A script that an Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts alumna wrote while a student at the school received recognition in the recent Austin Comedy Film Festival Fall 2021.
A screenplay by Janie Gentry, a member of the Class of 2021, was selected as a finalist for the Best Comedy Feature Screenplay Award at the festival held last week. Gentry wrote “BEST IN CLA.S.S.” for her Creative Writing capstone.
“It’s a comedy about three girls and their misadventures as they try to navigate love and friendship in their new boarding school,” Gentry said.
Gentry said the screenplay is an homage to her time at ASMSA but isn’t meant to define her experience.
“ASMSA is home to so many interesting people and offers such unique experiences that I felt like I needed to write about it while I was still there,” she said. “At the same time, I didn’t want it to be overly realistic.
“I love campy comedy movies, and I loved the idea of keeping the essence of people or situations but making the details ridiculously outlandish. For example, many people have had a roommate that’s very introverted, doesn’t get out of the room much, but in my screenplay there is a roommate who isn’t seen for 90 percent of the film. She lives under her bed, hidden by a curtain and exclusively communicates through written notes.”
The 90-page screenplay took her about four months to write. She hasn’t had the opportunity to turn the script into a film yet because she lacks the resources, but she’s hopeful that will happen one day.
Gentry decided to enter the screenplay into the festival competition for feedback and to see how it would be received.
“One question that I had from the beginning of writing the script was is this going to be funny to people who don’t know anything about ASMSA? Would all of the things that I and other students recognize as specific references to ASMSA translate to a wider audience? So I submitted it to the festival just to find out,” she said.
The Austin Comedy Film Festival is a bi-annual event on the Film Festival Circuit for comedy filmmakers and screenwriters from all over the world to showcase their creative works, according to the festival’s website. The Film Festival Circuit is a partnership of 10 separate film festival events in the United States, including Austin, Texas; Houston, Texas; Reno, Nev.; and Portland, Ore. The partnership features festivals for comedies, horror films, documentaries, short films and micro short films.
The Fall 2021 Austin Comedy Film Festival received more than 450 submissions for the various genres including animation, dark comedy, romantic comedy, funny music videos, mockumentary and more.
Gentry said she was very excited when she learned her screenplay was selected as a finalist. “I was over the moon! I called my family and friends, and all I could say was ‘People think I’m funny!’ They were all super supportive.”
It’s not the first time the screenplay earned recognition. Gentry won a second place award for screenwriting in the 2021 Arts and Humanities Research Capstone Symposium.
Gentry hopes to have more free time in the future to write a few short films. She is currently a student in the Schedler Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway where she is studying film and Spanish.