Diana Densmore is a screenwriter who loves to write character-driven stories with unconventional narratives.
She is currently available for hire.
My Background
Diana is a multi-racial screenwriter whose background as an outsider in the rural Midwest makes her a champion for the misfit and the misunderstood. She was a writers' room intern on the show Criminal Minds and worked with a development mentor from OWN on an adaptation of the galley copy of “Rambling with Rebah” for The Writers' Room 50/50 and Level 4 Press fellowship. Her work, “Her Eyes Were Dark and Grey” (co-written with Katharine Densmore and Shelley Gustavason) is currently in development with Chicago-based producer, JC Farris. Diana’s features, shorts, and pilots have received notoriety including Quarterfinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship, Semi-Finalist for the Page International Screenwriting Awards, Semi-Finalist for the Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, Semi-finalist Script Pipeline Screenwriting Competition, Semi-Finalist for the New Born Play Festival MTWorks and Second Round for the Austin Film Festival’s Screenwriting Competition. In addition to writing, Diana is currently in post-production, with her company, Fluss Haus, on the short film “Shondra On The Hike”. She also serves on the Exhibition Committee at the South Haven Center for the Arts, as Co-Leader of Girl Scout Troop 56011, and is the proud mother of a glitter-covered six-year-old.
B.A. Film Studies and Creative Writing:
The University of Michigan
MFA Screenwriting:
UCLA
Her Body of Work.
Films: Feature Length.
The Light
Feature Length Screenplay (98 p)
Single Location Christmas Horror - (R)
When TYSON, LINDA, and their newborn baby find themselves trapped in a gas station with mentally unstable armed robbers, they must struggle against the robbers, the cold, and their own demons to make it to Christmas morning.
Semi-Finalist Script Pipeline Screenwriting Competition, Second Round Austin Screenwriting Competition, Quarterfinalist WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Lab.
Keiko and The Dragon
Feature Length Screenplay (134p)
Fantasy - (PG 13)
When a dragon attacks Kurushimi City most people refuse to believe it; but for KEIKO’s family, it’s all too real. After the Dragon steals her baby sister, Keiko and her GRANDMOTHER embark on a quest to find a GODDESS to tame the Dragon and defeat the power-hungry GANGSTER who controls the beast.
Quarterfinalist Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Competition, Semifinalist Screencraft Script Competition
The Million Dollar Body of Alexi Montana
Feature Length Screenplay (118 p)
Action Farce - (R)
When the body of Alexi Montana in a fat suit stuffed with cash falls on their ice cream truck, an elderly ice cream truck driver, FRANKLIN, and his gambling addict partner, MILES, think they’ve found the answer to their prayers, but the bookies they owe money to and Alexi’s backup singers think otherwise.
Quarterfinalist Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards, Diversity Initiative V, Quarterfinalist WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Lab.
Simone’s Masterpiece
Feature Length Screenplay (121p)
Family Drama, circa 1996 - (PG 13)
After SIMONE’s mother falls into a coma, she and her two younger brothers set out on an epic adventure to NASA’s comet sample return landing site in the Great Salt Flats to retrieve a piece of a shooting star and make the most epic wish in history, one that will save their mother’s life.
Feature winner, UCLA Screenwriter’s Showcase
The Heartbreak of Sabastian Harding
Feature Length Screenplay (108p)
Drama - (R)
After SABASTIAN finds out his best friend, and the love of his life, is getting married, he sabotages his career as a Drag performer in LA and returns home to Maine to stop his friend’s engagement. Of course, he ruins his friendship in the process and discovers that you can run from your past but you can’t escape your history.
The Compostition of Lucy
Feature Length Screenplay (99p)
Drama - (R)
As LUCY prepares for her first solo art show at the artist’s commune where she lives, she begins to have visions that her world isn’t as it seems. The crazier she becomes the more she realizes that she might actually be going sane, and she must choose between the life she loves or an actual sanity that she can’t stand to live with.
How I Learned to Hear
Feature Length Screenplay (101p)
Coming of Age Drama - (PG 13)
When JEFFREY’s mother dies and he’s sent to live with his uncle in Detroit, he pretends to be deaf to get out of dealing with life, but when he befriends an actual Deaf boy and falls into a love triangle, his ruse risks the life of the girl he loves and threatens the only friendship he has.
