Justine Beed, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2023, USC, Screenwriting Award / 2023, Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize / 2023, Athena Film Festival, Sloan Screenwriting Fellowship / 2024, TIFF, Project Pitch Participant

Project Type: Pilot

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Length: Hour-Long (Serialized) TV Series

Field of Science: Physics

Stage: Development 

Synopsis: 

In 1721 Bologna, while most girls her age were learning needlework and proper etiquette, young Laura Bassi was busy conducting experiments and being an absolute menace to the patriarchy. The pilot episode whiplashes us between a grown Laura mid-labor (a glimpse of the future) and her 10-year-old self, already dropping Latin burns on her peers and making her tutors question their career choices. Enter Dr. Tacconi, a sharp-witted professor who spots Laura’s genius and thinks, “Ah yes, this tiny terror could be the University of Bologna’s ticket back to relevance.”

But after bombing spectacularly at a fancy salon (turns out reciting Virgil wasn’t the power move she thought it was), Laura does what any rational child would do: dresses as a boy and crashes a university dissection class. This brilliant plan backfires when her friend Giuseppe’s father drops dead from the shock of finding her there…and instead of being there for Giuseppe in his time of need, she retreats from the world, nose-to-book, and delves into the world of natural philosophy.

Fast forward nine years to 1730, and we find our 19-year-old protagonist verbally sparring with crusty academics while trying desperately to ignore her inconvenient feelings for the now-devastatingly-handsome Giuseppe. Between her scientific ambitions, her mother’s suspicious relationship with Dr. Tacconi, and the general audacity of being a female know-it-all in the 18th century, Laura’s plate is overflowing with more drama than a Venetian opera.

The 6 Episode arc of the first season will chronicle Laura’s difficult transformation from wild child to Bologna’s shining academic star, sacrificing personal happiness for her rising fame. And while she’ll ultimately secure her degree, she’ll end up obscuring her true feelings for Giuseppe; instead falling into bed with a playboy mentor…nearly losing everything she’s worked for in the process.

As the series progresses, Laura becomes Italy’s main advocate of the Newtonian paradigm shift, a scientific crusade that produces both enemies and fans of her work. Bologna’s highbrow society crowns her the ‘real life virginal Minerva’, goddess of wisdom, yet Laura is far from the chaste maiden everyone expects her to be. Between debaucherous Anatomy Carnivals and bohemian balls, Laura’s purity will be questioned time and again, especially when she decides to marry Giuseppe.

Across 3 Seasons, Laura evolves into a groundbreaking figure in science, becoming one of the highest-paid scientists in all of Enlightenment-era Europe. She’ll be crowned with laurels before hundreds as she secures her doctorate, be banned from teaching, teach anyway in her at-home experimental physics lab, marry Giuseppe to access a library of banned books, fall as madly in love with him as he is with her, manipulate the Pope into giving her a raise, birth 9 children but bury 4, and be up against her husband for not one, but two jobs to become the first female University Chair, inspiring generations of women to pursue scientific careers alongside full lives and electric loves. This is Laura Bassi’s story, a force ready to be reckoned with.