Kid

Hunter Waters is in his final year at school, but his life is far from that of an idealistic teenager. As he struggles to overcome hardships at home and school, he finds solace in his history teacher and a local girl who help him believe there is still hope for a brighter future.

  • Jordan Hopa
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Number of Pages:
    106
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Manhattan Film Festival
    Manhattan, New York
    June 11, 2026
    Finalist
  • New York Script Awards
    New York, New York
    February 16, 2026
    Finalist
  • Chicago Script Awards
    Chicago, Illinois
    December 22, 2025
    Finalist
  • Best Script Award - London
    London, England
    January 5, 2026
    Finalist
  • Oxford Script Awards
    Oxford, England
    April 2, 2026
    Finalist
  • Cambridge Script Festival
    Cambridge, London
    May 18, 2026
    Finalist
  • Katra Film Series (Top 100)
    Brooklyn, New York
    April 7, 2026
    Quarter-Finalist
  • Vail Film Festival Screenplay Contest
    Vail, Colorado
    December 7, 2025
    Quarter-Finalist
  • Sacramento International Film Festival/American Writers Conference
    Sacramento, California
    December 12, 2025
    Official Selection
  • Utah Film Festival (Top 100)
    Vineyard, Utah
    November 8, 2025
    Screenplay Spotlight
Writer Biography - Jordan Hopa

Filmmaker Jordan Hopa grew up in Invercargill, New Zealand, at the bottom of the world, before moving to Dunedin to study at the University of Otago, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film, Media, and Communication. During his time at university, Jordan immersed himself in storytelling, writing screenplays while shooting everything from concert videos to student films. It was there that he discovered his passion for filmmaking, a passion that has continued to shape his life and creative vision today.

After graduating, Jordan moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he signed with his first agency and appeared in a range of short films and commercials. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a standstill, he returned home to New Zealand and settled in Auckland, where he turned his full attention toward feature screenwriting.

To date, Jordan has completed five feature screenplays. His coming-of-age drama “Kid,” the very first screenplay he ever wrote, recently underwent extensive rewrites nearly a decade after its original draft. The screenplay has since begun gaining significant momentum on the festival circuit, receiving recognition from multiple international screenplay competitions and attracting encouraging interest from US and UK production companies requesting to read the project.

His latest screenplay, “The Highest Order,” has also begun receiving festival recognition, while his recently completed sports-comedy short film “Every 1’s a Winner!”, based on his feature screenplay of the same name, has already earned official festival selections. With several projects gaining traction internationally, Jordan is continuing to build momentum as an emerging filmmaker driven by a passion for emotionally resonant storytelling.

As a writer, director, producer, and actor, Jordan’s dream is to create and star in his own feature films, bringing deeply personal and cinematic stories to life on the big screen. Influenced by character-driven cinema that blends emotional honesty with visual poetry, he strives to craft films that stay with audiences long after the credits roll.

Film has always been his first love and remains his life’s greatest passion.

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Writer Statement

“Kid” is a coming-of-age drama that I first began writing during my final year of university in 2015, when I was twenty years old, before completing the initial draft the following year. Although I would go on to write several other screenplays afterward, “Kid” always remained deeply personal to me. I chose to step away from it for many years, knowing that one day I would return with greater life experience, emotional maturity and a clearer understanding of the story I truly wanted to tell.

Nearly a decade later, after revisiting the screenplay and undertaking extensive rewrites, I believe “Kid” has finally become the story it was always meant to be. Drawing from personal growth, lived experiences and an evolving perspective on life, I wanted the screenplay to capture both the beauty and pain of growing up. At its heart, the story explores themes of loss of innocence, identity, inner conflict, resilience and the quiet courage it takes to endure difficult moments in life. I also wanted to approach the coming-of-age genre with emotional honesty and weight, portraying adolescence not just as nostalgic, but as transformative, messy and deeply human.

Influenced by films such as “Ordinary People,” “Stand By Me,” “The Holdovers,” “Manchester by the Sea,” “Lady Bird,” “Dead Poets Society,” and “The Fabelmans,” “Kid” follows Hunter Waters, a teenager struggling with injustice, emotional turmoil and the painful complexities of growing up. While fictional, the story draws heavily from emotional truths, including people and experiences from my own life. One example is the headmaster character, inspired by someone from my own school years. Though fictionalized, he represents an older era of education where fear and physical punishment were often used as discipline. In many ways, he embodies the oppressive forces we encounter throughout life and challenges both Hunter and Jack to stand up for themselves, their beliefs and the people they care about.

More than simply a coming-of-age story, “Kid” is ultimately about hope, love and the quiet strength found in human connection. Hunter’s journey reflects something universal within all of us: the struggle to find light in the darkness and the importance of the people who help carry us through life’s most difficult moments.

I am incredibly proud to finally share “Kid” with the world, and I hope it resonates with audiences as deeply as it has with those closest to me.