EXCLUSIVE: Exploring tales of Muslim teen summer camps, flying Singaporean children, a post-apocalyptic 2065, British soccer stars, and some Bill Shakespeare, the Black List and GLAAD unveiled the 2024 GLAAD List today.
The fourth annual list spotlighting the most auspicious unmade LGBTQ-inclusive scripts in town chose 10 finalists across a variety of genres. It is pretty good company, if for no other reason than of the 40 scripts picked in the first three GLAAD Lists since its 2019 Sundance Film Festival, the quartet of the Ximena Garcia Lecuona penned Anything’s Possible, the Jared Frieder written Three Months, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman’s Knock At the Cabin, and the Trevor Anderson & Fish Griwkowsky penned Before I Change My Mind have all been released already as features.
A lucky 13 other past GLAAD List scripts are in development at the moment and four more scripts have been shot as proof-of-concept short films. In that context, the odds look pretty good for the 10 scripts on this year’s list and the award winning and acclaimed scribes behind them. To that, it is worth noting that Kryzz Gautier’s Wheels Off was on the 2021 Black List before it made it to today’s 2024 GLAAD List — which you can see the full list for below.
“The scripts on the 2024 GLAAD List are compelling and entertaining stories of LGBTQ people that have rarely been seen onscreen,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said today.
“As shown by recent box office and critical successes, audiences and critics are demanding to see more inclusive stories while a small group of loud anti-LGBTQ activists try and repeatedly fail to create ‘backlash’ against them,” the head of the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer media advocacy organization, added. “To the studios, networks, and production companies looking for fresh, intersectional stories that will break through, The GLAAD List is the place to find them. From period dramas to gripping sci-fi to coming-of-age narratives to stories that defy categorization, these scripts reflect the breadth and depth of the LGBTQ community and the unique perspectives we bring to every genre.”
“Yet again, The GLAAD List has produced an incredible collection of widely diverse scripts, by genre and beyond,” noted Black List founder Franklin Leonard on the latest list Monday. “No surprise given that it’s The Black List’s original partnership of this sort. It continues to be an absolute joy to work with GLAAD to do this every year.”
With a number of diversity lists out there already, the Black List proper will be celebrating its 20th anniversary with this year’s main list, expected to be dropped in early December.
Check out the 2024 GLAAD List here:
ACIDS by Tamar Feinkind
In 1982 New York, a closeted lesbian doctor battles her trauma and societal stigma when she invites a pregnant AIDS patient into her home, forging a powerful, transformative bond.
CHASING TAILLIGHTS by Harrison Hamm
After their star-crossed one-night stand, a trans Filipina truck driver and a professional ‘lot lizard’ find their parallel courses of life mysteriously redirected when a surreal mid-July snowstorm falls on the New Mexico desert.
DUJA by Ambar Riat
Perpetually drowning in a sea of normies, a Punjabi-American named Bhagat navigates a second coming-of-age as a transgender adult. When he begins dating a charismatic young woman named Gigi, Bhagat learns that forming vulnerable and intimate bonds with himself and others will pave the path to his higher self.
JULIET by Jen Richards
Diana is a lifelong theater techie, but when she transfers schools to finish her senior year, gets cast as the lead of Romeo & Juliet, and falls for her costar, she learns that a great performance will require her to be her fullest self, and that stepping from the wings into the spotlight is all the harder when you’re a trans girl trying to live an ordinary life.
OFFSIDE by Natalie Cutler
An uneducated coal miner plays for the most famous football team in Britain. But when the FA realizes her relationship with a female can be used as a weapon to put women ‘back in their place’, Lily Parr must make a choice. Football? Or the freedom to love?
QURAN CAMP by Samah Meghjee
At a summer camp for Muslim tweens, shy and nerdy Tanveer doesn’t expect to find a crush – especially not one who’s her bunkmate.
SUMMER 58 by Estephan Khattar
Amid another crisis in Lebanon, a closeted, young man must embody masculinity to be casting a film. To do so, he forms an unusual bond with a militia fighter who becomes his unlikely mentor. Together, they embark on a transformative journey, exploring their masculinity and sexual identity, all against a backdrop of a scorching Mediterranean summer.
WHEELS COME OFF by Kryzz Gautier
In the year 2065, a fiery teenager with a wild imagination, her paraplegic mom, and their clueless robot struggle to navigate the post-apocalypse; but when the mother’s wheelchair breaks, the trio must venture out into the dangerous outside for a chance to survive.
WINGBOY by Grace Mei Ng
Fifteen years ago, Singaporean children began to be born with a wide range of feathered mutations. Despite these children being shunned, Adam, a Filipino-Chinese boy, decides to help a wingboy learn how to fly – therefore going on a journey that helps Adam embrace his whole self.
WOODSIDE by Gerard Shaka
While struggling to cope with an abusive father and a conflicted mother, a queer Bahamian teen discovers self-love through his experiences replanting mangroves with a marine conservationist.
