2015 Angel Film Awards - Monaco International Film Festival angel awards

THE ANGEL FILM AWARDS HONORING SCREENPLAY WRITERS




IN OFFICIAL SELECTION "EARTHBOX" WRITTEN BY DONAL NUGENT

BIO:

Donal Nugent is a filmmaker, award-winning poet and writer based in Dublin, Ireland. Donal won the Start prize for poetry in 2007 and holds an MA in screenwriting. His first feature film "NORTH CIRCULAR ROAD" selected officially at the AFA-MIFF.

"EARTHBOX" A Screenplay Written by award-winning poet and writer Donal Nugent

Logline: (Genre Comedy)

When Bram Stoker stole Dracula's life-story he destroyed his reputation. Now, with the gift of immortality, he wants to destroy us too.

Synopsis:

ABRAHAM FEENIX is a slick businessman behind the phenomenally successful social network, Earthbox, which has its HQ in Dublin. Earthbox lets you run your entire life through one portal and the media adore it – except for one outsider blogger, George Sampson, who considers it vampire capitalism.

Lucy Flynn is a young actress who we first meet as she takes her young brother Toby to the crypt of a Dublin church, famous for a rose that has remained perfectly preserved atop one coffin for over a century. While on the tour, Toby steals the rose, keen to investigate its secret. Appalled, Lucy returns it to its rightful place the next day. After doing so, she meets a charmingly awkward young Eastern European called Vlad, who mysteriously thanks her for her help.

Soon after, news reports emerge that the famous rose has wilted and a strangely enraged Abraham makes a night visit to the church in question. The warden, who has been expecting him, takes him to the coffin, which is now empty. Some CCTV footage shows a woman returning the rose and, using Earthbox technology, Abraham identifies her as Lucy. We also see the man arising from the coffin is Vlad. Later that night, Abraham has a visitor to his office – Vlad – and through their conversation we discover that Abraham is, in fact, the author Bram Stoker and Vlad is the real Count Dracula, a sensitive young man who wants nothing to do with his terrible ancestors. Through flashbacks, we discover Abraham trapped Vlad in the coffin over a century ago (a rose on a coffin stops vampires from escaping) just after Bram had cajoled Vlad into making him one of the undead. Abraham gleefully explains that immortality is only for those who enjoy evil and that he has done Vlad a favour by making him infamous through the book. He also reveals how Earthbox will take his ambitions to a new level – allowing him to 'own' millions of people by holding vast amounts of data about them and to select an elite undead to join him. Furthermore, news stories will appear the next day explaining the 'evil' Dracula has returned and claiming Lucy is his vampire lover. Vlad narrowly escapes Abraham's security and vicious guard dogs.

Outside, swarms of vampire hunters are crisscrossing Dublin with medieval fervor. A shocked Lucy sees on TV that Vlad is Count Dracula and that she has been named as his accomplice. Vlad bursts into her apartment, with the vampire hunters not far behind. Lucy's only escape is to become a vampire and 'transform'. However, vampires can't instantly transform into bats; it requires them to be genuinely terrified. Lucy explains this won't be a problem as her nerves have always ruined her auditions. However, when the vampire hunters break in she isn't scared enough to transform until an Alsatian dog attacks. Recovering later, they hit on a plan for Vlad to tell his story on TV. Abraham soon learns of this and uses the power of Earthbox to stop it. Vlad's only option to stop Bram is to destroy the Earthbox infrastructure, but how? Out of the blue, he is contacted by George Sampson, who knows how to destroy Earthbox's databases. Lucy and Vlad get inside Earthbox HQ and follow his plans but just as they secure the shut-down of the computers, Abraham appears and explains they have been set up: he was feeding George false information from the start.

Bram plans to use them to experiment on the 'disposal' of the undead. Lucy tells Bram she is not afraid. Vlad sees that she is telling the truth as she hasn't transformed. Inspired by her confidence in him, he throws something, unseen by Bram, at Bram's security dogs, sleeping behind their master. The dogs leap up in a frenzy and the shock causes Bram to turn into a bat. The dogs grab him and tear him apart.

We close with Vlad and Lucy as lovers and news of an updated gravestone 'Bram Stoker Born 1847 – Died 1912 – Died again 2016'.