Finding Star

TAGLINE: When the life you're running away from is the one you've always wanted.

LOGLINE: When a snarky Los Angeles food blogger returns home to visit her dying aunt, she finds the "country girl" image she's been trying to shed is the life she's been looking for.

SUMMARY: Running from her "country-girl past" by living in the fast lanes of Los Angeles, where she is on the verge of landing her dream job in television, sassy food blogger Star Saldana has her world rocked when she learns her "other mother," Aunt Pim, is dying of cancer back home in Austin, Texas. After flying home to spend time with Pim, Star's dream job is given to someone else, forcing her to confront the "country-girl skin" she's been trying so hard to shed, especially when she must enter a local barbecue competition in order to win enough money to save Pim's beloved restaurant from being repossessed. Trouble is, Star doesn't know the first thing about cooking barbecue.

  • James Houston Turner
    Writer
    Square Pegs. The Talanov series of action novels.
  • Tara Lynn Marcelle
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Genres:
    Family Drama, Dramedy, Inspirational
  • Number of Pages:
    105
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Writer Biography - James Houston Turner, Tara Lynn Marcelle

Winner of numerous awards, including "Best Thriller," bestselling author JAMES HOUSTON TURNER is known for his Aleksandr Talanov series of spy novels. A native of Kansas, James Houston Turner has been writing since he was ten. He attended high school in Kansas before graduating from Baker University with a bachelor's degree. He then moved to Texas, where he earned his master's degree from the University of Houston (Clear Lake).

James worked as a smuggler into Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe, where he transported tons of food, clothing, Bibles, and medical supplies, to needy hospitals and churches. While there, he interviewed many heroes of death camps, gulags, Siberian exile, persecution, illness, hardship, and torture, including assassination squads.

James is also a cancer survivor after doctors in Australia removed a tumor the size of an orange from his face. "I was told if I lived eighteen months I would probably live to be one hundred. That was in 1991, so I am happy to report I am well on my way toward that goal. These experiences influenced my storytelling, whether in magazines, novels, or, now, in film. My stories are 'overcomer stories,' because that's what I've had to do, and is why I want my stories to leave people with the same hope and faith that strengthened me." He has written several screenplays, and produced his first feature film, Square Pegs, in 2022. After nearly twenty years in Australia, James and his wife, Wendy, now live in Austin, Texas.

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TARA LYNN MARCELLE grew up in a filmmaking family and spent most of her childhood on set, where she learned various aspects of the industry from production, directing, and acting. In 2006, she moved to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where she co-wrote the country's first feature film, Morning Comes So Soon (2008), with the help of the United Nations. The film was an official selection of the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF).

In 2009, Tara returned to the States, and has since written or co-written over thirteen feature films and shorts which have received distribution or have been green-lit for production. Screenplays include 'Discarded Things', 'Heaven Sent', and 'An Angelic Christmas', streaming on the Pure Flix platform. Her short film, 'Bennie', received 20 award-winning laurels including Best Short Film at Global Shorts, Barcelona, and the Hollywood International Film Festival. Her feature films and screenplays have picked up awards at the Raleigh Film and Art Festival, Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Competition, Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards, and the Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition.

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Writer Statement

The country-music-rich world of barbecue provides a colorful backdrop for this romantic dramedy about discovering who you are when life kicks you in the guts. “I’ve grown a lot over the years,” says creator, James Houston Turner, who with his wife, Wendy, has survived cancer and the loss of a child. “How do you respond when confronted by hardship and tragedy? That is what Finding Star is about. It’s about having your limits pushed, digging deep, and deciding what’s really important. I've had to overcome a lot, and my faith played a huge part in that, so I wanted to capture the emotional struggle and humor of someone being tossed into the proverbial ‘deep end’ and learning to swim really fast!”