Love on the Other Side
An original screenplay by Phyliss Shanken
Short Synopsis
Love on the Other Side is about 30 year old Victor who lives in the gay community and is taken off guard when he falls in love with Olivia, a flirtatious woman who, molested as a child, now denies herself sexual pleasure. They become each other’s rescue and redemption, despite interference from well-wishers.
Love on the Other Side is not about being gay or straight. At its heart, it’s about LOVE, about two people who, until now, are too damaged inside to love anyone.
Phyliss Shanken, right, directs Jerome Bethea and Kaycee Clark in her screenplay, Love on the Other Side.
Psychologist Wins Screenplay Award
October 16, 2005 - Local North Penn area psychologist and Spring House resident, Phyliss Shanken, took home the award for Best Live Script Reading for her screenplay, Love on the Other Side from the Bare Bones Script-2-Screen International Film Festival. The festival, deemed “Oklahoma’s Sundance,” is the largest film festival in Oklahoma, showing 70 films from 24 states and three countries. She was a semi-finalist in the script writing contest.
Since Shanken was unable to attend the red carpet walk and awards ceremony, Jerome Bethea, lead actor, and winner of a number of acting awards, accepted the award on her behalf. He said, "As an actor I was incredibly impressed with Phyliss Shanken's thought-provoking and psychologically sound screenplay. Because of her eloquent dialogue, the words just flowed off of my tongue. Her deep understanding of her characters and ability to convey it to us enhanced our performance and demonstrated her rare aptitude as a director.”
Patricia McDoulett, on the Board of Directors for the Oklahoma Film Society and founding member, attended the live reading and has taken an interest in finding producers and funding for the film. She said, “This is an awesome screenplay: The way you directed it helped the actors dynamically bring it to life. It was like a powerful smorgasbord: a lot of little flavors of feelings and reflections. Even though an abridged version was presented, I was so deeply involved, it brought tears to my eyes and made me want to stay for “dessert.” Because you presented it in such an open, truthful way about two people who had been victims, we could see ourselves in a deeper mirror, prompting us to look inside and make us wonder, to know there’s always hope.”
Producers, Vivian and Carl Adams, winners of "Audience Choice for Best Film of the Festival" and "Best Movie Soundtrack" for their feature, Soulmates, and whose movie premiere set an attendance record for the history of the festival, had this to say:
"We were very impressed with Love on the Other Side. It is awesome. Phyliss Shanken addressed very delicate topics in a very sensitive and nonjudgmental manner. Even with the shortened, thirty-minute script, the characters were well-developed, humanly imperfect, yet likable and worthy. We felt a full range of emotions from pity, sorrow, anger, joy, and triumph. All of us could identify with people who have suffered, but who find the courage to fight for happiness; people who hide painful secrets; people who seek love and approval; and people who come to terms with their past to face their future. We would very much like to see her script made into a movie and we would be among the first to buy tickets.”
Short Biography
Winner of Best Live Screenplay Reading award and a semi-finalist in the Bare Bones Script-2-Screen International Film Festival, Phyliss Shanken served as a script consultant for Susan Seidelman's feature film, Boyton Beach Club(2006).
In addition to 32 years in private practice as a psychologist, she is a human relations consultant, public speaker to over 300 audiences, has been published in psychology, literary and poetry journals, received poetry awards, and has been a newspaper and national magazine columnist. She is Director of Psychological Services at INTROSPECT in Colmar, PA, a private practice of 20 practitioners who treat at least 450 patients per week.
For more information
about Phyliss Shanken, go to: introspectcare.com/phyliss.html
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