Leah Saint Marie – 2025 Short Film Script Finalist
Evil for Evil
After her church pressures her to forgive the man who killed her daughters, Esther journeys into the Ohio woods to find the old Appalachian gods to turn her into a monster to exact her own vengeance.
Leah Saint Marie is an investigative journalist turned filmmaker. During her time as a reporter for the Innocence Institute she helped exonerate a man from prison who had spent 25 years wrongfully convicted.
As a filmmaker she wrote the award-winning documentary, Price of Honor, which got Yaser Said on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted (the documentary led to his eventual arrest in 2021). Her script, Spoonful of Sugar, premiered at Fantastic Fest (2022) and was sold to Shudder. Her short film, Good Girl, won the Paris International Film Festival.
For two years she served as a field producer for the social justice documentary film company, Brave New Films, where she traveled around the United States on a Ford grant interviewing youth activists.
Her poetry book, The Eaten, is available through April Gloaming Publishing. She’s producing the podcasts, Before the Fade, and Pitch!
She’s set to direct her next feature film, My Marcello in Italy in 2025.
She’s also directing her folk horror feature film, Sister’s Bell, in Scotland in winter 2026. Her short folk horror film is half funded and she’s directing it in June 2025.
She’s been published in The New York Times, and The L.A. Times. She currently lives and writes in Los Angeles, CA, along with her cat, Edith Piaf.
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