Frank G. Caruso a home town boy has had his screenplay “The Red Umbrella” chosen as a quarter-finalist in the 16th Annual Writer’s Network Screenplay & Fiction Competition in Beverly Hills, CA.
"Unlike the filmmakers before me, I did not see a film when I was five years old and then dream of becoming a filmmaker. Growing up in Utica, I went to the matinees as often as I could. I’d sit and eat five bags of McDonald's french fries which cost all of a buck back then. I smuggled those fries into the Stanley Theater, always waiting to get thrown out by one of the flashlight crazy ushers."
"To me, people never made films -- they just appeared from a beam of light onto a two story screen. And there I would sit like a king on his throne surrounded by velvet walls sitting in my velvet chair listening to those velvet words entombed in a giant kaleidoscope."
Screenplay Synopsis:
"Cast within a dramatic backdrop of the Lawrence School for Wayward Girls,”The Red Umbrella” is a gripping, heart-rending love story wrapped around a sinister mystery. Woven into the center of this drama are five teenage girls, each of whom have suffered a brutality in their respective homes that is unthinkable, creating little promise for a hopeful future. When wounds couldn’t be deeper, they are faced with a brutal, sociopathic warden who sees them as hereditarily deviant children not worth their own heartbeat. When the arrival of a young, irrepressible social worker disrupts the warden’s monarchy, when a girl that has been mute begins to speak, when a grieving newspaper reporter starts asking questions, the darkest of secrets collide, hitting a deep emotional chord from the girls’ haunted pasts. In the final shattering moments, a revelation of truth and discovery will astonish everyone. It’s a powerful story of tragedy and triumph; a radiant testimonial to those that have been cut deep, yet live in the breath of hope."
You can see a trailer of "The Red Umbrella" at www.theredumbrellafilm.com
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Frank G. Caruso
frankc39@hotmail.com
