Cheri Newton is a screenwriter, playwright and novelist whose work blends historical drama, romance, and metaphysical themes, often exploring complex narratives set across multiple timelines or cultures. Her screenplays have earned significant industry recognition, placing in the Top 20% of the Academy Nicholl Fellowships and reaching the Semi-Finals of the Moondance International Film Festival. Additionally, her short play The Letter has been recognized within Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Award for New Drama Writing. From this work, she is developing her novel Mrs. Newton’s Cottage. She holds a Master’s Degree in Media and Popular Culture and is dedicated to creating high stakes, intellectual property with strong cross-media potential.
LAW OF SIMILARS (AKA THE HOMEOPATH’S DAUGHTER) (Feature)
Framed by a mysterious 1920 train journey across colonial India, this epic drama follows a defiant female homeopath who fights her way through medical school in Gilded Age Philadelphia, challenging a ruthless medical establishment while carrying memory of a passionate love affair that years of separation could not extinguish. A fateful reunion in London gives the lovers one transcendent week together, before fate tears them apart forever. In the wake of that loss, she turns her grief into a calling, choosing India and devoting her hard-won knowledge to healing women and the poor in its slums.
Comparable to James Ivory/Ismail Merchant classics, like Remains of the Day or Howard’s End, or David Lean’s Passage to India with romantic and intellectual stakes. A pitch deck and script are available upon request.
MUDLARKS (Feature )
A clairvoyant archeology graduate student in London discovers that her intuitive abilities reveal buried truths in historical sites-but her professor is secretly working with developers erasing cultural history for profit. As she uncovers a mysterious Celtic tomb underneath a London Pub that undermines her professor’s thesis, she is forced to use her own intuition and, with the help of a sidelined local firefighter turned mudlark, she fights for the truth hidden in the Thames’ murky waters.
Mudlarks, set in London, ranked in the Top 20% of Academy Nicholl Fellowships. Series potential: An archaeological thriller with potential for global reach. The next in the series, Mudlarks II, commences on the Orient Express, is set in Venice, and is presently being drafted. An Series Roadmap of Mudlarks is available. A Pitch Deck and full script are also available.
MRS. NEWTON’S COTTAGE (a work in progress- a Novel first -but with prestige limited series potential)
Three Mrs. Newtons spanning different centuries in England, (1760’s, 1920’s and 1980’s) live artistic and unconventional lives bound by a shared legacy. Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, yielding learning for the modern age Mrs. Newton, who, in uncovering buried family secrets, attempts to write a guide to love and life to share the women’s life insights, wisdom about family, healing and familial love.
This is a fiction tale but it draws upon the real life family of deceased British actor Robert Newton, who emerged from the family who were the Newton side of the artistic paint innovators Winsor-Newton .
LOVE IN AN AGE OF WAR (Feature)
After a wildfire destroys her dream of opening her dream patisserie in Santa Barbara California, a struggling chef travels with her best friend to her hometown in Russia and joins a deceptive matchmaking scheme in order to fund her restart-only to find herself caught between deception, unexpected love and a life changing moral choice. Romance/Adventure/Drama that received Semi-Finalist in Moondance International Film Festival.
HULA (Feature)
A high-profile London couple converges at the location of their honeymoon in Kauai after their twenty-five-year-marriage is threatened by infidelity. Chased by paparazzi and joined by their concerned family members- and a love-struck colleague, the couple, with the help of Hawaiian Elders and local traditions, confront buried truths about their marriage, fame, and the version of themselves they built their lives on. Sumptuously beautiful settings, rich characters- with a strong touch into Europeans learning from the ancient wisdom of Hawaiian culture.