Each month, the IndieX Film Fest jury carefully evaluates a curated selection of short scripts submitted from around the world — works that stand out for their originality, structure, and cinematic potential. The assessments below reflect the festival’s commitment to recognizing strong storytelling at the script level, before production begins.
In appreciation, we highlight here the top five scripts of this monthly season, selected for their creativity, narrative precision, and distinctive authorial voice.
In addition to overall rankings, the evaluations highlight each project’s key strengths, distinctive tone, and references to comparable films or screenwriters. This matrix serves as both recognition and guidance — celebrating the art of screenwriting while offering insights for continued creative growth.
Evaluation Disclaimer
These written evaluations reflect the individual and collective opinions of the IndieX Film Fest jury for the specific monthly competition in which the projects were entered. They are intended as constructive feedback. All decisions are final and based on artistic, technical, and narrative criteria as assessed by the festival’s independent panel.
Glove — Ryan Harewood (UK)
Outstanding Achievement Award
A moving coming-of-age story about a boy learning to take up space in a world that keeps trying to shrink him. Set between a South London council estate and an elite private school, the script captures the pressure of living between two identities — the comfort of home and the judgment of a place that was never meant for him. Noah, a gifted young poet, is humiliated for being different — symbolized in the glove taped to his locker like a warning. But what begins as shame slowly turns into courage. In the Arts Club performance scene, when Noah takes the word used to hurt him and turns it into power, it’s not a perfect victory — it’s the moment he decides not to disappear. What stands out is how honest and grounded the writing feels. The script doesn’t rely on speeches or grand gestures. It shows how small acts — a friend stepping forward, a teacher noticing, a mother believing — can change someone’s path. Glove speaks to class, race, and belonging with heart and clarity, reminding us how hard it can be to grow and how brave it is to refuse to stay small.
Strengths: Lyrical voice; powerful thematic resonance; grounded, dimensional characters; emotionally rich climax; strong sociocultural insight; nuanced balance of hope and brutality; producible in the festival landscape.
Weaknesses: A few antagonist beats might benefit from deeper shading; the ending is poignant but abrupt. A tiny coda of aftermath could reinforce the shift Noah has earned.
Comparable to: Boyz n the Hood, Blue Story, Rocks, Dead Poets Society.
Sunday — Rosanne Kang (Canada/USA)
Honorable Mention
A quietly chilling two-character thriller that begins as a tender conversation between strangers and slowly reveals something far darker. On a cold winter day by Lake Ontario, an aging widower named Blazhe shares his grief with John, a sympathetic jogger who simply wants to be kind. The silence, the cold, the small human gestures — everything feels gentle and real, which makes the shift into horror hit even harder. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Blazhe’s sorrow has twisted into something predatory. His belief that the world — or God — has wronged him becomes an excuse to inflict that pain on others. The violence is never sensationalized; what happens is heard more than seen, which only heightens the dread. What makes Sunday so unsettling is its truth: we are taught to help people who seem broken, to be compassionate. The script uses that instinct against us. The final haunting image — a photograph altered to replace Blazhe’s son with his latest victim — lands like a quiet punch. It’s a story about how grief can consume someone, and how danger can hide behind even the most ordinary kind of hurt.
Strengths: Elegant, restrained narrative design; atmospheric use of location and winter imagery; superb tension-building through natural dialogue; a compelling antagonist whose vulnerability masks violent obsession; twist ending with thematic sting; strong producibility.
Weaknesses: The escalation to violence is extremely abrupt — one more hint of menace could intensify the dread; John’s character remains functional rather than dimensional; the pattern-repetition ending, while effective, may leave some audience members craving one final emotional beat exploring Blazhe’s psychology.
Comparable to: The Vanishing, The Little Stranger, Misery.
