2024 IPPY Bronze Medalist - West Pacific Fiction

Hollywood, the American film industry, is one of the most lucrative and competitive businesses in the world. It's where dreams become real, men act like gods, and heroes turn into monsters... both on the screen and off.

JACOB IS CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

Insulted by his family and emotionally neglected by his friends, Jacob Andrezj ends his Junior Year at Boston's prestigious Whitman University more determined than ever to become Hollywood's next great auteur. But when a chance encounter with an older man turns unexpectedly personal, Jacob's calculated plans go awry as he reevaluates who he is and what he really wants from life.

WHALE'S NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Gentle LA neophyte Whale has put all his eggs in one basket with his dream internship working for an Oscar-winning producer. After a disastrous first day nearly disqualifies him from winning the job, Whale finds himself fighting uphill to keep his future career alive, learning firsthand how backwards and immoral the shimmering City of Angels really is.

DREW COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER

Executive producer Drew Lawrence is a household name worth billions in the box office. He's also a coke addicted alcoholic nymphomaniac with out of control anger issues and a crippling insecurity complex. Desperate to salvage what's left of his life, Drew decides to distance himself from his lucrative brand of derivative blockbusters and reestablish his artistic reputation before it's all too late, even if it means turning his longtime business partner into a vengeful adversary.

Intercutting three seemingly unrelated stories using both prose and screenplay format, ANDREZJ OF HOLLYWOOD is a postmodern epic with complicated characters, heart-wrenching pathos, and one bonkers plot twist after another, a deconstruction of masculinity, success, and fiction itself that explores themes of dysfunctional relationships, fate versus free will, the relevance of tradition in an increasingly atheistic world, the sharp difference between reality and the lies we tell ourselves, and the dangers of pack mentality.