Santa Barbara International Names Contest Winners
The Linguist by Maggie Tsavaris has been named the Best Screenplay Winner of The Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards. The Best TV and Best Short Script winners have also been announced.
Winner: Best Screenplay
Maggie Tsavaris
"The Linguist"
A richly layered blends of a political thriller with the emotional resonance of an intimate character study, inspired by real-world geopolitics with a complex and deeply human protagonist.
Winner: Best TV Script
Erin Donovan
"Todos Santos"
A single mom who just wants to send her kid to a good college becomes a wanted criminal hiding out in a picturesque Mexican town. The question remains: Who do you have to fuck over to get your kid into Juilliard?
Winner: Best Short Script
Melissa Brides
"Room B"
In the aftermath of a school shooting a group of parents wait for news of their children's fate. As they come together they are unaware that one of them is the shooter's mother. Out of the tragedy come moments of love, support and in the end, compassion.
Updated: 05/09/2025
Additional Contest Info: The Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!Palo Alto Bang & Burn
When idealistic professor Will Reynolds joins a clandestine government program researching remote viewing, his faith in science and reality unravels as he discovers truths that feel ripped from science fiction.
Bubbling Under the Surface
An international conspiracy emerges to assassinate the remaining Holocaust survivors, driven by a sinister attempt to erase history and claim the Holocaust was nothing more than a Zionist fabrication.
Apparently So
After being dumped by text, a woman in her fifties leans on her fiercely loyal (and hilariously unfiltered) friends to rebuild her life—transforming heartbreak into triumph with the release of her brutally honest debut book.
The Imbalance 2 (sequel)
Two women. One comeback .Confidence isn't lost, it's just misplaced.
The Imbalance
Two best friends in their fifties leap back into acting — and dating — only to find an industry obsessed with youth, a culture addicted to reinvention, and a brutal truth: starting over is harder when you actually know who you are.
Waiting for the Apocalyse
When a respected judge’s lover is kidnapped, he’s forced into a race against time that dismantles his faith in justice — and exposes how far a man will go when the system that empowered him turns against him.
Yrrem Samtsirhc from Mars
A gentle, highly intelligent alien crash-lands in a small town just before Christmas and forms an unlikely friendship with a girl with Down syndrome.
Twenty Last Summers
When a longtime group of friends in their fifties and sixties jokingly ask themselves, “What if we only had twenty summers left?”, the question unexpectedly detonates their comfortable routines, sending each of them into a spiral of hilarious missteps, overdue confrontations, and clumsy attempts at self-reinvention.
Eternal Blessings
Haunted by the ghosts of a notorious religious sect, a dying woman travels back in time to see if she can break their curse and prevent them from crashing her afterlife.
December 8th
After the attack on Pearl Harbor fractures their California farming community, two inseparable friends are torn apart by history: Lorne, a vengeful Marine, endures the psychological and physical torment of the Pacific island campaigns, while Lonnie, a Japanese-American fighting for dignity, navigates the injustice of an internment camp to the bloody trenches of Europe with the segregated 442nd—both struggling to preserve their humanity and fulfill a sacred pact to return home for the harvest.
