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A selection of
Awards
Film
The Black Stuff
Written By
Tray Epps
Logline
When his date mysteriously vanishes on a crowded train in Northern Ireland — along with his passport — an impulsive expat teams up with an eccentric local to uncover a conspiracy that ties agritech power plays, aristocratic secrets, and a pint too many.
Format
Film
Genre
Comedy
Comps
The Tourist’s fish-out-of-water thriller
Meets
The End of the F*ing World’s darkly comic odd-couple dynamic
With an element of
Glass Onion’s twisty mystery energy
the Story
Jamal Murphy has the swagger of someone who doesn’t quite belong — a Black American in Belfast, head of design at TRACTR, on the cusp of a promotion that could change his life. Then he meets Lottie, head of the Farmer’s Union, all sharp wit and stubborn independence. Against better judgment, romance sparks. One Friday night, they board a crowded train to the countryside. Jamal leaves briefly for drinks. When he returns, Lottie — and his coat, with his passport — are gone. Stranded in a town he doesn’t know, with no ID and no idea what just happened, Jamal’s only ally is Callum, a brash, would-be stuntman who spilled coffee on him hours earlier. What starts as a simple missing-person mystery spirals into a conspiracy of agritech power plays, aristocratic family secrets, and the kind of rural strangeness that Guinness can only dull, never solve. Jamal, Callum, and (if she survives) Lottie are about to discover that in Northern Ireland, love and betrayal, comedy and danger, pint and peril often come served in the same glass.
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The "Story Behind the Story"
As an American living in the UK, I know what it means to be both welcomed and kept at arm’s length. The Black Stuff was born from that experience of being an outsider — finding connection in unexpected places, colliding with cultures that are familiar and foreign at once. Belfast and its countryside hold a unique tension: high-tech ambition alongside centuries-old traditions, progress colliding with insularity. Dropping a character like Jamal — brash, ambitious, out-of-place — into that landscape let me explore love, identity, and belonging through a thriller that’s equal parts absurd and heartfelt.
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Key Themes
It’s about being an outsider looking in — how culture, love, and identity collide when you don’t fully belong. Beneath the mystery and comedy, it’s a story of friendship, resilience, and connection in a landscape defined by old loyalties and new tensions. It asks what progress means, and what we’re willing to sacrifice to protect it.
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Project Status
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A selection of
The World
The story unfolds between Belfast’s buzzing streets and the eerie quiet of rural towns, where innovation and tradition clash at every turn. It’s a world of pubs and pint glasses, slick tech offices and crumbling estates, where humor and danger constantly overlap, and friendship can spark in the unlikeliest corners.
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