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Meet Your Professors

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Donna Bellorado, EdD
Accolades
Lorraine Flett, MA

An Educator/Behavioral Scientist with a post doc from The Mind Body Medical Institute at Harvard, Donna’s career was in public policy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. After years of practice, designing curriculum, teaching, research and writing legislation she became a Pacifica Radio apprentice. There she found her passion for storytelling combining news and social documentary production winning a Peabody nomination.

With fifteen completed scripts plus a short film, Donna has myriad prizes. She is an alumnae of Squaw Valley Writers Group, OIFF Industry Partners Program, and Nostos Writing Community. In each of these opportunities Donna worked with film industry professionals on all aspects of her projects. Two of her feature scripts were optioned: SHOOT by Delroy Lindo/Ceiluna Productions and Details are Done by Jesse Williams/Foreword Productions.

Donna’s mission as a screenwriter is to tell universal stories with strong female protagonists and diverse characters including race, class, gender, LBGTQ+, and age. She combines her experiences and fiction to craft her stories.

Recent Awards: 

2023:

  • Finalist, Aging Out, TV pilot, Santa Barbara Screenplay Awards

2024:

  • Winner, Best TV Pilot, Aging Out, Manchester UK Lift Off 

  • Winner, Best Feature Animation, Homero, Manchester UK Lift Off

  • Winner, Best Coming of Age Feature, Jasper’s Place, Manchester UK Lift Off

  • Semi Finalist, Short Thriller Category, Last Stop, Austin International Art Festival 

  • Semi Finalist, Feature Drama Category, Madeleine, Austin International Art Festival

  • Semi Finalist, Last Stop, Paris International Short Festival

  • Semi Finalist,  Surviving Childhood, Paris International Short Festival

  • Winner, Best Feature Script, Details Are Done, Palermo International Film Festival

  • Quarter Finalist, Feature Comedy Category, Robbing To Write, Page Turner Screenplays 

It's Not Always What It Seems,

a feature romantic comedy, written by Donna and Lorraine, was juried into the Squaw Valley Writers' Conference; garnered two positive recommendations in the prestigious Nichols Awards, and received glowing Hollywood coverage.

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The script garnered the writers recognition by the International Screenwriters Association as among the top Emerging Screenwriters of 2013.

 

The script was among 15 finalists in the 2022 Oaxaca Film Festival.

Lorraine began writing screenplays in 1996 under the tutelage of Northern California's foremost screenwriting teacher, best-selling author and film director, James Dalessandro. When she announced her intention to resign  as Director of Project Management at a global digital advertising agency, Mr. Dalessandro offered her a position as his right-hand person. Integral to his film company San Andreas Films, for 10 years Lorraine participated in every level of  business,  providing coverage for students' scripts, commenting, proofreading and editing everything Mr. Dalessandro produced from pitches to treatments, novels and screenplays, to managing film festivals submissions for the award-winning historical documentary, The Damndesest Finest Ruins for which she was the Production Coordinator and credited as the driving force behind completion of the film.

Lorraine was among the first four students to attend San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking, where she learned the craft of filmmaking and shortly thereafter wrote and produced the indie feature MISMO.

 

In 2023, Lorraine's TV Pilot, The Believer, was a semi-finalist in the Top 5% of Shore Scripts' TV Pilot Contest.



 

 

In 2024, Lorraine won Best Script Writer at the Toronto International Womens Film Festival with her script Ode to Violeta, which was also a semi-finalist in the London International Filmmakers Festival.

 

Lorraine received her Master of Arts  in Filmmaking from Staffordshire University, England, in 2016.

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