SIX YEARS GONE

A feature screenplay synopsis by Warren Dudley

Six years ago, single mother Carrie Dawson suffered every parent’s worst nightmare. Now she seeks redemption.

Carrie, a thirty two-year-old single mum to daughter Lolly, is enjoying a comfortable existence in suburban Brighton. Living in a beautiful house that is being paid for by her wealthy ex-husband Dan, Carrie is back on the dating scene and enjoying life to the full. Then one afternoon her life crumbles into pieces. Her eleven-year-old daughter is snatched from outside the secondary school, thanks to Carrie’s mum Mary. The 65-year-old, unbeknown to Carrie, is suffering from early-onset dementia and forgets about the 3.15 school pick-up they’d arranged. Lolly has disappeared.

Six years on Carrie’s life has fallen into ruin. Her beautiful daughter has never been found. Gone are the nice house, the ‘school mum’ friends, and the regular money from Dan, to be replaced by a tiny flat, a life of poverty, and the daily heartbreak of caring for her terribly ill mother. All that drives Carrie on is the ever dwindling hope that her daughter may one day be found, and the Facebook page that she runs for parents of other missing kids.

Then one afternoon, following a chance meeting with a young woman outside the Social Club where she cleans, Carrie takes on an ‘escort’ client to earn some extra cash. As she begins her descent into the world of low-end sex work, her Facebook page throws up a post about a newly abducted girl that changes everything. As the astonishing clues start to come together about this little girl’s abduction, Carrie is about to put everything on the line to find her own daughter.

Six Years Gone is a gritty and powerful look and tragedy, love, and desperation, that will touch a nerve with all parents.