Suzanne Griffin—Screenwriter

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The Sleeping House

A screenplay by Suzanne Griffin

Synopsis:

 

Carl Hoffman, 55, a reclusive Brooklyn artist with a passion for food and women, has been perfectly happy in his misery, mourning the death of his wife, Mita,  a Russian/Jewish poet and survivor of the Soviet Gulag.  But when Carl falls desperately in love with his brother’s wife, Susannah, he discovers that this fragile young woman shares a powerful secret with Carl’s late wife - one that could destroy Carl’s new love, even as it illuminates the mysteries of his turbulent marriage to Mita.

Suzanne’s screenplay “The Sleeping House” was a Finalist for the  2012 Atlanta Film Festival Screenwriters Lab,  the 2011 La Femme Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and a Second Rounder for the 2012 Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

Suzanne’s dramatic screenplay “The Chocolate Kandinsky” has won the Silver Remi Award for Short Screenplay at the 2011 Worldfest Houston.

Suzanne Griffin is an award-winning screenwriter living in Brooklyn with her son James and her husband Chris.  She received her MFA from NYU’s Graduate Institute of Film and Television, with awards in producing and directing, as well as a Faculty Commendation for Superior Achievement in Filmmaking. 

Her screenplay The Italian Lover was a prize-winning Finalist in Gordy Hoffman’s 2008 BlueCat Screenplay Competition.  The Italian Lover was one of only six screenplays out of  over 2700 submissions to receive this honor.   The Italian Lover was also a Top Forty Semi-finalist, as was her screenplay Blood and Dreams,  in Francis Ford Coppola’s 2007 Zoetrope Screenplay Competition, which received over 2000 submissions.  Suzanne was the only writer to have two screenplays to advance to the top forty.  The Italian Lover is also a two-time AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship Quarterfinalist (2005 & 2006).  The BlueCat judges called The Italian Lover’s characters “engrossing,” the dialogue “poetic, elegant, and smart,” and the story-telling “like a modern day Emily Bronte.”

Suzanne’s screenplay Clean was the first-prize winner of the 1997 Independent Feature Project’s Herbert Beigel Screenplay Award.  Beigel jurors included Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York), Mary Harron (American Psycho), Barbara Turner (Pollack), and Lisa Krueger (Manny & Lo).  Jay Cocks called Suzanne’s writing “unique and prodigally imaginative.”  Suzanne’s screenplay Blood and Dreams won the 2004 Remi Award at the Houston Worldfest for best period screenplay.  Blood and Dreams was also a two-time AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship Semifinalist (1997 & 1993).

Her dramatic screenplay The Sleeping House was produced as a staged reading in February 2009 at the Sage Theater in Manhattan by New York Women in Film and Television.  Her screenplay The Italian Lover was also produced as a reading by NWIFT in 2002,  featuring actresses Mia Maestro (Tango, Motorcycle Diaries, Alias) and Isabelle Townsend (Pollock, Barton Fink). 

Suzanne was a Disney Fellowship Finalist and a Sundance Screenwriters Lab Finalist with her script “Clean” in 1997. 

Her short film “Secret Voices”, a 1991 CINE Eagle Winner, was seen at over a dozen international festivals, including the prestigious Rencontres Henri Langlois, and won the Grand Prix de la Ville and the Prix du Canal Neuf at the 21st Wattrelos Festival International du Court Metrage in France. 

Suzanne was the Editor of the feature film “Are They Still Shooting?” (Dir: Tomislav Novakovic), a drama about the Balkan conflict, which bowed at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, and received a Silver Plaque award at the 1993 Chicago International Film Festival.   “Shooting ?” was also chosen for the Boston, Seattle, Oldenburg, Rimini, and Human Rights Film Festivals, and was theatrically released in Germany.

                                                                 

Suzanne’s  screenplay  “The Chocolate Kandinsky” is the winner of the California International Shorts Film Festival Best Screenplay Award and the  2012 Moondance Film Festival’s Spirit of Moondance Award.

      Contact:

      suzannegriffin1@yahoo.com

      mobile: 917.576.1860

 

Suzanne was Co-writer and Assistant Editor on the documentary projects “Going Up to Birmingham” and “Lift Every Voice”, a history of voting rights in the American South, for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, produced by Jacqueline Shearer (American Experience).    Suzanne has worked as an editor on projects as diverse as a multi-screen video wall for Sony’s presentation at the NAB conference, and the 35 mm animated commercial “Kisses” for The Ink Tank. 

Suzanne also wrote additional dialogue for the award-winning short dramatic film “Heart of Gold” (Dir: Guido Jimenez-Cruz), which screened at the NewFilmmakers Short Film Program in New York in 2001.

Suzanne is a member of New York Women in Film and Television.