Zachary Smolar

Logline

Crystal Labelle is a down-on-her-luck creative dog groomer living in South Florida: underappreciated, broke, and about to be evicted from her sister’s house. After a stinging loss, she takes a job walking dogs at Negev Residences, an assisted living facility, and meets Owen Pigsby, a haunted and crotchety ex-graffiti artist. They team up, defying Crystal’s boss and Owen’s son, and overcoming their own respective demons, to turn Owen’s standard poodle Smokey into the most bright and beautiful dog Florida has ever seen.

Bio

Zachary Smolar is a writer from Pittsburgh, PA. He received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2020 and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2018. He has interned at Tribeca Film Institute and Playground Entertainment and worked as a joke writer for MAD Magazine (he’s almost positive that their bankruptcy wasn’t his fault). His screenplay, Leaving the Cave, won the Ivy Film Festival's award for best undergraduate screenplay, and his play, Tonight Is Different From All Other Nights, was selected by Pittsburgh’s chapter of the Dramatists Guild for AT RISE, a festival of first scenes. Now that he’s officially a “master,” he’s trying to figure out how to be addressed as Master Smolar on all of his mail.