Posted by The August 2026 Screenplay Competition is led by Where You Are, written by Yanghuixiao Gao, winner of Best Short Script. Set during an ordinary evening in Los Angeles, the screenplay transforms the experience of a Chinese immigrant caught between romantic possibility and family responsibility into a subtle, visually assured reflection on distance, belonging, and emotional obligation. Its confident use of behavior, setting, and recurring imagery distinguishes it as a mature and deeply cinematic work.
The wider selection reveals a strong range of voices and genres. I Missed You received the Outstanding Achievement Award for its original fusion of relationship drama and visceral body horror, while Graduation earned an Honorable Mention for its affecting portrait of childhood grief and migrant domestic work in Hong Kong. Nominees I Love You, Tammy Cunningham and Best Kept Secret complete this month’s recognized works with emotionally accessible stories about family repair, concealed identity, memory, and the lasting consequences of love left unspoken.
Where You Are by Yanghuixiao Gao (USA)
Best Short Script
Where You Are follows Chin, a Chinese immigrant navigating an ordinary evening in Los Angeles while growing increasingly concerned that her mother in China is not answering her calls. During a promising first date with Matthew, moments of pleasure and romantic possibility coexist with financial self-consciousness, cultural accommodation and the persistent pull of the family she left behind. Back in her apartment, a video of her mother caring for Chin’s aging grandmother brings those competing lives into intimate proximity. Chin ultimately sends her mother a photograph and a Mid-Autumn greeting before responding positively to Matthew, choosing neither world over the other but attempting to remain emotionally present in both.
The screenplay is built from small observations rather than conventional plot escalation, yet its details accumulate with considerable precision. Los Angeles traffic establishes physical and emotional suspension; the elderly Asian woman on the street externalizes Chin’s anxiety about her grandmother; and the full Mid-Autumn moon connects two places that remain geographically separated. The progression from unanswered calls to the restaurant, kiss, family video and final messages forms a quiet but coherent emotional arc. Chin’s decision to ask whether her mother has eaten mirrors the caregiving language in the video, creating an understated expression of love across generations.
Chin is characterized almost entirely through behavior: choosing the less expensive pasta, saving the wine sample, automatically allowing Matthew to walk ahead, concealing her concern from her uncle and consciously adjusting herself during the kiss. These details reveal economic insecurity, cultural habit and her tendency to perform ease for others without reducing her to a single conflict. Matthew is not constructed as a villain; his confidence and comfort simply illuminate how carefully Chin negotiates the same environment. The dialogue is natural and intentionally mundane, allowing gestures and silences to carry meaning. However, the source of Chin’s alarm remains so withheld that some viewers may struggle to understand whether she fears an immediate emergency, resents her mother’s absence or is experiencing more generalized guilt.
The screenplay demonstrates strong cinematic discipline. Screens, traffic, food, reflected gazes, ambient sound and the recurring moon communicate emotional distance without explanatory voice-over. The grandmother video is especially effective because affection, decline and caregiving exhaustion coexist within one domestic moment. The roadside woman is somewhat overt as a symbolic reminder, and the script could sharpen the connection between Chin’s financial caution, romantic hesitation and family anxiety without compromising its restraint. Minor grammatical errors also need correction, but they do not substantially diminish the work. This is a mature, culturally specific and emotionally layered screenplay.
Strengths: Confident visual storytelling; culturally specific immigrant perspective; psychologically precise behavioral details; natural dialogue; effective use of the Mid-Autumn setting; nuanced treatment of belonging, obligation and independence; strong cinematic atmosphere.
Weaknesses: Central family situation may be too ambiguous for some viewers; minimal external conflict; the roadside elderly woman functions as slightly obvious symbolism; Matthew remains intentionally but somewhat thinly characterized; several minor grammatical errors require revision.
Comparable to: Past Lives meets The Farewell, with the urban observation of Columbus.
I Missed You by Michaelle Lee (USA)
Outstanding Achievement Award
After another painful confrontation with her emotionally withdrawn partner Damian, Iris is left alone in their Phoenix apartment. Damian seemingly returns from work, apologizes with unusual emotional clarity, and finally gives Iris the affection she has been craving. This man, however, is a predatory imitator who learns Damian’s identity through Iris’s memories, physically perfecting its disguise as she reveals intimate details about their relationship and the baby they lost. When the real Damian returns, the creature absorbs and replaces him, leaving Iris unknowingly beside something that understands her needs better than her actual partner ever did.
The screenplay’s strongest achievement is the fusion of relationship drama and body horror. The impostor does not merely copy Damian’s appearance; it acquires definition through the emotional information Damian refused to receive. Fading tattoos, distorted shadows, shifting bones, disappearing photographs, and Damian’s body becoming an unfinished sketch translate emotional erasure into memorable cinematic imagery. The creature is frightening precisely because its tenderness initially feels like wish fulfilment.
