FALL 2010 WINNER
Eric Escobar, East County
A deputy sheriff who is drowning in debt moonlights for his brother’s eviction agency. His calloused and bitter outlook is shaken when he discovers three children who have been abandoned by their parents in a foreclosed home. Though his search for the missing parents ends tragically, his determination to rebuild a stable life for his own family is renewed.

Eric Escobar has been making movies since he was 15 years old. His short film One Weekend a Month screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it was selected by the jury for an honorable mention, and at the AFI Film Festival, Aspen Shortsfest and the Mill Valley Film Festival among others. His previous shorts, A Sus Ordenes (At Your Service), Apples & Oranges and Night Light, have played at festivals across the country including the San Francisco International Film Festival, Chicago Latino Film Festival, Gen/Art Ignite NY/LA, Cine Latino San Francisco and Palm Springs Shortfest. His feature length screenplay, An Army of One, participated in the FIND 2007 Director’s Lab and was selected as a finalist for the 2006 Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. Escobar was born and raised in Northern California and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. He lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco as a commercial director. For more information visit kontentfilms.com

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FALL 2009 WINNER
Mora Stephens, Made in the USA

Following the funeral of his high-school girlfriend, a young American man sets out on an odyssey to Shanghai, Shenzhen and finally Saipan to find and rescue his daughter.

Mora Stephens cowrote and directed the feature film Conventioneers, which won the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature (Made for Under $500,000) as well as the Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Florida Film Festival. The film premiered at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, had its international premiere in Korea at the Pusan International Film Festival and was released by Cinema Libre Studio in 2007. An alumna of NYU’s graduate film program and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Stephens has written numerous short films and plays including Breaking Bread, which aired on Showtime in September 2002 as part of Reflections from Ground Zero. She cowrote the independent feature Devil’s Pond, directed by Joel Viertel and starring Kip Pardue and Tara Reid, released by Artisan in 2003. She has been the recipient of a number of prestigious screenwriting awards and filmmaker labs including the Tribeca Film Institute’s Tribeca All Access program, Film Independent’s Directors Lab, the Los Angeles Film Festival/Filmmaker Magazine’s Fast Track program, the Asian Cinevision Screenplay Contest and the Korean Film Council Filmmakers’ Development Lab. At the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival, Stephens was awarded the PPP/Overseas Koreans Foundation Filmmaker Fund prize for her screenplay The 38th Parallel. She currently is developing her screenplay Homeland with producer Heather Rae (Frozen River). Stephens is a cofounder of Hyphenate Films. For more information: hyphenatefilms.com

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