THOMAS DIGIACINCO
 THOMAS DIGIACINCO
Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
My permanent residence is in Hollis, New Hampshire, but during the winter, I’m in Rancho Mirage, California. Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel? The Stake started with a question I couldn’t shake: what happens when the world decides it doesn’t need you anymore—and you don’t agree? The story is about people who keep showing up after the door’s already closed. Men and women who did what they were supposed to do, only to find the ground shifting under them. They chase an abandoned mining claim not because it’s smart, but because it’s there—and because walking away would mean accepting something they’re not ready to accept. How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline... use index cards... a whiteboard... or just start with FADE IN? A year. I outline, and I use a whiteboard. What is your ultimate ambition as a writer? My ultimate ambition as a screenwriter is to develop intimate stories that entertain and provoke thought. Was your entry at The Wiki Screenplay Contest a full script or “the first ten pages”? Why did you make that choice? The script was in a strong place, and I wanted Wiki’s professional notes to help refine and elevate it. What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show...and why? Mean Streets What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist, as you have? Keep doing the work. What else are you working on that the world needs to know about? Polar Break - As polar bears starve on an ice-free Hudson Bay, a remote Canadian town becomes ground zero for a siege from nature itself. Surrounded by predators driven inland, the town unravels as attacks escalate and containment fails. With evacuation impossible, conservation officers are forced to make impossible choices—balancing human survival with the moral cost of a collapsing Arctic and the consequences of actions that can’t be undone. I wrote this script as both a survival thriller and an environmental reckoning. It’s inspired by real reports of polar bears stranding on land longer each year due to Arctic ice loss, and by the small town of Churchill, Manitoba — a place where wildlife and humans already live in uneasy coexistence. In addition to climate, I wanted to explore control — who owns the narrative during a crisis? A conservation officer trying to hold her ground? A filmmaker looking for a hit? A burned- out wrangler seeking redemption? Polar Break is about those competing voices in the middle of a disaster we made. What readers are saying: “The setting is atmospheric — from the eeriness of the icy wilderness to blood trails in the snow.” — The Black List “A survival story with teeth — beautiful, bleak, mythic, and fiercely urgent.” — BlueCat “A clever, evocative setup that blends natural horror with human consequence… Fans of The Grey and Wind River will feel right at home.” — The Black List “The writer balances the horror of polar bear attacks while showing the bears in a sympathetic light — since none of this is really their fault.” — The Black List “Visually arresting, emotionally grounded, frighteningly plausible — eco-thriller done right.” — Environmental Festival Judge “Sharp, mythic, alive on the page.” — Fade In “A dark folk tale centered around the unexplored effects of climate change.” — The Black List “A cleanly established, viscerally entertaining hook… essentially JAWS with the snowed-in aesthetic of The Grey.”* — The Black List “There’s a pulpy thriller at the heart of this story — and a great market opportunity.” — The Black List “A unique setting with cultural tension, ancient rituals, and unsettling mystery.” — The Black List Recognition: Winner – Best Script Awards UK 2025 Winner – Environmental Film & Screenplay Festival 2025 Semifinalist – Fade In Awards 2025 Semifinalist – Palm Springs International Screenplay Awards 2025 Finalist – Montreal Independent Film Festival 2025 Tropic Shift - A Category 5 hurricane drives Lake Okeechobee toward collapse, forcing three unlikely allies to save Everglades City and South Florida. I wrote Trophic Shift out of a fear we rarely name: that the “isolated” catastrophes we normalize—droughts, floods, storms—are part of the same accelerating collapse. The Everglades, a place where human engineering and wild systems collide, became the perfect stage to explore that dread. At its heart, this story isn’t just about weather; it’s about survival in a world where truth itself is underwater. The characters—an airboat captain haunted by loss, a Seminole activist carrying ancestral knowledge, and a young meteorologist struggling to be heard—embody the fractures of a society unprepared for what’s coming. I believe thrillers can do more than entertain; they can confront us with the consequences of denial, and the resilience that emerges when everything fails. Trophic Shift is my attempt to capture that urgency—a survival story that feels both mythic and frighteningly plausible. |
