CAPE Foundation
New Writers Award
2008
Winners
and Finalists
Past
Winners
and Finalists
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2008 WINNERS AND FINALISTS
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Jay Paramsothy
2008 Screenwriting Winner
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| Jay Paramsothy completed a BA in Film
and Theater with an emphasis on directing at Trinity College in
Hartford, CT. He also studied screenwriting and film production at New
York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation,
he worked on various independent and studio films as a production
coordinator and producer. In addition, he wrote and produced on-air
promotions for HBO’s Cinemax Channel and Comedy Central. His
first directorial effort was “Blinding Goldfish”,
which premiered at the Pan African Film Festival in 2005 and continued
to play on the festival circuit. In April of 2008, Jay directed a stage
reading of “The Emperor Has Arrived”, a feature
length screenplay that he co-wrote with Catherine Torphy, at the Salaam
Theatre in New York City. Jay and Catherine are currently collaborating
on their next screenplay. He lives in New York City.
(See
Catherine Torphy Bio)
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Catherine Torphy
2008 Screenwriting Winner
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| Catherine Torphy completed an MFA in
Creative Writing at the University of Arizona in 2005 and received her
BA from Colby College, where she majored in English with a creative
writing concentration. She also studied film production and
screenwriting at New York University’s Tisch School of the
Art. She lived in Italy for several years, writing for Time Out and
other publications, while continuing her work on fiction and
screenwriting projects. Her stories have been published in various
literary journals and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Most
recently, “The Emperor Has Arrived,” a
feature-length screenplay that she co-wrote with Jay Paramsothy, was
performed at New York’s Salaam Theatre in April 2008.
Catherine and Jay are currently collaborating on their next screenplay,
and she is also at work on a novel set in Italy. She lives in New York
City.
(See
Jay Paramsothy Bio)
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Ken
Cheng
2008 Television Writing Winner
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| Guam-born and Bay Area-bred, Ken Cheng
moved to LA in 2008 to pursue his writing/filmmaking dream after
finally realizing how indifferent he felt about his marketing career in
the music industry. Hailing from a creative and loving Chinese-American
family with roots in the Philippines, Ken's literary ambitions began
writing and drawing his own comic books. His passion for movies and
storytelling grew into college, where he trained as a journalist and
filmmaker before taking a 6-year detour through Route: Corporate World.
Ken explores themes mined from the entertainment unique to his life;
the dynamics of his family, the hijinks of countless nights out with
friends, the eye opening nature of travel (only 1/3 of which has been
to Las Vegas). Each contribute to the voluminous missives (or e-mails)
he pens about pop culture, his non-stop girl problems and the comedic
misadventures of his friends in San Francisco. When not working on his
many short, feature and TV scripts, Ken likes to rip through his
Netflix queue, watch Sports Center and update his silly blog
chronicling random thoughts, more girl problems and other assorted
topics at CanIHaveAWord.blogspot.com
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Joseph
Yuan
2008 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Joseph Yuan grew up in Texas, where he
was one of ten Asian kids in his high school of two-thousand people.
Joseph planned to be a professional violinist, but at the age of
sixteen, neurological problems in his hands destroyed his rising
career. Fortunately, Joseph realized he enjoyed screenwriting even more
than playing the violin. “Ningyuan,” the script
Joseph and Jeannette Manning submitted to CAPE, is based on
Joseph’s ancestor Yuan Chonghuan, a famous Ming Dynasty
general. Currently, Joseph and Jeannette have two additional scripts,
“Mendelssohn” and “Angels of
Bataan,” in the quarterfinals of the Nicholl Fellowships
competition. Joseph is finishing his final year as an undergraduate
screenwriting major at USC and has obtained representation for acting
and modeling.
(See
Jeannette Manning Bio)
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Jeannette Manning
2008 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Jeannette Manning, born two pounds and
five ounces, grew up to be an impressive height of five feet and two
inches. She spent her childhood studying improv at McCarter Theatre in
Princeton New Jersey and writing plays and musicals. She was one of ten
students selected statewide to attend the New Jersey
Governor’s School of the Arts for film and screenwriting.