Cornell on the Inside
Feature Length Screenplay (90p)
Drama - (PG 13)
When claustrophobic windowasher CORNELL CLOOSE falls in love with a woman in an abusive relationship, he must overcome his debilitating fear of going indoors to save the woman of his dreams.
The Second Coming
Feature length Screenplay (100p)
Satirical Drama - (R)
In a near-future world where religion and consumerism have made the ultimate merger and people choose the next “Messiah” based on a reality TV show, JAY fights to convince his delusional mother and her ever-growing followers that she isn’t the reincarnation of Jesus the Christ.
Television: Pilots.
Hamtramck:
Welcome to the Neighborhood
Serial - 1-hour single camera - Pilot (56p)
Family Drama - (TV-14)
Surrounded by the ever-changing city, widowed matriarch DOROTHY Gorski (60), a tough old Polish Catholic, struggles to keep her bakery afloat, her family together, and her city as she remembers it. Her life is forever changed when she meets AKRAM Hamid, a teenage Muslim immigrant, with a passion for baking and a new perspective.
Winner of The Writers Room 5050 and Level 4 Press BIPOC writers Fellowship, Semifinalist Page International Screenwriting, Semifinalist Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship
The Way Way Down:
The Bittersweet Ruse of Freedom
Serial - 1hour single camera - Pilot (58p)
Family Drama - (TV-14)
Intertwining folklore, history, and fantasy to chronicle the journey of SISSIE CHATERBY (11), mixed black and white, and her two half-brothers RODERICK (9), white, and OLLIE (15), black, as they struggle to survive life in Post-Civil War Reconstruction America.
Second Round Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition
The Countess:
The Death of Dante Edmonds
Serial -1hour single camera - Pilot (53p)
Sci-Fi , Drama - (TV-MA)
Based on “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. The Series follows Dante Edmonds, a starship captain, as she becomes The Count of Monte Cristo, works with the crew of a rag-tag starship to rob from the rich to give to the poor and hunts down the man who put her in jail and stole her family.
Pilot: When the so-called friends of DANTE EDMONDS conspire to get her arrested for treason, she must, with the help of the friendly ABBE FARIA, escape from the notorious prison Chateau D’If.
Semifinalist Filmmatic Sci-Fi/Fantasy Awards, Quarterfinalist Emerging Screenwriters Screenplay Competition, Quarterfinalist, Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards, Diversity Initiative V
Custody:
Miranda
Serial - 1hours single camera (60p)
Family Drama - circa 1985 (TV-PG)
Covering two timelines, Custody simultaneously tells the story of HUGH, as an elderly patriarch, diagnosed with dementia, while his grown children, led by MIRANDA, decide who will get custody of him and his estate and HUGH as a young father being awarded joint custody of his children after his first divorce.
Stageplays: Full Length.
Agnes Underwater
Full Length Play (122p)
Family Drama (PG 13)
Agnes, belle of her aqua-aerobics class, and president of her Senior Center seems to have a perfect life, but that perfect life unravels when her son is pulled over with the dead body of her husband in the back seat of the family car.
Semifinalist Newborn Play Festival MTWorks
Films: Shorts.
30 Miles to Mexico
Short Film (17p)
Heist, Family Drama - (R)
Joe and Vicky have almost made it, just a few miles from getting away with the robbery of their lifetime and starting a life together across the border, only one tough grandmother stands in their way.
Semifinalist, Outstanding Screenplay Shorts Competition, Second Round Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition, Quarterfinalist Screencraft Shorts
THE BRIDGE
Short Film (5p)
Coming of Age - (G)
A young girl finds the courage to ride her bike across a bridge.
WHEN I GROW UP
Short Film (17p)
Family Drama (PG)
When REA’s parents ignore her, she builds a time machine to visit her future self, only to find her future self wracked with postpartum depression. Will her youthful spirit be enough to bring her future self back to happiness?
I believe great stories, and great films, can cure broken hearts, mend tattered souls, and enlighten ignorant minds. I believe great art can heal our world.
- Diana Densmore
“Diana is a delightful collaborator who brings enormous imagination to anything she creates. I greatly appreciate and admire the honesty, enthusiasm, and passion she brings to her writing.”
-JC Farris, Producer Her Eyes Were Dark and Grey”