TITLE: Ride of Passage
AUTHOR: Cindy J. Weigand
GENRE: Coming-of-age

LOGLINE: A thirteen-year-old girl goes on a forbidden horseback riding adventure with two friends. If caught, there would be hell to pay, but sometimes you just have to break the rules.

To Kill of Mockingbird meets The Secret Life of Bees

Excerpt from Flight Deck Film Festival Critique Analysis

★★★★★ Critical Analysis

“When I finished reading Ride of Passage, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Cindy J. Weigand had given me something more than a coming-of-age story. What she offered was a meditation on resilience, friendship, and the way innocence bends—but doesn’t fully break—when it collides with loss, danger, and the often unforgiving realities of rural life. From the very first pages, I was taken by Axelle’s voice, that clear and unflinching narration of a young girl standing at the threshold between childhood adventure and adult responsibility.”

 AUTHOR NOTES:

Having watched a lot of films, I noticed an absence of stories about adventurous girls. Most coming-of-age movies focus on crushes on boys, their first kiss and losing their virginity. Neither is extreme dysfunctional families. To me, coming of age involves so much more. I wanted to write something different. The story harkens back to the time when I grew up.

Ride of Passage addresses themes of racial bias, malicious gossip and despicable intent. All of this Axelle must navigate without guidance from her parents because the family unit has been wounded by tragedy. Through grit and the strength of friendship, Axelle traverses all of this and takes her first steps into womanhood.

The story harkens back to the author’s childhood memories growing up. Reflections of people and events, real and imagined, transformed in memory and imagination with the passage of time.

CindyWeigand.com
cjweigand0110@gmail.com
512.818.0472

TITLE: Sky Carnival: Flying with Big Jack & Mavis

GENRE: Drama, period piece with aviation theme

AUTHOR: Cindy J. Weigand

LOGLINE: In the Roaring Twenties, a young pilot from the country joins an elite flying group and becomes its star performer.

High Road to China (1983) meets The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

SUMMARY:
Confident of his aerobatic skills, JACK ASHCRAFT joins the Gates Flying Circus in the Roaring Twenties. Soon, he becomes their star performer. MAVIS PERKINS is living a life that is the envy of her friends. She’s earned her pilot’s license, and the newspaper she started is doing well. Working during the week, she flies airplanes evenings and weekends. The two are worlds apart—a society girl from New York and a vagabond of the air from a small town. But that combination proves to be part of the intrigue, and their relationship makes for a wild and thrilling ride that touches both their lives in ways neither could have expected.

AUTHOR NOTES:
Born in Oklahoma Territory and raised in Kansas, this story is based on the life of my great uncle John W. “Jack” Ashcraft, Jr. The narrative is further inspired by real people and events in the aviation scene of the 1920s. Source material were numerous newspaper articles, letters and family histories. Not since High Road to China has there been a film that includes a female pilot in the Roaring Twenties. There hasn’t been a film about civil aviation in the era since The Great Waldo Pepper.

GFC was arguably the biggest and best exhibition flying organization of its time. Air shows remain as popular as ever attracting millions of spectators each year. Gates was one of the first.

Aptly named, the Roaring Twenties were a raucous time—speakeasies, nightclubs, flappers, wild dancing, women pushing their boundaries having recently been allowed to vote. And of course, romance. Pilots were the rockstars of the day, aviation a spectacle. Add a little Gatsby to the mix. Sky Carnival: Flying with Jack & Mavis has it all.

The movie is a high concept, high budget film that brings aviation history of the 1920s alive. High Road to China meets The Great Waldo Pepper.

I desire to sell the script and be a part of production as writer.

Cindy Weigand
www.CindyWeigand.com
cjweigand0110@gmail.com
512.818.0472