Success Stories: MAY'24 Just won a competition: making strides for Women in Horror

Melody Cooper

Just won a competition: making strides for Women in Horror

Happy to announce that I am the Winner of the Women in Cinema International Screenplay Competition! What makes this win special for me is that the call was for scripts of ANY genre, and I won with my horror thriller MONSTROUS. (The same script placed Third in Slamdance in 2014 before a rewrite). My genres are sci fi and horror. I'm directing my first film this summer, a supernatural thriller called THE SOUND OF DARKNESS from my own script. And I'll announce soon some other amazing news that's not public yet. I loved Karyn Kusama's THE INVITATION and I'm so excited about all us women writers and directors out there working in a genre that we don't usually get a chance to!

Dawn Murrell

Wooooo! You go Melody!!!! You are ready to take on the world!

Philip Sedgwick

Nicely done. Congrats!

Dr. Pejjai Nagaraju

Congratulation

Shannon Evans

That's great, Melody! I am a horror film fan, and I hope we can work together on future projects!

Melody Cooper

Thanks, all! OK, what's your favorite Horror film so far this year? For me, it's gotta be THE INVITATION.

Vince Conside

Congrats

Dawn Murrell

@Melody, Some people didn't like it but I liked ANNABELLE. I am also excited for The Conjuring 2!

Anthony Moore

Congratulations scary lady!

Nelle Nelle

Congrats Melody! Great to hear all of your success. I'm all about women in horror!

Irina Sarnetskaya

Congrats!

Jalan Barber

congratulations!! much success to you!!

Rene Jade

Congrats!

Theresa Drew

That's amazing. Congrats.

Bruce Bray

That's awesome! I look forward to hearing more about your film you're making this summer.

Steven Morris

Congrats!

Jorge J Prieto

Congrats, girlfriend. You make us all proud. Men included.

David E. Gates

Is there a Men in Cinema International Screenplay Competition? ;-) Congratulations by the way.

Melody Cooper

Thanks, David. Unfortunately "Men in Cinema..." is out there if you look at just about ANY general screenplay competition (especially if it's a non-RomCom genre category). Though I did win Woodshole for Sci Fi and Horror and placed as a Finalist in Sci Fi and Horror International Screenplay Competition, Creative World, Screamfest and British Horror Film Festival. But I've usually been the only woman. We do write in the genre, so I think it's a perception hurdle. But things are changing.

David E. Gates

The thing about "ANY general screenplay competition" is that they're not discriminatory from the start. Whilst I applaud that more women are becoming screenwriters, I'm starting to tire of there being a separate competition which I'm excluded from because of my sex/race/religion/sexuality/age/etc. We don't have a MOWO awards. We don't have a Heterosexual Pride march. Maybe we should? But I reckon if I started up a "men-only" or "heterosexual" or "whites-only" competition, there'd likely be an uproar. What should be recognised is talent, irrespective of any gender/predilection or background. I'm playing devil's advocate of course, but it is something that is becoming increasingly frequent. Seems that not a day goes by now without some kind of minority-only event. Anyway, I don't want to distract from your success. That is awesome!

James L. Lytle III

Congrats Melody! I'm James. I would like you to join my network, I've created a nine part saga called "Warriors of MA" its a sci-fi / fantasy, take a look at my logline and synopsis and give me some feed back on them. Rate it as well please, I won't to build a correlation to do more black TV and Film projects, its a good time for it.

Omar Brown

Congrats!

Jose Eduardo Penedo

Congratulations!!

Dan MaxXx

This is a 5-year old post. Melody is directing network television now. She recently directed, "Law N Order SVU" episode.

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