Jeannette is finishing her final year as an undergraduate screenwriting
major at USC. She has also renewed her interest in acting and is
pursuing commercial and theatrical work on the side. In 2007, Jeannette
won USC’s John Kearney Sandifer Scholarship for excellence in
screenwriting. Currently, Jeannette and her writing partner Joseph Yuan
have two scripts, “Mendelssohn” and
“Angels of Bataan,” in the quarterfinals of the
Nicholl Fellowships competition.
(See
Joseph Yuan Bio)
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Christine Shin
2008 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Born in Korea, Christine Shin moved to
the United States by herself at the age of 16 to follow her dream as a
filmmaker. She received her B.A. degrees in Communication Arts and
English Literature from University of Wisconsin in Madison and her
M.F.A. degree in Production from USC School of Cinematic Arts. She was
selected to direct a commercial spot, Movie Date, as one of the ten
national finalists for 2004 Coca Cola Refreshing Filmmaker's Award
Contest. Her next film, Journey, has received Best Actress Award from
2004 Hollywood DV Festival and was screened at various festivals
including 2005 Sedona International Film Festival and 2005 Los Angeles
Korean International Film Festival. Her USC graduate thesis film,
Janie, has been invited to over 40 festivals worldwide and received
numerous awards such as Cine Golden Eagle Award. Janie had its TV
premiere on KCET(PBS) as a part of Fine Cut Series in 2006, and it will
be distributed online through Mini Movie Channel later this year.
Christine has been chosen as one of the Honorees for 2005 Project
Involve by Film Independent (IFP/LA) and was one of the finalists for
2007 Disney/ABC/DGA Directing Fellowship. Recently, she has been
selected with her feature project, My Fake Husband, as one of the
fellows for 2008 Filmmakers' Development Lab by Korean Film Council.
She currently lives in Los Angeles with her cat, Clarence. She hopes to
continue to tell stories that have heart by further pursuing her career
in directing, writing, and producing.
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Claire Yorita Lee
2008 Television Writing
Finalist
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A former fellow of the ABC/Disney
Writing Fellowship and the FOX Diversity Writer’s Initiative,
Claire Yorita Lee has worked on a number of TV shows and pilots,
including NBC’s Medium, ABC’s Thieves, and
FOX’s Skin. She also wrote a short entitled “My
Life Disoriented,” which received funding from an ITVS grant
and premiered on PBS’s Independent Lens.
Currently Claire is producing a short
she wrote entitled “Engaged,” which will premiere
at CINERGY 2008, an event hosted at the Japan America Theater, and is
working on a feature about her aunt who was the first Asian American
porn star. Claire lives in Culver City with her husband, Ed, and
one-year-old daughter, Alexa.
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David
Ngo
2008 Television Writing
Finalist
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| David Ngo is an award-winning writer and
filmmaker. His first independent feature, The Queen from Virginia,
received the Best Documentary Feature Jury Prize at the 2006 Los
Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. In 2007, he directed the short
BPS, which was named a Top 10 finalist at the 4th Annual 72 Hour
Shootout. Overall, David's films have appeared in over eight film
festivals nationwide. Also in 2007, David was awarded with the Armed
with a Camera Fellowship through Visual Communications, the premier
Asian Pacific media arts center in the United States. David is also a
past honoree of Film Independent’s Project:Involve, a select
mentorship program for young filmmakers. As a freelance writer, David
has been published in “NHA Magazine,”
“Hyphen Magazine,” “Yolk,” and
“BN Magazine.” In addition to his writing and
filmmaking career, David has over eight years of experience as a
television programming executive.