The opening confrontation establishes the relationship effectively but occupies too much of a 30-page screenplay, while several later exchanges repeat Iris’s need to be seen and Damian’s refusal to communicate. Some dialogue feels designed to explain the metaphor, and proofreading issues—including “effect” for “affect” and “you’re birthday”—reduce the polish. The final police sequence generates an ominous last image, but the identity of the discovered body is overly unclear; the earlier image of Iris sleeping beside the completed replacement may provide a stronger and more unsettling ending unless the later death is made narratively explicit.
Regardless, I Missed You is one of the strongest scripts of this edition, particularly in originality, visual conception, tonal escalation, and production potential. Its central metaphor is intelligent without preventing the story from functioning as visceral horror, while the roles offer substantial performance opportunities. Tightening the first act, clarifying the creature’s rules and its final action, and trimming approximately five to seven pages could make an already distinctive and accomplished screenplay even more focused, impactful, and production-ready.
Strengths: Original emotional-horror concept; excellent body-horror imagery; controlled escalation; strong metaphorical unity; disturbing wish-fulfilment dynamic; compelling roles for Iris, Damian, and the impostor.
Weaknesses: Overextended opening; occasional repetition and explanatory dialogue; several proofreading errors; demanding transformation effects; the police epilogue introduces avoidable narrative ambiguity.
Comparable to: The Invisible Man meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with the intimate psychological and corporeal horror of Possession.
Graduation by Nayon Lee (Hong Kong)
Honorable Mention
Graduation follows Kai, a twelve-year-old boy in Hong Kong who awakens to discover that Marie, the Filipino domestic worker who helped raise him, has died beside him. While his parents respond by arranging the return of her body, clearing away her possessions and concentrating on Kai’s approaching primary-school graduation, Kai struggles to understand how someone so important to him can be removed from their lives so quickly. Through memories of their time together, he returns to an unfinished school project—a model of his future home that includes a room and garden for Marie—and transforms it into a traditional paper offering through which he can privately mourn her. The story becomes both an intimate portrait of childhood grief and a quiet examination of the emotional bonds and social inequalities surrounding migrant domestic work.
The structure effectively alternates between the aftermath of Marie’s death and memories that gradually reveal the depth of her relationship with Kai. The unfinished model of his future home becomes the screenplay’s strongest device: including a room and garden for Marie expresses more than dialogue could, and transforming that model into a traditional paper offering provides the story with a poignant visual resolution. The graduation robe, burning ritual and arrival of Marie’s replacement extend the title beyond the school ceremony into Kai’s painful transition toward a more adult awareness of loss and inequality.
Kai is convincingly written, and his mixture of confusion, determination and suppressed anger remains appropriate for a twelve-year-old. Marie is warm and specific enough to avoid becoming merely an idealized caregiver, although further glimpses of her private life would make her death still more affecting. By contrast, Kai’s parents are drawn too narrowly as distracted and insensitive. Their concern with legal consequences, professional obligations and the graduation party establishes the social divide, but their lack of emotional complexity makes their behavior feel designed primarily to provoke the audience. Some dialogue is similarly over-explanatory, particularly during the police scene and the conversations surrounding the paper-burning tradition.
The screenplay is highly filmable and offers several expressive images: the melting ice lolly, the unfinished paper room, the stolen lighter, the graduation robe and the fire reflected across Kai’s face. The final introduction of Rachel is quietly disturbing, suggesting a system in which one migrant worker can be replaced before a household has acknowledged her humanity. However, her arrival apparently only a day after Marie’s death strains credibility, and the conclusion may benefit from a slightly less compressed timeline. Several language and formatting issues also require correction, including “Phillippines,” “drawings where,” “annoyedly,” and the repeated use of “CANTO” rather than “Cantonese.” Overall, this is a strong and emotionally intelligent script with genuine potential, although its supporting characters and dialogue need greater nuance.
Strengths: Emotionally resonant central relationship; culturally specific storytelling; excellent use of the paper house as a recurring visual motif; strong child protagonist; restrained and meaningful final image; clear cinematic potential.
Weaknesses: Parents lack dimension; several passages of expository or unnatural dialogue; Marie’s personal circumstances remain underdeveloped; the replacement worker arrives implausibly quickly; minor spelling, grammar and screenplay-formatting errors.
Comparable to: Ilo meets The Farewell, with the caregiving intimacy and class awareness of A Simple Life.
