Judith C Posey – 2026 Feature Screenplay Finalist
Wildcats
As World War II draws to a close, a housewife turned aircraft mechanic wrestles with her hero husband’s death, a disappearing independence, and the secret love she's not yet ready to lose.
After many nail-biting years as an independent producer in the music video and commercial world, I agreed to help a friend in the prop department of a small Maggie Gyllenhaal film, driving the manual shift hero car to set each day. From the Subaru’s sweat-soaked cloth seats, I saw the filmmaking process from a new perspective — one that ultimately turned into a career as a Property Master in film and television. My credits include Steven Soderbergh’s Command Z, the psychological thriller Eileen starring Anne Hathaway, and Song Sung Blue. Working with actors like Hathaway, Paul Mescal, Naomi Watts and Hugh Jackman, I’ve seen firsthand how confidence in a well-constructed character allows actors — and their directors — to push far beyond what’s on the page.
Diagnosed with a speech impediment when I was five, I learned to write early and never stopped. It was the place where I could say exactly what I wanted to say, exactly how I wanted to say it. I’ve searched out writing programs and classes at every level of my education; sprinting up the hill from RISD to creative writing classes at Brown and taking a mini tour of novelist’s Brooklyn apartments through New York’s Sackett Street writers and other writer’s groups. While I have no allegiance to any one genre, I’m always trying to build great characters — ones that can transform a simple story. I’m drawn to twisted family drama, unreliable narrators, enduring friendships and anything with twins or horses. Someday, I will write a good horror movie.
Beyond my work as a Prop Master, I’ve directed music videos and an award-winning visual album, and my screenplays have earned top placements at festivals. I was recently a semi-finalist at Austin Film Festival with The Bells, which was also chosen as CineStory’s 2024 Fellowship winner.
The idea for Wildcats had been circling for years, but after attending CineStory — where a mentor liked the seed of the idea — I began outlining in earnest. I purchased a collection of letters off Ebay from a woman named Harriet, working in a Wisconsin lumber mill while her fiancé served overseas as a pilot. She wrote with enormous pride — about the splinters in her hands, the new strength in her arms, stepping up when her boss was injured. She often mentioned her friend Ellen, and it became clear how essential that bond was. These women quietly filled the jobs of their husbands and brothers, but they did it standing beside one another. Driving home together. Imagining futures across dinner tables.
Everyone knows Rosie the Riveter and the slogan “We Can Do It.” What began as propaganda became something more intimate — a silent message between women discovering their independence. And each other.
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