Reviews/ Awards
character-driven, true, unblinking, scriptwriting
Select Reviews
Stage
The Best of Days
...Christopher Ellis invents a contemporary pagan-centric Christmas celebration. Juniper and Lark, enigmatic storytellers living in a remote cabin, relate three intricate folktales that illuminate the poignant, obscure origins of many Christmas traditions (broom-riding La Befana, for example, flies through the night searching for the Christ child and bringing gifts to children until vainglorious Saint Nicholas muscles in on her turf). All the while the audience, seated at communal tables, feast on wine, wassail, Christmas pie, and sugar cookies. Performers DeZhané Rouse and Zoë Sapienza bring refreshing irreverence to their serious task.
-Justin Hayford, The Chicago Reader
Zero Wun Niner Tango Copy
Christopher Ellis' heart-breaking Zero Wun Niner Tango Copy reimagined a painful relationship. The idea of flight takes on opposing ideas: the soaring sense of early love and the desire to flee an empty comfort zone.
-Lucia Mauro, The Chicago Tribune
The Broken Museum
The Broken Museum is an intelligent puzzle of a play during which pieces fall into place like toppling dominos... Christopher Ellis' short play does not go out of its way to make the audience feel at home. That is part of the beauty and challenge of The Broken Museum.
-Catey Sullivan, Nightlines
The Fatal Gift of Beauty & Other Plays
Christopher has a great way of putting the humanity on the page. and letting you, the reader, sit with it... There is no false drama. No manufactured crisis. A formula piece would find a way to manufacture a happy ending. But Christopher rises above such temptation, he will not allow good luck to fall from the sky.
- Phil Donlon, director of The Man in the Silo
Select Reviews
Film
The Man in the Silo
Some would call it experimental, even confounding. I call it compelling and spooky and thrilling...
-Rick Kogan, The Chicago Tribune
Defies explanation... Part psychological study, part suspense thriller and part experimental film...
-Indiewire
Man in the Silo, about a black man tormented by his senile white mother-in-law, makes a compelling stylistic homage to Tsukamoto's Tetsuo II: Body Hammer ( or maybe David Lynch's recent music videos?), and though I can't say I liked it, I haven't been able to forget it.
-Moviemaker
Wrestled
Wrestled is the clear standout... A man pays a prostitute to sit with him in his car as he reads to her from the Bible. The situation remains enigmatic: Is the man an evangelist or a fetishist? Does the hooker return to his car repeatedly, or is this his obsessive fantasy?
-Ted Shen, The Chicago Reader
Wrestled... is a thought-provoking film that wrestles with a spiritual quandary... the battle to change a life in an unconventional and controversial way... wrestled is a gritty film and a wonderful gem that leaves you asking for more.
-Dan Lothian, West-Coast Correspondent NBC News
Awards
Screenplay/ Play Awards
Nominee: Best TV Pilot Drama: Bad Ass Bitch, Austin Revolution Film Festival
Quarter-Finalist: The Scenic Route, Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards
Semi-Finalist: Angels & Monsters, Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Awards
Selected: Angels & Monsters, Page Turner
Finalist: Bad Ass Bitch, Black Screenplays Matter
Best Short: Avenging Angel, Bare Bones International Film Festival
Best Short: Dirt., Bare Bones International Film Festival
Finalist: Avenging Angel, Hollyshorts Film Festival
Selected: Dirt., Edward Albee Theatre Festival
Screenplay Awards: The Rampart
Winner: Illinois International Film Festival
Finalist: Action on Film Film Festival
Semi-Finalist: Austin Revolution Film Festival
Quarter-Finalist: ScreenCraft Action & Thriller Contest
Full-Length Finalist: Bare Bones International Film Festival
Film Awards: The Man in the Silo
Best Feature: Texas Black Film Festival
Best Feature: Bare Bones International Film Festival
Selected: AMFM
Selected: Black Harvest
Selected: Langston Hughes African-American
Selected: San Diego Black Film Festival.
Film Awards: Wrestled
Best Drama: Orion Awards
Excellence in Filmmaking: Grand Goldie Award
Nominee Best Short: Slamdunk Film Festival
Selected: Dahlonega International Film Festival
Selected: Damah
Selected: Flickerings
Selected: The Midwest Independent Film Festival
screened for "Made on Mac Series" hosted by Roger Ebert, LA Center Studios
sold and shown on Independent Film Channel
To option, purchase, or read please get in touch:
312.576.7236
writing manager, Ryan Jacobson
all scripts registered with WGA