Screenplay
White Lies
Written by 
Jason Somerville
AFIN 2026 Nominee
- 2026
- 98pp
- English
- MA 15+
Still in the running. Winner announced at Awards Night, 19 September 2026.
Wrote this screenplay? Let us know to add or correct the credits or details. Writer sign-in opens with the claim email at Awards Night, 19 September 2026.
Synopsis
White Lies is a gritty psychological neo-noir set in the humid underworld of 1990s Brisbane. The story follows Jack, a young police officer whose rare psychological profile - high empathy paired with an exceptional ability to compartmentalise - makes him the ideal candidate for deep undercover work.
Reborn as Michael Bates, Jack is mentored by Rita, a transgender club manager and seasoned informant who understands that identity is not fixed, but performed. Under her guidance, Jack learns that survival in the drug trade depends on credibility, control, and the ability to disappear into the lie.
As Jack climbs the ladder, he encounters Susan - a woman he once knew as a high school prefect enforcing rules and order. Susan fails to recognise him. The moment confirms Jack’s operational success, but marks the beginning of his personal erosion. What once would have unsettled him now barely registers.
White Lies explores the “unicorn” paradox of undercover policing: the rare individual capable of empathy and deception in equal measure - and the cost of being so good at the lie that the truth becomes impossible to reclaim.
Writer's Statement
White Lies is a story about identity erosion - not through chaos, but through competence. The film begins with a simple proof: Jack can lie under pressure. Sitting in a watchhouse cell with a violent offender, he performs convincingly enough to extract a confession. The system rewards him immediately. This is important. Jack is not reckless or corrupted - he is good. That competence is what carries him forward. When Jack enters the Covert Unit, the drug trade is not presented as sensational or exotic. It is routine. Procedural. Mundane. The danger comes in short, sharp bursts, but the work itself is repetitive and transactional. This normalisation is deliberate. It mirrors how Jack begins to treat deception - as just another tool. Visually, the film mirrors this erosion. Early scenes hold Jack in clean, stable frames. As the operation deepens, compositions tighten. Reflections replace direct gazes. Faces are fragmented by mirrors, windows, and darkness. By the end, Jack is often seen in pieces rather than whole.
What makes this one special
Writer's Biography
Jason Somerville Writer
Jason Somerville is an award-winning screenwriter and founder of Loose Thread Films. A former officer with the Queensland Police Service (1991 - 2004), Jason spent two years working deep undercover in the drug and nightclub underworld of 1990s Brisbane. White Lies is drawn directly from this lived experience. His work blends procedural realism with psychological depth, focusing on identity, power, and the long-term consequences of institutional deception. Jack’s screenplay First Impressions won Best Short Screenplay at the Brisbane Indie Film Festival, and the pilot for White Lies (originally titled Undercurrent) received Best TV Pilot Screenplay. Jason is currently developing multiple projects centred on the fluidity of identity and the hidden costs of duty. His work is driven by what he describes as “the quiet lie at the centre” - stories where the most dangerous mask is the one you forget you’re wearing.
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White Lies was an official Nominee for Best Feature Screenplay at the AFIN International Film Festival 2026, a Top 100 Best Reviewed and IMDb-qualifying festival.
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