Christopher Shank Screenwriter / Writer-Director

The damage
is done.
The story
starts there.

Christopher Shank
Screenwriter / Writer-Director
Atlanta, Georgia

Drama / Horror / Dark comedy /
Near-future science fiction

Read the work
Christopher Shank writing at a desk
Grief.
Guilt.
Bad blood.
The long drive home.
Portrait of Christopher Shank against a brick wall

02 / About

I write about people
who know better.

They do it anyway.

The father is dead. The marriage is bad. The phone rang and nobody answered.

By page one, the damage is already in the room.

I’m interested in what people do when the excuses stop working.

Read the rest

The receipts.

The work has been read, rejected, rewritten, placed, and sent back out.

These are the times it made the cut.

Austin Film Festival
Richmond International Film Festival
Atlanta Film Festival
Nashville Film Festival
Vail Film Festival

21 festival and competition recognitions View the full record

03 / Films

In development / Short film

Keep Driving

On the anniversary of his daughter’s death, a grieving rideshare driver accepts an enormous fare from a mysterious passenger whose impossible destination forces both men to decide whether leaving is escape, sacrifice, or another way of abandoning the people who need them.

Script locked
In development
Atlanta, Georgia

A script can hide.

A film has to stand up in public.

These are the ones leaving the page.

View the film
Headlights approaching on a dark road, a visual reference for Keep Driving
Visual reference: still from Midnight Special

04 / Between Drafts

Not a newsletter.
Not a brand.

Notes from the part of the process that doesn’t photograph well.

Writing. Failure. Bad ideas. Better drafts. The lies people tell when they call something finished.

Read the field notes

05 / Contact

Have something real?

Script requests. Assignments. Development. Directing. Press.

If the conversation has somewhere to go, start it.

Christopher Shank
Atlanta, Georgia

Start here

01 / Work

The finished
ones.

Original features. Shorts. Private samples written inside other people’s worlds.

Some I can't show you because you can't sell someone else's work or likeness, be they Heckerling, McFarlane, The Bard, or Hangman from Top Gun: Maverick.

Some are ready to make. Some are here to prove what I can do. None of them are filler.

Scripts are available to verified industry professionals by request.

Project Archive

02 / Films

Get it off
the page.

Writing is private. Production is where the excuses run out.

The actor has to say it. The camera has to see it. The cut has to survive without the paragraph explaining what everybody meant.

That’s the proof.

03 / Journal

Between
drafts.

No lessons from the mountaintop.

Just notes from the climb, the fall, the rewrite, and the part where you discover the scene you loved was the one killing the script.

Field Notes

04 / About

The damage
stays in.

Direct portrait of Christopher Shank

01 / Where It Comes From

I grew up in the Midwest, around dead-end towns, masculine silence, and families that could step around the thing killing them without ever saying its name.

That material followed me south.

Most of my stories begin after the damage is done.

A father is dead. A marriage is already breaking. A brother did not answer the phone. Somebody stayed too long, lied too well, or mistook survival for living.

Then comes the only question that matters:

Now what?

02 / What The Work Is

Drama when the truth is enough.

Horror when it isn’t.

Dark comedy because people say funny things at funerals and unforgivable things in kitchens.

Near-future science fiction when technology finds a way to monetize the wound.

Adaptations and private specs when somebody else’s world is worth trespassing into.

Different genres. Same pressure point.

People usually know the right thing to do.

Then life sends the invoice.

I like films that trust silence, punish sentimentality, and leave the bruise unexplained.

03 / What I’m Doing Now

I hold an MFA in screenwriting.

My scripts have been recognized by Austin, Nashville, Vail, Richmond, Atlanta, and other film festivals and screenplay programs.

I’m currently moving Keep Driving toward production.

It began with a trailer I misunderstood and became a film I could no longer leave on the page. That is usually how I know the work has found the nerve.

I’m based in Atlanta.
Los Angeles knows my name.
MFA / Screenwriting
Features / Shorts / Assignments
Writer-Director
Available for development and collaboration

Recognition

The
receipts.

Nobody owes a screenplay their attention.

These people gave mine some.

Selected festival, competition, and fellowship recognition for original features and shorts.

    05 / Contact

    Have something
    real?

    Script requests. Writing assignments. Development. Directing. Press.

    I’m not interested in collecting contacts.

    I’m interested in the conversation that leads somewhere.

    Atlanta, Georgia

    404

    Wrong
    room.

    Whatever you came for isn’t here.

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