Greg Kaufmann Wins the Second Film DC Screenwriting Competition

District resident Greg Kaufmann's original screenplay, Rooster, was named the winner of the Second Film DC Screenwriting Competition sponsored by the Washington, DC Office of Motion Picture and TV Development and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities. As part of the winning prize, Kaufmann will travel to Los Angeles, California January 22 - 23 to visit the set of the Emmy award-winning television series The West Wing, meet the writers, and appear as a featured extra in an episode of the hit series. The award-winning script, Rooster, is the story of Joseph Kogod, an elderly Jewish man living in Washington, DC who was once abandoned as a boy in Poland. He has come to America and built a good life for his family. Though he is happy, he never speaks of the past and is routinely haunted by nightmares. Reluctantly, Joseph begins to unveil the story of his childhood. It is a story of abandonment, survival, difficult choices, and ultimately reconciliation through facing the demons that remain in one's life. The parallels between past and present are revealed and the fabric that binds generations is richly woven. Greg Kaufmann was born and raised in Washington, DC. He attended Sidwell Friends before leaving the city to study at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He also attended the Graduate Creative Writing Program at the Miami University in Ohio. Greg returned to Washington, DC in 1999. Since that time he has worked for the Am Kolel Judaic Resource Center developing a multicultural coffeehouse for teens and a Center of Inclusiveness in Jewish Life to work with inter-religious families.