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PAST
WINNERS AND FINALISTS
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Christina Choe
2007 Screenwriting Winner
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| Christina Choe is a filmmaker, video
artist, TV editor and screenwriter. She has screened her short films,
“Turmeric Border Marks” & “United
Nations of Hip Hop” at numerous film festivals worldwide,
including AFI Film Festival, Seattle International, and Palm Springs
Int. Shorts Festival. In 2002 she received a prestigious New York
Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) fellowship grant for video. For the past
few years, she has worked as an editor/asst. editor for ABC, VH1, HBO
and the History Channel. Her feature script, “Guess
Who’s Coming For Kimchee” was selected as the
winner of the 2007 CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)
New Writers Award for Best Feature Screenplay. The same script was also
selected for the 2007 KOFIC (Korean Film Council) Filmmakers Lab, 29th
IFP Market Emerging Narrative Program, and most recently placed in the
top 20 out of over 2700 scripts for the BlueCat Screenwriting
Competition.
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Chan
Nguyen
2007 Television Writing Winner
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Chan Nguyen...I enjoy playing tennis, long walks on the beach, cool candle lit dinners and… oh wait, wrong kind of bio.
Minhchanh Nguyen, the 2007 CFNWA-winning television writer for The
Office spec “IQ Test,” is a graduate from the University of
Texas with a Communications degree in Radio/Television/Film. Born to
the best Vietnamese parents in the world, Minhchanh has lived most of
his life in Texas City, Texas. A place where the air is not
particularly clean but livable. Going to Austin for college, he has
written and worked on several student shorts. In the past year, he has
moved to California from Texas to pursue a career in writing. After
hitting a few bumps along the way, Minhchanh has been writing several
feature length screenplays and worked on film productions. Currently
submitting applications to several studio sponsored programs and
working to further develop his skills as a writer, Minhchanh types
thoroughly at his computer working while keeping an eye on the
television.
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Yueh
Liu
2007 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Before immigrating to the United States
in 1999, Yueh Liu worked as a director, screenwriter, and producer in
China. Her many projects there include the television series
“Time to Say Goodbye” (writer/director/producer),
and the TV movie “Farewell Moscow”
(writer/director), shot on location in Russia. Yueh also adapted two
popular novels into TV series and directed them for Chinese television
(“The Legend of Tea” and “Wealthy
Family”). In 2003, Ms. Liu graduated Valedictorian with her
Master’s degree in Motion Pictures and Television at the
Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. For her thesis, she wrote,
produced, directed, and starred in her first English language short
film entitled “Andante Cantabile”, the basis for
the feature script “Elegy in Paradise”. In 2004,
Yueh completed the prestigious AFI Directing Workshop for Women where
she wrote and directed her second short “Tea &
Coffee”. Now residing in Hollywood, Ms. Liu is currently
producing her first feature film entitled “The Dying
Swan.”
(See
J. Richey Nash Bio)
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J. Richey Nash
2007 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Upon graduating from Princeton
University, J. Richey Nash moved to the ranks of professional baseball
where he roamed the outfield for the Padres, Twins, and White Sox
organizations. During his playing career he put his psychology degree
to good use, analyzing opposing pitchers while waiting for his turn at
the plate. After several years in baseball, Mr. Nash transitioned to
show business and has enjoyed a steady career as an actor for over 12
years. A veteran of the New York theatre scene, Richey has performed in
countless Off-Broadway and regional stage productions. He also
cofounded the Tidemark Theatre Company in NYC, serving as its artistic
director and managing producer. In Los Angeles, Mr. Nash has appeared
in numerous films, on national network and cable television, and on
many stages in Southern California. As a writer, he has penned numerous
works, including the award-winning feature film script
“Hitting the Cycle”, now in development for
production in 2008. Mr. Nash also wrote, produced, and directed the
short film “Universal Remote”, currently making the
rounds on the film festival circuit.
