CHRISTMAS MITZVAH
Marita welcomes many of her sons ' LGBTQ friends into her home, creating a new "family" of love and acceptance - especially for those who were rejected by their own families for declaring their true selves.
Next to join Marita's extended family is Cody. Only 17, he arrives to live at Marita's house in a circuituous way. His friend, Lee, was beaten mercilessly on the train. Afterwards, Cody's parents disown him for being gay. Lives intersect as Carlos comforts Cody at his friend's deathbed and Marita becomes his case worker. She places him in a foster home which he soon leaves to live on the streets.
Helping to search for the missing under-age Cody is Aponi, a transgendered Native American "two spirit" and friend of Marita. Aponi owns a small gift/coffee shop where Rachel and then Cody work. The group locates Cody who comes to live at Marita's house.
Tyree undergoes a transformation, leading him to have serious doubts about his sexual orientation, when he goes home for his father's funeral. There he is subjected to Biblical brainwashing, spearheaded by his siblings' pastor.
When Tyree returns home he breaks up with Pepper, his former love interest, changes jobs to work as a bookkeeper and becomes distant from Marita and the others.
With everyone at her home thriving and happy, Marita announces that she has a boyfriend, Tony, with whom she works. Cody asks Marita if one of his friends can move in and share the basement with him but this never happens. At home alone, Tyree attempts suicide, burning down Marita's house in the process.
With nowhere to live, the displaced ones must find other accommodations. Meeting with the insurance agent, Marita is told that her home insurance was not adequate to cover the cost of total replacement of her house. Only Rachel's blessing of a large inheritance from her grandmother on Christmas Eve assures a happy ending for Marita and her extended family.
Angelica Huston
Break out male role 20-30
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
La Cage aux Folles
Justine's other completed screenplays include "The Octopus Charmer"(which was also recognized as a top winner in the SkyFest I 2008 Script Competition, "Flashdrive", "Janie Loves Bollywood" (SkyFest III Honorable le Mention winner) and Me and Jackie (SkyFest IV Honorable Mention).
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!UNDER OLYMPUS
A disgraced security expert who lost his family wanders the Caribbean islands on his boat as a criminal fixer for the underworld, until he's given a job as head of security at an isolated luxury resort on Olympus Island.
North Amerikay
After a harrowing loss, a young Irish Catholic woman and her family adjust to life in 1915 Chicago.
When Ani Met Jo Met Cris
A recurring meet-cute over the course of a decade, but make it super gay! A fateful road trip sets pragmatic Ani and passionate Jo on the path of Reluctant Travel Companions to Enthusiastic Lovers - until they trip down the life-altering detours of Jo’s pregnancy and Cris, her dashing midwife.
The Dumb Ox Bellows
A 13th-century friar struggles to revitalize Christian theology using logic and reason, but intellectual opposition from peers, malicious slander by envious brethren, and “slavery of the pen” under two Popes drive him to mental collapse and loss of faith in his life’s work -- until God intervenes miraculously to affirm its merit.
CHARON'S DIVIDE
Two childhood friends battle over land and the love of the same woman in 1880s Montana.
SACRIFICED
In 1995, an apostate Detective investigates a Mephistophelian antique dealer linked to religious murders and unveils some horrific family truths.
Untouchable!
A blonde bombshell in stainless steel becomes a femme fatale - a relentless tiger with razor-sharp-toothed-pen spilling blood across the pages leaving nowhere, for the perpetrators to hide.
BRAVE HEARTS
In 1840, an unconventional widow risks her life when she joins forces with a charismatic journalist, brutalized tenant farmers and a traumatized exile she rescues in Montreal, to stop the most powerful men in Scotland from violently evicting Gaelic Highlanders, unaware of her own family's complicity in the ethnic cleansing.
SETTLING THE BOOKS
Lured by the reading of a billionaire rare book dealer’s will, an investigator and four other heirs are sealed in an airtight panic room, and with only four hours air, must solve the centuries-old mystery contained in the book ‘The Castilian Cypher’ in order to escape.
All My Trials, Lord
In a drunken stupor a handsome young singer kills a taxi driver while visiting Spalding County, Georgia.
