Meet More of Our 2025 Winners

“Michael A Elliott was born to entertain.

First as a professional musician, powering backlines with some of the most popular bands in the Maryland/Washington DC markets which lead to working as a much sought after studio musician.

Later he became a popular stand-up comic, working clubs and colleges in the East, South and Midwest, highlighted by opening for stars like Dave Chappelle, Drew Carey and SNL’s Darrell Hammonds.

In 2019, on his 70th birthday, Mike turned to screenwriting. In six years, he’s built an impressive portfolio of professional level screenplays in the genres of Action, Drama and Crime/Mystery. His personal goal is to be the oldest Oscar winner of “Best Original Screenplay”.”

His winning script – WHEN WILL I SEE YOU AGAIN? is “a meditation on how love survives fracture, betrayal and time.”  It’s a sweeping, time slicing romantic drama with bite, toggling between 1967 to today. Intensely romantic and highly personal, it captures the freewheeling world of the 1960s college scene with its revolutionary music but with the reality of Vietnam lurking in the background. Traveling across the decades, before finally landing in the present day.

Teleah Moore is a successful playwright, author, and screenwriter from Harrisburg, PA. Her award-winning documentary, The Son We Lost, marked the beginning of her journey into film, and she has several other projects currently in development.

Teleah won 3rd place in the WriteMovies Spring 2025 Screenwriting Contest, was a semi-finalist in Your Script Produced (4th Edition), and received an honorable mention in the Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Competition (2023).

While holiday films typically focus on romance, her script A CHRISTMAS FAVOR offers a unique blend of workplace drama, comedy, and family dynamics, making it stand out from the traditional Christmas rom-com formula.

The mix of humor, romance, and professional ambition makes it a strong fit for viewers who enjoy smart, female-led comedies that are both entertaining and family-driven.

At its core, the story champions the value of authenticity and self-acceptance – messages that feel urgent in an era where personal and professional identities are often curated for public consumption.

Hailing from the wilds of North Carolina, Don Stroud left a lucrative career as a software developer to pursue the creative dreams he had when he was younger. Cartooning, writing, and a tiny little bit of acting led him to realize that he had a yen for telling stories.

Moving to Los Angeles, he wedged his toe in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming an editor. (Award winning editor, actually.) That exercised his creative muscles enough to provide the foundation for crafting his own stories. For the last several years he’s been plying the screenwriting trade, winning multiple awards for his horror, science fiction, and action tales.

Don’s goal is to work with a group of talented, enthusiastic, and dedicated individuals to bring his tales to life on the silver (or OLED) screen.

About CONSUMED – In this heart-stopping post-apocalyptic story, a cataclysmic earthquake traps a grieving married couple in the basement of a collapsed building. But as the weary wife fights for their lives against a horde of parasitic monsters, she is unaware that her God-fearing husband has already decided her fate…