I’ve written for the stage and screen (both big and small), and I love nothing more than developing story ideas with other creative people.
From my first film forays as a teenager, to my first feature film EVERYBODY GETS STABBED in 2020, I’ve honed my craft across multiple genres and have been taught by industry luminaries such as Robert McKee and Stephen Cleary.
If you’d like to collaborate on a project, or need a script editor, I’d love to chat!
spec screenplays
All are available on request here.
a still and awful red
written by Levon J Polinelli & Paul Payne
To celebrate the end of their university lives, five friends set sail on a private luxury yacht. After a night of wild partying, they wake up to discover a teenage girl – invited along for the ride – lying face-down in the water. Each of the students, in some small way, is implicated in her death. With promising careers and reputations on the line, what will these brilliant young minds do next?
In five words: Feed her to the sharks.
dead dogs
When Anthony Marlon is sent to prison, the boring routine his life becomes is upended when a new inmate enters displaying certain undead tendencies. Marlon and the other prisoners of his cellblock are safe where they are behind bars, but with dwindling supplies the decision is made to stage a daring prison escape in to an uncertain world.
hindu jedi jesus
In a time long ago a man runs away from his destiny to a distant land, where he is confronted with the inevitability of who he is.
A trailer was shot, and can be viewed here.
hookshot
written by Levon J Polinelli & Gopi Jeyerraj (in development)
In 1989 a Tamil family relocates to Perth looking for a new life, but their young son struggles to fit in to a less-than tolerant school environment. His one reprieve from the bullies at school is his love for cricket, honed on the streets of Chennai. But that joy is short-lived when he discovers his biggest tormentor is also a member of the local cricket club, and they’re forced to play in the same eleven. When it comes to winning the championship, these two boys will need to pick a side, or be stumped.
werewolf priest!
The lamentable ballad of father hank grimby
Huntersville, a small hamlet, has fallen on hard times. The town is failing, rotting from the inside out, and a fell beast lurks in the woods, attacking villagers and travellers at each full moon. The only shining light in the town is the priest, Father Hank Grimby, a young pious man who is torn between two worlds: his vows to God, and his love for Brooke Gainsborough, the mayor’s daughter. But Brooke is to be married to George Waggner, a somewhat-renowned explorer of the world… and as the town priest, it falls on Hank to perform the ceremony. Unfortunately for Hank, he has unknowingly fallen victim to the evil that stalks Huntersville, and will become a creature of the night at the next full moon and wreak havoc upon his beloved town…
westgate
WESTGATE is a fictionalized depiction of a real tragedy, following in the footsteps of BLOODY SUNDAY and CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. It is a multi-layered examination of the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya by four members of the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. It is both a pulse-pounding thriller and a compelling examination of the superhuman bravery of ordinary men and women under extreme circumstances. Told from a number of different points of view, WESTGATE weaves a complex tapestry of the story threads from that fateful day to truly capture the sights, sounds and emotions of a truly horrific chain of events.