Management during his final year at SCAD. Inspired by Guillermo Del Toro, Mauricio blurs reality with the extraordinary, aiming to bring Latino voices to global cinema through emotionally charged, culturally resonant stories.
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PAIRED
Written By: Liz Anderson
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Harriet must navigate a new, weird normal when her digital assistant speaker suddenly comes to life.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Comedy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Liz Anderson is a Chicago-based comedy writer and game developer. Liz’s writing credits include products at Jackbox Games, “”Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me – The NPR News Quiz,”” and The Onion, where she has been a writing fellow and contributor since 2019. Her work has been showcased on Polygon, Vulture, CBC Radio, and The Toast.
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PEARLY GATE ESTATES
Written By: James Crisp
Synopsis: After an unassuming man dies, he finds himself in a bureaucratic afterlife teetering on the brink of collapse. Tasked with restoring faith to save existence, he must navigate surreal challenges, cosmic chaos, and his own existential crises.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Comedy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: James is a lot better at writing about fictional characters than himself, so here are the bullet points: New Zealand-born Sydney Film School Graduate, relocated to Los Angeles in 2021. An award-winning writer/director who prefers to project reality rather than reflect it.
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POWER COUPLE
Written By: Ari Donnelly
Synopsis: A supervillain and superhero have happily fought each other since high school. But when their devotion starts to damage their careers, they are forced to start fighting other people.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy, The Beyond/Fantastic/Other
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Ari is an award-winning screenwriter, a salty east coast expat, and a saltier chef. After cheating on his native Boston by going to school in New York, he apologized by moving to LA, where he worked in creative development for Starz and Disney. A recent spree of screenplay awards forced him to come out of the writing closet, and he has since recommitted to writing scripts with punchy act breaks, intersectional comedy, relatable characters and ridiculous worlds.
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SERVED
Written By: Sebastian Hunt
Synopsis: A mockumentary centered on Theodore “”Ted”” Russo, an eccentric Death Row chef who treats his macabre place of business like a five-star restaurant.
Genre(s): Comedy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Growing up in a small Connecticut town alongside two brothers, one goldfish and an armada of stuffed animals, Hunt began his filmmaking career at a young age with a slew of independent home movies shot with his father’s Flip camcorder (all of which, to his dismay, are widely available on YouTube). His present day moviemaking efforts are slightly more sophisticated, frequently focusing on darkly comedic and/or absurdist plots and believably unbelievable characters.
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THE SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHER
Written By: Joey Scoma
Synopsis: Against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a Boston engraver had no reason to believe in life after death until he unwittingly manifested a spirit onto a photograph. Now with a grieving nation of spiritualists turning to him for comfort, he must also face the scrutiny of the skeptics determined to prove he’s a fraud.
Genre(s): Horror
Category: Long Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Joey Scoma is an Emmy nominated editor. He’s also a member of the comedy collective 5secondfilms and co-wrote/ co-directed their feature film, a satirical 80s slasher movie… DUDE BRO PARTY MASSACRE III. Joey continues to write genre films with passion and vomit!
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THE TRAIL
Written By: Kari Mote
Synopsis: After pissing off a fallen angel who runs a karmic porta-potty business, a ruthless tech CEO is demoted to the knockoff version of his life, where he discovers that redemption is his ticket home.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy
Category: Short Pilot
Screenwriter’s Bio: Kari is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a wartime veteran. Her work channels her complex heritage into deeply character-driven stories that explore themes of identity, trauma, and abuse, often centered around resilient, complex female characters. Kari holds over 125 awards and accolades across all major screenwriting competitions. She was named as an International Screenwriters Association’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2025, while earning a coveted spot in the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s 2025 Scriptwriters Program. Kari is managed by Wonder Street.