(See
Yueh Liu Bio)
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Margaret Kerrison
2007 Screenwriting Finalist
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| Margaret Chandra Kerrison was born in
Indonesia and raised in Singapore. She has enjoyed writing throughout
her life, but it was only six years ago that she discovered
screenwriting. During her work in a software company, Margaret enrolled
in evening classes at Emerson College's Screenwriting Certificate
Program where she won the Screenwriting Award of Excellence (2004). The
following year she moved to Los Angeles to enroll at the USC School of
Cinematic Arts to pursue a MFA in Screenwriting. In 2006, she was
awarded The Multicultural Motion Picture Association Scholarship, won
the Boulder Asian Film Festival Short Screenplay Contest, and was
nominated by the USC Writing Division for the David and Lynn Angell
Comedy Fellowship. In 2007, she won the prestigious Josh Schwartz
Television Writing Scholarship at USC. After graduating from USC in May
2007, she began work as a Researcher for a new science education series
“Wired Science” for PBS.
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Oliver
Saria
2007 Television Writing
Finalist
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| Upon graduating from the University of
California at Berkeley with a degree in Sociology, Oliver applied his
social research skills in the areas of Marketing and Public Health.
After several years, it donned on him that making stuff up about people
is much more enjoyable (but a practice generally frowned upon in the
Social Sciences). Eventually, he became a resident artist at
Bindlestiff Studio and a fixture in San Francisco’s Asian
American art scene as a musician, actor, and stand-up comedian. He
moved to Los Angeles to pursue a writing career and currently works as
a script reader for the Kennedy/Marshall Company. Last year, he was a
finalist for the Walt Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship.
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Isaac
Ho
2007 Television Writing
Finalist
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| Isaac Ho earned his MFA in Screenwriting
from UCLA and was a semi-finalist for the ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship
and is a recipient of the Stephen N. Gershenson Award for Screenwriting
for his screenplay “Vacation Boyfriend,” a comedy
about a recently divorced woman who goes on a cruise to rekindle her
love life but gets mistaken for a terrorist. Isaac recently completed
his historical drama, The Celestial, a feature about a Chinese
sojourner who comes to California in 1870 to provide for his family
back in China. However, he falls in with the Chinese mafia and soon
must choose between saving his family or committing murder. As a
playwright, Isaac's work includes "Claim to Fame," "1,001 Ways to Enjoy
the Missionary Position" and "Along for the Ride" which received the SF
Weekly Black Box Award for Outstanding Play. As a theater artist, Isaac
has worked for Lodestone Theater Ensemble, National Asian American
Theatre Company, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre,
Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club and The Juilliard School.
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Young
Il Kim
2006 Screenwriting Winner
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| Young Il Kim spent his childhood in
Seoul, Korea and his angst-ridden teenage years in New Jersey. In the
six years between his BA in Economics from Harvard University and MFA
in Screenwriting from USC Film School, Young ran four businesses (three
dotcoms and a candy company)... into the ground. He is a member of the
Independent Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America. His feature
screenplay, Hyung's Overture, has been selected into the Film
Independent's 2005 Screenwriters Lab. It was also a finalist for
Sundance Filmmakers Lab, finalist in the Austin Screenwriting
Competition, and semi-finalist in the Chesterfield. He also has
written, directed, and produced 4 awful short films that will hopefully
remain hidden for a long time.
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Lucy
Wang
2006 Television Writing Winner
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Lucy Wang is an award-winning, published
and produced writer. She sold an original comedy pilot to Disney,
cooked with Tyler Florence on Food 911, and is featured in Charlene
Shih’s video installation “12 Steps to Success for
Artists in Los Angeles.” Her short stories have appeared in
literary journals and her plays have been produced all over the country
and in London. Her awards include a grant from the Berrilla Kerr
Foundation; Best New Play from the Chilcote Foundation; James Thurber
Fellowship; Hewlett Honorary Fellow; artistic residencies at Djerassi,
Atlantic Center for the Arts and MacDowell Colony; Roger L. Stevens
Award, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays. Wang is a member of
the DGA, PEN, LPWT, WGAW, and serves as a vice chair for the Alliance
of Los Angeles Playwrights. Her papers are archived at the Huntington
Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.
