The Film

A completed feature screenplay adapted from the novel A Protocol for Grace.

A Protocol for Grace is a character-driven drama that begins inside the procedural world of child protection and gradually opens into a larger metaphysical mystery.

Anne, a child-protection social worker, is assigned to the case of eight-year-old Grace, whose alleged abuse points to her respected religious-leader father, Reverend James Roberts. The familiar institutional structures of interviews, home visits, court proceedings, and professional judgment are not enough to protect her.

Anne’s professional world is upended when this seemingly ordinary case reveals that Grace may be the catalyst for humanity’s final reckoning—one that is not about what we believe, but about how we collectively treat our children.

Beyond human comprehension, mysterious universal travelers known as the Entities have been observing humanity through its treatment of children. Grace may be more than a child caught inside a failing system.

She may be the Touchstone by which humanity itself is being measured.

A heavy, leather-bound book titled only by an embossed symbol, its cover scuffed and burnished like something passed through many lives, lies open on a long oak table in a darkened, high-ceilinged room. Legal folders, case files, and a single tarnished brass key surround it in careful disarray. A shaft of cool, bluish moonlight falls from an unseen window, meeting the warm pool of a desk lamp so the pages glow at their center while edges dissolve into shadow. The mood is tense yet reverent, suggesting both child-protection bureaucracy and hidden metaphysical rules. Shot in cinematic realism from a slightly elevated angle, with a shallow depth of field that blurs the distant shelves into a soft, mysterious haze.
A rain-slick modern city street at night viewed from above, glistening with reflections. Neon signs and traffic lights smear across the wet asphalt, but in one intersection the reflections bend subtly into a vast, luminous circle inscribed with barely-perceptible sigils, hinting at a metaphysical protocol hiding in plain sight. Nearby, the dark silhouette of a courthouse and a child-services building stand in sober contrast, their windows dim. The scene is lit by cinematic, high-contrast sodium and LED streetlights with a cool, desaturated palette punctuated by that strange, iridescent circle. Shot from a high, almost surveillance-like angle with a long lens that compresses distance, the mood is ominous yet orderly, suggesting unseen governance and moral stakes without revealing specific plot details.

A CINEMATIC WORLD

The film moves between two distinct but increasingly connected worlds: the grounded reality of child protection and the luminous, abstract realm of the Entities.

The human world is functional and reactive—homes, offices, hospitals, courtrooms, and churches—places where decisions are made that can profoundly affect the lives of children.

The Entities introduce a contrasting visual language of darkness, light, color, movement, intensity, and vibration. As the story progresses, the boundary between these worlds begins to dissolve.

The supernatural does not replace the human story. It enlarges the question at its center:

What do we collectively owe our children—and what happens when we fail them?

THE FEATURE SCREENPLAY

A Protocol for Grace is a completed feature screenplay adapted from the novel of the same name by Christine Enking and Mark Storry.

The screenplay brings the novel’s child-protection story, spiritual questions, and metaphysical architecture into a cinematic narrative centered on Anne’s journey from professional observer to witness.

At its heart is a story about responsibility, belief, and the courage required to see the truth and bear witness to how we treat our children.

Screenplay, synopsis, pitch deck, and additional project materials are available for professional consideration.

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