The Last Stop — Sophia Louisa Lee (USA)
Nominee
A desert-set supernatural thriller that feels like stepping into a heat-struck nightmare. Sheriff Harold arrives at a lonely convenience store expecting routine work — instead, the world around him starts to sweat, rot, and dissolve. The heat, the flies, the strange decay inside the store all push him toward a creeping realization: nothing here is what it seems. The script turns physical discomfort into real terror. Harold’s exhaustion blurs with fear, making every moment feel unstable. When the crying woman reveals her monstrous nature and time itself seems to warp, the story shifts from investigation to a fight against something ancient and predatory. The transformation at the end — a creature wearing Harold’s identity and calling his wife — lands with a sharp, personal dread. Even with its wild, creature-feature instincts, The Last Stop keeps the tension high and the atmosphere thick. The horror isn’t just about what Harold sees, it’s about the terrifying possibility that he’s losing control of both the world and himself. Fast, bold, and undeniably cinematic, it’s a ride meant to make audiences squirm all the way to its final, brutal beat.
Strengths: Strong visual and sensory horror; excellent escalation from realism into supernatural violence; memorable transformation sequence and villain concept; tight pacing; shocking, satisfying ending.
Weaknesses: Moments of gross-out horror can overpower thematic depth; limited emotional foundation for Harold beyond surface-level fear and fatigue; the supernatural lore remains underexplored.
Comparable to: The Hitcher (desert dread), From Dusk Till Dawn (genre pivot), Jeepers Creepers.
The Deceiving — Joe Rodriguez (USA)
Nominee
A gritty, street-level action thriller about Tamo, a former soldier drowning his trauma in alcohol and violence, who gets pulled into a brutal underground empire run by a billionaire puppet-master. Fights break out like reflexes: in gyms, bars, warehouses — each one presented as if survival depends on the next punch. What elevates the story is the arrival of The Crow (Valentina) — dangerous, unpredictable, and the only person who can match Tamo’s rage. Their relationship becomes the emotional engine of the film: two damaged fighters seeing a way out, or at least someone worth fighting beside. The world of the scrip is heightened and unforgiving, a place where suffering is entertainment and power decides who gets to walk away. The script moves fast, prioritizing physicality and spectacle, but always hinting at the deeper wounds driving its characters. The Deceiving lands as the beginning of a larger battle: Tamo isn’t healed, he isn’t free, but he’s finally facing the right enemy. It’s a brutal, high-impact chapter one, built for audiences who want adrenaline with their storytelling.
Strengths: High cinematic energy; clear, choreographed action sequences; strong pairing and chemistry between Tamo and Valentina; compelling underground-crime aesthetic; tight, commercial structure with escalation.
Weaknesses: Emotional stakes remain surface-level; villain lacks deeper psychology; dialogue often tells rather than reveals; action repetition risks fatigue without greater thematic variation.
Comparable to: John Wick, The Punisher, Extraction, Atomic Blonde — with hints of graphic-novel noir.
The Prenup — Monty McDannald (USA)
Nominee
A funny and relatable look at love later in life, when romance is still real, but so are the fears that come with finances, families, and everything that’s already been lived through. Ray and Emily are trying to build something together in their sixties, but the moment a legal conversation joins the table, feelings get complicated fast. Ray wants reassurance. Emily wants security. The script finds its best comedy in the very real discomfort of trying to protect your heart and your assets at the same time. The negotiation scene — part interrogation, part relationship test — stretches awkwardness into something genuinely tense and entertaining, with both characters exposing vulnerabilities they’d rather keep hidden. Beneath the humor, The Prenup understands that love doesn’t get easier with age, it just comes with more at stake. The script balances charm and truth, showing how even the most responsible choices can feel like emotional landmines when affection, pride, and trust are on the line.
Strengths: Good situational humor; relatable examination of finances vs. love; crisp dialogue with good pacing; strong roles for mature actors; the attorney character adds fun tension and class contrast.
Weaknesses: Ends abruptly without emotional transformation; dramatic arc could be sharpened; some supporting characters feel functional rather than essential.
Comparable to: It’s Complicated, The People We Hate at the Wedding, and TV dramedies like Grace and Frankie.
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