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Diane Seo
2005 Screenwriting Winner
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Diane Seo is a former staff writer for
the Los Angeles Times, where she covered local news and business in Los
Angeles and New York. She also worked as a senior editor at the arts
and news site, Salon.com.
Most recently, she served as the
managing director of media for the ATP, which runs men's professional
tennis worldwide. Aigoo! is her first full-length feature screenplay.
She currently lives in Honolulu with her husband and 10-month-old
daughter.
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Albert Lee
2005 Television Writing Winner
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Albert W. Lee moved back home to
Orange County, CA in 2003,
after graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of
the
Arts, where he did a little writing for a network soap and befriended
an indie film director. Having allowed the summer to pass without
penning his Magnus Opus, Albert enlisted at Writer’s Boot
Camp where scripts were finished under the forced discipline of
highly trained instructors. He has since completed three spec
scripts: Smallville, Arrested Development, and Curb Your
Enthusiasm. Albert currently works as a high school English tutor,
college application advisor, and SAT Critical Reading and Writing
instructor.
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Tonya Kong,Esq.
2004 Television Writing Winner
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A Southern California native, Tonya
grew up in Torrance. Realizing her phenomenal basketball talent was her
ticket out of the 'burbs, Tonya ruled the South Bay girls' hoop scene
until a vicious elbow to the head from future WNBA M.V.P. Lisa Leslie
ended her athletic dreams. Not ready to give up on sports, Tonya went
to California State University, Long Beach to study Kinesiology and
Athletic Training. Four years and one worthless B.A. later, the time
had come to give up on sports. Changing course, she embarked on a soggy
new journey that was law school at the University of Washington in
Seattle. After picking up a J.D. degree and a caffeine-addiction, Tonya
traded in her umbrella and the Pacific Northwest for sun block and the
South Pacific when she accepted an associate attorney position in
Honolulu. After four years pitching her clients? stories, she longed to
tell a few of her own. Realizing her creative cravings could lead to
disbarment, Tonya bid aloha to law and returned to Tinseltown, where
such tendencies are sometimes rewarded.
Tonya and Kanon joined forces when it
became apparent their other classmates at the U.C.L.A. graduate program
in screenwriting had no interest in making friends with a lawyer or an
undertaker. Licking their wounds and the bottom of a pitcher of
Guinness at the Westwood Brewing Company, the ostracized pair
discovered they had many similar high-minded passions, such as the
danceable ditties of the Pet Shop Boys, reading US Weekly/InTouch/Star
magazines for free at the newsstand, oolong tea and the seminal 80?s
movie masterpiece, "St. Elmo's Fire." And so a writing partnership, but
more importantly, a beautiful friendship, was born.
(See Kanon Lim Bio)
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Kanon Lim
2004 Television Writing Winner
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Kanon was born and raised in beautiful
Kauai, Hawaii. A near-drowning incident at the tender age of six left
him with an acute fear of the ocean, a condition that severely limited
his leisure options growing up on an island. A love of films and books
emerged in place of snorkeling and surfing. Following stints as a guava
harvester and a tourist gift shop sales clerk, Kanon left the Garden
Isle for the mainland to attend film school at the University of
Southern California. He earned his B.F.A. in Filmic Writing, which
naturally led him to his current position as Night Supervisor at Forest
Lawn Mortuary. When not tending to the needs of those no longer with
us, Kanon relaxes at home watching reruns of "Six Feet Under."
(See Tonya Kong Bio)
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Simon Sun
2004 Screenwriting Winner
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Born and raised in mainland China,
Simon moved to the U.S. at the age of 25. Prior to this he was an
entertainment feature reporter in Beijing. He holds a Bachelor degree
in Journalism from Fudan University, Shanghai, China and a MFA in
Screenwriting from USC School of Cinema and Television.
