Austin Fest Opens 2025 Script & Film Competitions
The Austin Film Festival has announced the opening of its 2025 Script and Film Competitions. AFF’s annual Script and Film Competitions are perhaps the most critical embodiment of our mission – to further the art and craft of storytelling by inspiring and championing the work of writers, filmmakers, and all artists who use written and visual language to tell a story. A cornerstone of our programming, the Annual Competitions identify, embolden, and celebrate the talents of top emerging writers and filmmakers each year. Much more than just a competition for the famous bronze typewriter award, AFF is a hub for industry insight and connections, ripe with opportunities to skyrocket careers. AFF competitions do more than just honor winners but increase the visibility of visionary writers and filmmakers on the cusp of a breakthrough.
The 2025 Screenplay Competition features 12 individual categories of competition, including feature (drama, comedy, horror, & sci-fi) and short screenplays, teleplays (both drama & comedy pilot & spec), playwriting, fiction podcast, and scripted digital series. In addition, AFF is excited to announce the return of the AMC Networks One-Hour Pilot Award. AMC will review the category’s top submissions and select the semifinalists, finalists and winner for the award. An AMC representative will meet with each finalist at the Festival.
After a competitive bidding war, the 2022 winner of the AMC Pilot Award, Mac Smullen, sold his winning script Souvenir, Alaska to Warner Bros TV in 2023. About his winning AFF, Smullen said, "Winning the AMC One-Hour Pilot Award ended up getting my material in front of all sorts of amazing people, including my current awesome representation."
The Film Competition features nine categories in 2025, Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Dark Matters Feature, Comedy Vanguard Feature, Narrative Short, Narrative Student Short, Documentary Short, Animated Short, and Produced Digital Series. Narrative Short, Documentary Short and Animated Short winners are qualified the 2026 Oscars®.
AFF is proud to partner with Armadillo World Headquarters for the Jim Franklin "Armadillo Man" Film Fellowship. The fellowship aims to create a unique opportunity for an emerging, Texas-affiliated filmmaker to gain professional experience by developing a short documentary film about renowned artist Jim Franklin which will premiere at the 32nd Annual Austin Film Festival. A kick-off event open to the public will be held at the Armadillo Headquarters pop-up store inside the South Congress Hotel on Tuesday, December 10, 2025, at 6:30 PM. It will feature a live discussion between Jim and AFF Executive Director Barbara Morgan.
Deadlines for submissions in both competitions begin March 25, 2025. Find out more and submit at austinfilmfestival.com/submit. Winners will be announced at AFF’s annual Awards Luncheon happening Saturday, October 25, 2025, which is part of the 32nd Annual Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference October 23-30, 2025.
Updated: 12/09/2024
Additional Contest Info: Austin Film Festival Script Competition
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!Less Traveled
A well-known celebrity falls for a girl, unknowingly below his social status.
The Silent Rebellion
In this post-apocalyptic thriller, a group of patriots led by a fierce female band together in an attempt to save their loved ones from a tyrannical and seemingly unbeatable new social system.
Howlingween 2: Clarry the Clown
Holiday-makers on a beautiful island resort find themselves trapped with a murderous clown.
Howlingween
A dream holiday turns nightmarish when a family encounters a malicious wolf and traders in fresh human organs.
Trial and Redemption
Forged into a partnership by personal and professional tragedies, a disgraced scientist and a bereft young woman embark on an emotional journey of redemption, guided by an ancient Janus key with magical powers to reveal future events.
Chasing Time
A retired history professor will stop at nothing to save his wife from the throes of a terminal disease.
BUMPED (AFTER)
A troubled man searching for purpose, looks for it in a most unexpected place after a life changing event.
THE LIFE & TIMES OF NO ONE FAMOUS
After plagiarising family dynamics into a comedic bestseller the author faces the consequences at his sister's wedding and encounters the anguish of the woman who broke his heart.
Behind The Veil
Film Noir. Los Angeles, 1947. A private detective struggles with moral inequities as he assists a corrupt federal judge's efforts to contact his estranged, gay son.
Someone, Somewhere, Is Listening
Two police detectives, estranged lovers of years past, risk life and career in an undercover attempt to identify the sociopath conducting a campaign of extortion, robbery, rape, and murder based on information gleaned from personal phone conversations.
