Screenwriting
Alessandra's screenplays often tackle diverse issues of social import --from Deaf identity to foster care to school violence to Northern Irish politics--and have garnered numerous awards.
RACING THE WOLF GOD
(Feature Screenplay)
Synopsis: After ten years in prison, Kim, a 26-year-old Yup’ik woman and former champion musher, returns to her hometown of Bethel, Alaska. But freedom isn’t what she expected it to be. She struggles to reconnect with her younger sister Helen and adhere to the terms of her parole. So when she gets a job at a sled dog racing kennel run by the enigmatic and no-nonsense Ms. Tillie, she sees the potential in an abused dog and vows to race the Kuskokwim 300 again. Thrust back into a world that she thought she left behind, she must confront her past, try to deal with the trauma of her incarceration, and find a way to reclaim her identity.
Awards:
Winner, Best Screenplay, Anchorage International Film Festival 2021
Winner, Best Feature Screenplay. The Good Dog! International Film Festival 2022 (Sydney, Australia)
Semi-Finalist, Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting 2022 (140 out of 5,526 entries)
Winner, 2023 Tangerine Fellowship, Stowe Story Labs
Second Round consideration, 2023 Sundance Development Track
EIGHT DAYS IN '88
Based on a true story
(Feature Screenplay)
Logline: A young deaf woman raised without sign language finds herself caught between the hearing family she left behind and the culturally Deaf family she finds at college in this drama about identity, empowerment, and belonging set against the backdrop of the 1988 Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University, the world's only liberal arts university for the deaf and hard of hearing. Based on a true story.
Awards:
Top 15% (out of 6,915 entries), 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting
SAVING SHENANDOAH
(Feature Screenplay)
Logline: Seventeen-year-old Laurie has grown up in New Hampshire’s foster care system. She has never known a loving home, until she comes into the care of foster parent Beatrice and her young daughter Shenandoah. When Beatrice dies suddenly and it becomes clear that Shenandoah will go into the foster care system herself, Laurie takes drastic measures and goes on the run with Shenandoah to prevent the young girl from meeting the same fate as Laurie, who has become hardened from years in a broken system. But as Laurie struggles to get Shenandoah to safety—coming face to face with the demons of her past along the way—she begins to realize that saving the young girl, whom she has come to see as a sister, may come at a higher cost than she ever expected.
Awards:
Semi-Finalist, Seattle International Film Festival Catalyst Screenplay Competition (will have a live reading April 19, 2017)
Silver Award/2nd Place (Drama), Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest 2015
Top 3, New Hampshire Film Festival 2015
Quarterfinalist, Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition
Quarter-Finalist, ScreenCraft Bahamas Screenwriters Residency Program 2015
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
(Feature Screenplay)
Logline: After twelve years of estrangement, a young Deaf woman with a wild streak and her philosophy professor sister are forced to move in with each other following the sudden death of their brother, but cultural differences and their turbulent history make this a transition fraught with tension.
Awards:
Top 10, Marfa Film Festival 2015
Winner, Diversity and Inclusion Spotlight Award, Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition
Quarter-Finalist (top 20% of over 1,000 entries), Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition
Quarter-Finalist, Cynosure Screenwriting Awards. (“The Cynosure Screenwriting Awards seek to expand the scope of mainstream cinema by recognizing and rewarding feature-length scripts in two distinct categories: screenplays which feature compelling female protagonists; and screenplays that showcase diversity [ethnicity, race, sexuality, disability, etc.].”)
IMPEDIMENT
(Short Screenplay)
Logline: An eighteen-year-old homeless girl living in a community of squatters on the edge of society must make a decision about her future. This is made more complicated by her friendship with a younger girl, an idealistic stutterer who could also prove to be an impediment to the older girl’s desire for autonomy.
Awards:
Third Place Winner, Women in Film and Video New England Screenwriting Contest 2021
Received a live table reading on July 26, 2021
WHAT SOPHIE SAW
(Short Screenplay)
Logline: In rural Vermont, a twelve-year-old girl must wrestle with the idea that her older brother may be planning an act of violence against the community.
Awards:
Runner-Up, The Stephen Dixon / Outside the Box Motion Pictures Award for Excellence in Screenwriting
Optioned by Outside the Box Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, CA
Recipient of the Provost's Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) to produce the film
TRUSTING YOU
(Short Screenplay)
Logline: A young American takes a volunteer position at a peace and reconciliation retreat center in Northern Ireland in the hopes that it will help her forget the trauma of an abusive relationship that ended with an act of violence.
YEAR-ROUNDERS
(Feature Screenplay In Progress)
Synopsis: An examination of economic inequality and mental illness set in Provincetown, Massachusetts, an art colony and haven for the LGBT community where the population swells from 3,000 in the off-season to 60,000 during the summer. Based on my experiences growing up in “the other Provincetown” in the 1990s. Will employ a Polyphonic Plot as delineated in Charles Ramirez Berg’s “A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying ‘the Tarantino Effect.’” (See Ramirez Berg, Charles. “A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying ‘the Tarantino Effect.’” Film Criticism, vol. 31, no. 1, Sept. 2006, pp. 5–61.)
IN PROGRESS.