"America On My Mind" was Simon's
graduate thesis at USC and since its completion, it has won him a USC
distinction award and was a finalist at Sundance Screenwriting Lab. In
addition to screenwriting he has also authored two well-received
non-fiction books in Chinese. Currently he is working on two TV
projects for both the Chinese and American markets.
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Shinho Lee
2002 Screenwriting Winner
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Shinho Lee, born and raised in Korea,
received his BFA in Film/TV and MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch,
NYU. Currently he is enrolled in AFI's screenwriting program. He worked
as a script reader and also interned at Law & Order. His short
KIMONO was screened at Johns Hopkins Film Festival and his short
BUTTERFLY is in process of post-production. Summer of 2001, his plays
THE WATER MIRRORS (American Living Room with Lincoln Center) and
BUTTERFLY (Director's Company's Don't Blink) were produced in NYC. His
full length play DREAM OF NO WORDS was short-listed for Young Writers
Programme, Royal Court, London, his monologue EMPTY HANDS was published
in Monologues For Men By Men (Heinemann Press) and his screenplay THE
RED SNOW was a semi-finalist for The Nicholl
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Angie Suh
2002 Television Writing Winner
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Angie Suh was born in Seoul, Korea,
but grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, from the age of five. She attended
Purdue University then Columbia College in Chicago where she studied
all aspects of film production: writing, shooting, editing and acting.
Her first screenplay was a Disney Fellowship Semi-Finalist in 1994. In
her first starring role in a feature she received raves as "Grace," in
Chris Chan Lee's "Yellow." In 2002 she won the Helen Fong Dare
Scholarship in the Arts, based on her feature submission, "Mr. Lee and
the Quadroon." She is currently finishing a comedy feature, developing
reality show ideas, writing shorts for DV production, and auditioning.
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Dennis Kao
2001 Television Writing Winner
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Dennis Kao has worked in tv production
for FOX and CBS, as an executive assistant to tv/film producer Bill
Todman, Jr. at Warner Brothers (X-Men, Wild Wild West), and is
currently the production manager at Time Warner Audiobooks, where he
produces, directs, and supervises the production of audiobooks
published by Warner Books, Little-Brown, and Talk Miramax Books.
He has previously optioned the
screenplay HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A WOMAN, was a finalist for the
Paramount Studios children's screenwriting contest, a participant in
Lodestone Theater's tv writing workshop, and is currently completing
SWORDSMEN, an epic play of valor and loyalty in medieval China.
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Alice Wu
2000 Screenwriting Winner
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Alice Wu, 2000 CAPE Foundation New
Writer Awards Winner "Saving Face" is a feel-good social satire that
asks the question: What would happen if your 48-year-old widowed
Chinese mother got kicked out of the Chinese community for getting
pregnant, and you were forced to take her in and find her a husband?
Set in New York City, the story is told from the viewpoint of a
Chinese-American lesbian in her late 20's, and its humor arises from
the clash of cultures that constitute modern-day life in urban America.
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Cynthia Liu
1999 Screenwriting Winner
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Cynthia is a writer-filmmaker and
holds a graduate degree in English literature. She's written short
fiction, novels, essays, and several screenplays. Her scripts have
reached semi-finalist status or higher at the following contests:
American Accolades, Austin Heart of Film, the Disney Screenwriting
Fellowship, the Chesterfield Writers Film Project (twice with different
scripts), and the Sundance Screenwriting Lab (twice, with different
scripts). She was the first CAPE New Writers Award screenplay winner
and has since directed and produced her own work.
In 2004, Pathfinder Pictures will
distribute her award-winning short film, the all-Asian American
romantic comedy RED THREAD. It's now completing a lengthy run on the
festival circuit. Another short, A. EYE FOR THE WHITE GUY (a spoof of a
similarly-titled, popular cable TV makeover show), is currently
exhibiting in international film festivals. She's in pre-production on
a documentary short and developing one of her feature scripts to
direct.
Her fiction has also won numerous
prizes. Her first novel will be published in 2005.
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