The VHS Table Read Series - live on zoom
OCT 23, 2024 - 7 PM - 8:30 PM
Returning in 2024 is The VHS Screenplay Table Read Series via Zoom. VHS ticket holders are invited to attend live table reads where professional actors will perform a reading of the top selected short screenplays. A panel of industry experts will weigh in on the screenplays and offer notes to the writers.
Meeting ID: 830 8937 5788
Top 3 shorts scripts
Wed, Oct 23 - 7:00 PM PST
Eat Me
Written by Jason Tostevin
When a fame-starved food influencer crosses the wrong restaurant, she’s cursed with an escalating hunger that can only be satisfied with one terrible thing.
Directed by Keara Barnes
Wed, Oct 23 - 7:00 PM PST
Mermaid
Written by Pierre Langenegger
A young boy, desperate to shed the “baby” tag inflicted by his brother, sneaks into a house to expose the urban legend of a captive Mermaid, only to discover the legend is true, but this mermaid is no Disney Ariel.
Directed by Yvonne Gustafson
Wed, Oct 23 - 8:00 PM PST
Quiet Minds
Written by Toby Marks
In Victorian London, a woman's quest to prove her worth through the use of cybernetic upgrades unleashes her deadly alter ego.
Directed by Arianna McGregor
Panelists
KELLY DOYLE
Kelly Doyle is a faculty member in the English department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from UBC. A member of the International Gothic Association, the Popular Culture Association of the South, and The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Kelly is also an advisory board member, reviewer, author, and lead copyeditor for KPU’s official film studies publication, Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration. Her specializations include contemporary horror film and feminist film theory with a special interest in zombie cinema as it intersects with posthumanism, critical animal studies, and gender studies.
ALKA KHULSHALANI
Alka Khushalani was born in Mumbai, India and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She has worked at the Walt Disney Company, HBO and public television, among others. Alka is a graduate of Columbia University in Film Studies. Her short fiction has appeared in The Kartika Review, CHA: An Asian Literary Journal, and EGO Magazine. Her screenplay THERE ARE NO STRANGERS HERE was part of the IFP Project Forum. Alka was also an IFP Film Bazaar Lab Fellow (sponsored by the National Film Development Corporation of India), and a contributor to THE SCRIPT podcast. As a filmmaker, she was the assistant director on a film based on the Stephen King short story, “One for the Road,” and a collaborator on a series of short documentaries chronicling acts of resistance against the Trump administration as a member of the Diverse Filmmakers Alliance. She recently wrote, directed and produced the short film BEFORE BETWEEN AFTER.
VANESSA KING
Originally from Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Vanessa King is a New Brunswick-based producer, story editor and screenwriter with nearly two decades of hands-on film, television and entertainment experience spent living and working in New York City. Her award-winning scripts, have been honoured by industry giants like AMPAS/Oscar® and Sony Worldwide Entertainment, showcase her storytelling expertise. She cofounded the free and educational-based New York Screenwriters Co-Op (10,000 members strong pre-Covid) and was faculty at both Gotham Writers Workshop (NYC) and Staffordshire University (UK) where she taught both beginner and graduate-level screenwriting classes. For four consecutive years, Vanessa was named to Vanity Fair’s “Downtown 100” List, recognizing New York City’s top networkers in the entertainment industry. She is a four-time appointee of The Diversity List and in 2019 was named an “Industry Thought Leader” by Forbes Magazine. She has both coordinated and judged dozens of film festivals during her career and frequently consults for Harlem Film House and is a final round judge for the UCLA Masters Screenwriting Showcase. She is passionate about making no and low cost film education accessible to all and is currently heading up entertainment education and workforce development initiatives in New Brunswick to build the province’s crew in preparation for incoming feature films and tv series. She lives in Smithtown, New Brunswick.
KRISTINA LEATH-MALIN
Kristina Leath-Malin is a filmmaker, scholar, screenwriter, and digital artist from Detroit, MI currently living in Brooklyn NY. Her first published work was a look at the evolution of women in French Horror Cinema -"Objectification Repackaged: the Women of 21st Century French Horror". She continued her feminist scholarship by bringing it home to the states with a personal look at Black Women in American Horror Cinema - "My Final Girl". This work has culminated in a short documentary film, web series, internet database, and soon to be published book. In addition to her writings, she mentors graduate students through Raindance Film Fest's MA program and podcasts with "The Script" (NY Screenwriters Collective)