I Love You, Tammy Cunningham by Gregory Paul (USA)
Nominee
In 1983, neglected nine-year-old Owen Fisher builds a homemade go-kart to impress Tammy Cunningham and challenge the wealthier neighborhood bully competing for her attention. His elaborate fantasy of romantic and racing triumph collapses when the unsafe kart crashes, leaving him with a compound fracture. The accident finally awakens his grief-stricken father Glen, who has emotionally abandoned Owen and his sisters since their mother left. As the family begins rebuilding the kart together, Owen also discovers that Tammy’s approval matters less than the love and self-respect he already possesses.
The screenplay’s considerable strength lies in transforming a child’s comic romantic obsession into a story about familial neglect and recovery. Owen’s wildly exaggerated construction-and-racing fantasy is funny, visual, and sharply contrasted with the pathetic reality of the finished kart. Brandy’s guilt after wishing that Owen would crash, Glen’s tentative return to fatherhood, Fern’s attachment to Mrs. Meyer, and the repaired kart all contribute to a warm ensemble arc. The final father-son conversation lands because Owen no longer needs to win the race or Tammy.
At 40 pages, the screenplay is considerably longer than its central story requires, and several domestic sequences reiterate progress that has already been established. The 1983 setting adds charm but is not yet essential enough to justify its period-production demands. Glen’s confrontation with Rocky is also troubling: an adult shoves and intimidates a child while the scene treats the behavior as protective heroism. The graphic compound fracture briefly pushes the tone beyond the otherwise family-oriented comedy, while the screenplay’s heavy reliance on ellipses and fragmented dialogue could be refined.
This is a funny, emotionally complete, and highly accessible screenplay with strong roles for young performers and a satisfying shift from romantic fantasy to family repair. Its character work fully justifies its place among this season’s nominees, although its length, tonal inconsistencies, and the handling of Glen’s confrontation keep it from reaching the competition’s strongest tier. A disciplined reduction to approximately 25–30 pages could make the screenplay more focused and dramatically consistent.
Strengths: Endearing protagonist; funny fantasy montage; convincing sibling dynamics; strong emotional reversal for Glen; memorable supporting character in Mrs. Meyer; satisfying thematic payoff; achievable central locations.
Weaknesses: Excessive length; repetitive recovery sequences; period setting insufficiently integrated; problematic adult intimidation of a child; abrupt tonal shift around the injury; overuse of ellipses and sentence fragments.
Comparable to: The Sandlot meets Little Miss Sunshine, with the wounded-family warmth and coming-of-age perspective of The Way, Way Back.
Best Kept Secret by Kelly Goldstein (USA)
Nominee
After learning that Phillip Bassett has died, 36-year-old Sam travels back toward the first relationship he never acknowledged. While his wife Wendy presses him to recommit to their marriage and consider having a child, flashbacks reveal Sam’s teenage romance with Phillip: swimming lessons become intimacy, intimacy becomes love, and fear forces the boys apart. At Phillip’s funeral, Sam receives a letter confirming that his feelings were reciprocated, returning home with emotional closure, but without fully confronting the secret at the center of his marriage.
The screenplay has a sincere emotional foundation and several effective recurring images. Sam’s birthmark, the hidden blue box, Phillip’s bow tie, and the swimming motif give the romance tangible visual identity. The movement between past and present is generally clear, and the gradual revelation of Phillip’s importance creates genuine anticipation. Phillip’s inability to say “I love you” until the posthumous letter provides the story’s strongest emotional payoff.
However, the 34-page structure is longer than the narrative requires, with several flashbacks repeating the same cycle of attraction, concealment, and disagreement. Much of the dialogue directly explains feelings already communicated by the situation, particularly during the breakup and in Phillip’s final letter. Wendy raises the screenplay’s most challenging questions—whether Sam ever truly loved her, whether he has used their marriage as protection, and what she has sacrificed—but the ending gives her too little agency or resolution. Sam’s small smile upon returning home risks suggesting closure without requiring him to offer Wendy the honesty the story has established she deserves.
This is a heartfelt and accessible LGBTQ+ drama with achievable production demands and a potentially moving central performance. Its visual motifs and emotional clarity make it competitive, but the extended length, familiar closeted-love trajectory, and incomplete present-day reckoning currently hold it below the strongest award tier. A tighter version that treats Wendy as an equal dramatic participant and forces Sam to make a consequential final choice could substantially increase its impact.
Strengths: Emotionally sincere premise; sympathetic central relationship; clear temporal structure; effective blue-box, birthmark, bow-tie, and swimming motifs; producible locations; strong acting opportunities.
Weaknesses: Overextended for its story; repetitive flashbacks; frequently explanatory dialogue; posthumous letter states too much; Wendy is underdeveloped; the ending offers internal closure without sufficient external consequence.
Comparable to: Brokeback Mountain meets The Notebook, with the concealed domestic identity and emotional repression of Far from Heaven.
Indie Short Fest 2018-2026 © All Rights Reserved