Martin Keady, who lives in London, was announced as the Screenplay Award winner for the feature film category in the Page Turner Awards. This was announced at a glittering online ceremony, where Paul Michael Glaser, from Starsky and Hutch fame, was a special guest to announce the winners.
The Page Turner Awards, sponsored by ProWritingAid and Campfire, offers authors, writers, and screenwriters the chance to enter the first 10 pages of their writing project, where a judging panel of literary experts and film producers will read the work.
Keady is a multi-award-winning dramatist, whose major credits include Saving Shakespeare, a six-part animated TV series about the life and work of Shakespeare that is currently being produced by Greek animators, vktoons.com, for 2022 release.
Man of Colour is a biopic of Walter Tull, one of Britain's first black professional footballers, and became one of the greatest heroes of World War One.
The film is really five stories in one: a coming-of-age story; a sports film; a war movie; and a Greek Tragedy. And all these things really happened to one remarkable man - Walter Tull – and hopefully now his story can finally be told.
Walter became one of Britain's first black professional footballers.
Keady first discovered Walter Tull's story nearly 15 years ago, when he was at perhaps the lowest ebb of my life, because it seemed that his childhood dream of becoming a writer would never be fulfilled as an adult.
Tull's story, which is a truly epic tale of overcoming almost impossible odds to make something of yourself, revived Keady and in writing the story, he was inspired by Walter Tull himself never to give up, whatever the obstacles or odds he faced.
Now I sincerely hope that winning the Page Turner Screenplay Award 2021 will be one of the last steps I take in seeing Walter's story all the way through from initial, hazy idea to final, completed film.
Keady said: “The story of Walter Tull does not just deserve to be told; it DEMANDS to be told. And I hope that winning the Page Turner Screenplay Award will mean that demand is finally answered. I am truly indebted to the Page Turner Screenplay Award, which I hope will be instrumental in Man of Colour finally being filmed, in memory of and tribute to one of Britain’s greatest heroes, the remarkable Walter Tull.”
This year, aspiring writers walked off the red carpet with life-changing prizes. One new unpublished writer won literary agency representation, while a screenwriter won literary management. Another new writer won a publishing deal, seven independent authors won an audiobook production from Spectrum Audiobooks, plus one other won a publishing package (including an edit, book cover and book trailer), and another author won a book adaptation.
The Page Turner Awards winners can be found here: https://pageturnerawards.com/2021-winners
Submissions for the 2022 Awards will open in January 2022. Find out how you too can enter your writing into The Page Turner Awards: https://pageturnerawards.com
