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Splendid Isolation

A girl lost in the Alaskan wilderness meets her banished pet tiger — now fully grown. Together they survive many challenges — except, perhaps, one another.

Synopsis

A father is desperate to save his bruised baby daughter, Belle, from an abusive, possibly life-threatening environment where drugs and alcohol are consumed in excess by his ex-wife and her new partner.

The father takes Belle away from Australia and eventually arrives in an un-mapped Alaskan town called Forbesberry. The people there welcome them and assist the father in caring for his daughter.

One day Belle is given a tiger cub as a pet by her father who found it apparently motherless. She calls it “Stripy”.

However, a problem arises when the growing cub clashes with sled-dogs, killing one. The father is forced by the town council to take Stripy to a faraway wilderness and there release it to fend for itself.

A year-and-half on, on Belle's 10th birthday, a meteorite strikes, its shock-wave knocking Belle off a short cliff. She regains consciousness but suffers amnesia. Inadvertently, she wonders into the wilds where on separate occasions a grizzly bear and a pack of wolves threaten her life, but on both occasions she is saved by a fully-grown tiger.

However, Belle fears the tiger and believes it is holding her captive as future-food. There is tension and several attempts by her to escape.

Eventually Belle recovers from amnesia and recognises the tiger is Stripy. There is rejoicing. But she also remembers she has a father, who may have been injured – or worse – by the meteor impact.

Stripy doesn't wish to go back with Belle. Instead, it urges her to go in the opposite direction where they can live together in pristine wilderness, with plenty of prey for Stripy. They part company as both are determined to go their own way.

A problem arises when a smaller but savage tiger appears. Stripy no longer has a choice but to follow Belle to protect her. Eventually Belle kills the semi-wild tiger, only to realise it's Stripy's mother.

Belle attempts to find prey for her tiger, but fails. She realises the situation is dire when Stripy, starving, attacks her, but backs off.

Stripy defends Belle from another grizzly-bear attack but this time, weakened by malnutrition, suffers a mortal wound.

The final moment for Stripy comes atop a plateau. Try as she may, Belle cannot save the tiger.

The pack of wolves catches up to an emotionally riddled Belle, who has made a death pact with her tiger. Just in time, the father arrives and scares off the wolves.

Belle's trauma at the loss of Stripy doesn't lessen with time and the father is at a loss as to what to do. When he proposes to take her back to Sydney to meet with her now-reformed mother, Belle refuses, fearing her father's arrest for kidnapping.

Instead, Belle agrees to go to Texas, where her father works as a farm labourer. There seems joy in the air, but for both there is something amiss.

They return to Forbesberry where a fantastical happy ending awaits: a semi-transparent Stripy and a joyous Belle come together.

Script Excerpt

Written by:

Con Kringas

Contact Author

Format:

Screenplay

Genres:

Action-Adventure Family

Budget:

Low

Starring Roles For:

Actress aged 8-11
Actor aged c.35
Trained or animated tiger

In the Vein Of:

The Grey (2011)
Call of the Wild (novel)
White Fang (novel)

Posted:

04/14/2019

Updated:

01/05/2026

Author Bio:

(Last updated: 6 January 2026).

LATEST NEWS

What a way to welcome the new year, 2026, with a new screenplay first completed 3 January 2026. It is called Charlie Chan Island Mystery.

The lead character, Charlie Chan, is a throwback to the Honolulu detective made famous mainly in films of the 1930s and early 1940s. He is the product of novelist Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933).

Over the next 12 years I intend to follow up by writing to the following titles:

Charlie Chan Cruise Mystery;

Charlie Chan Mansion Mystery;

Charlie Chan Train Mystery;

Charlie Chan Carnival Mystery;

Charlie Chan Caribbean Mystery;

Charlie Chan Honolulu Mystery.

These will be interspersed with other titles. For example, having a few days ago (3 January 2026) finished Charlie Chan Island Mystery, my next project is to complete Howlingween 6: Wrong Turn, which I began months ago, and restarted writing a few weeks ago in tandem with Charlie Chan Island Mystery.

I have this belief that 2026 and beyond are going to be exciting years for outsider screenwriters.

MY STORY AS A SCREENWRITER

I became a hobbyist screenwriter in 2007 when I purchased version 7 of Final Draft. I’ve since completed 14 screenplays and one pilot for TV or for a streaming service.

I have completed 15 scripts (14 screenplays and one pilot for a series).

My 15 scripts (in alphabetical order) are:

Charlie Chan Island Mystery ("Welcome back, Charlie Chan") FIRST COMPLETED 3 JANUARY 2026;

Counterchance (“Sometimes bad things happen”) REVISED 31 DECEMBER 2024;

Glorious Revolution (“Unintended consequences writ-large”) REVISED 10 JANUARY 2025;

Howlingween (“A road trip to hell”) REVISED 24 DECEMBER 2024;

Howlingween 2: Clarry the Clown (“Island paradise of horror”) REVISED 25 DECEMBER 2024;

Howlingween 3: Red River County (“Unforgiving beggar”) REVISED 27 DECEMBER 2024;

Howlingween 4: Beastly Mist (“sprays won’t work on these insects”) REWRITTEN 28 DECEMBER 2024;

Howlingween 5: Trip Along (“A child’s dream is another’s real-life nightmare”) MILDLY REVISED 6 JANUARY 2026;

Kuga’s Way (pilot) (“An intelligent canine searches for its mentor”) REVISED 13 JANUARY 2025;

Not Over Yet (“Sometimes the past does catch up to you”) FIRST COMPLETED 23 JANUARY 2025 REVISED TWICE 14 FEBRUARY 2025;

On Board (“A traditional who-done-it mystery”) THOROUGHLY REVISED 7 JANUARY 2025;

Once Young (“Love-struck teenagers”) REVISED 9 JANUARY 2025;

Splendid Isolation ("Life and death in remote Alaska”) REVISED 2 JANUARY 2025;

Twelve Less (“Teenagers in existential trouble”) REVISED 30 DECEMBER 2024;

We Were Young Once (“Weren’t we all?”) REVISED 4 JANUARY 2025.

Thank you for taking the time to read my brief biography as a screenwriter.

(PS I've revised the first few pages of Howlingween 5: Trip Along and was surprised to find three or four errors. I've corrected them and today, 6 January 2026, I'm uploading the revised PDF file. These mistakes are off-putting to would-be readers and what makes them worse is they occur in the first few pages before readers have time to gain confidence in the storytelling. What makes it even worse is that Howlingween 5: Trip Along has been the most revised of all my screenplays: from first page to last page, I've revised it more than a dozen times and to find these mistakes still existing has been embarrassing to me. I have done what I can to fix it and have uploaded the slightly revised screenplay to ISA -- what more can I do? I have decided to fully revise Howlingween 5: Trip Along before I continue writing Howlingween 6: Wrong Turn. For those who've attempted to read Howlingween 5: Trip Along, please accept my apologies for those several off-putting errors in the first five pages).

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