Looking for feedback on your new screenplay? These contests offer the best feedback, according to MovieBytes readers.
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Final Deadline: 07/31/2018
To promote and support new talent by creating real and original opportunities.
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Final Deadline: 08/04/2018
The Action on Film 14h Annual Film Festival celebrates and honors WRITERS of all genres and formats like no other festival does. Now in our 13th year, our Film Festival has garnered a solid reputation as being one of the premier Writing competitions. The AOF has created a solid community of Filmmakers and Writers from around the globe. Always looking to embrace and recognize writers, AOF is on the cutting edge looking to create a vehicle for our writers to be seen and honored.
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Final Deadline: 08/10/2018
MISSION: To provide industry exposure and support to television screenwriters who are looking to have their stories told. FEEDBACK: We believe that writers need feedback to improve, which is why we provide the judges’ score cards to every entrant at no additional charge. PROMISE: We promise to give all scripts two rounds of scores and there will be a total of six rounds of scores to ensure fairness and transparency.
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Final Deadline: 11/02/2018
Cinequest voted Best Film Festival by USA Today Readers. The Cinequest Screenwriting Competition continues to empower global screenwriters through discovery, recognition and opportunity. Cinequest loves writers, and we welcome you to submit your screenplay or teleplay to our renowned competition. The Top 10 Finalists receive many empowering benefits including: All Access passes to the Cinequest Film & VR Festival and the exclusive Writers Celebration, plus exposure to leading industry players and inspiring luminaries.
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Final Deadline: Monthly.
FULL FEEDBACK on the first moments of your screenplay from our committee of Professional Screenwriters, Production Heads and Script Consultants. Are you just starting off your screenplay and want immediate feedback on your first scenes/first moments of your script?
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Final Deadline: 08/11/2018
The Cynosure Screenwriting Awards seek to expand the scope of mainstream cinema by recognizing and rewarding screenplays in two distinct categories: screenplays which feature compelling female protagonists; and screenplays that showcase diversity (ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc.).
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Final Deadline: Ongoing - submit anytime.
Submit a TV SPEC SCREENPLAY or ORIGINAL TV PILOT (monthly deadlines) and get the chance to see your script read out loud at our Screenplay Festival using professional actors. Shown online on the YouTube channel that garners 1000s of views. CLICK the website link for examples of past winners. A great way to get your words out there and obtain the Agent you're looking for or just get your script seen by more people.
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Final Deadline: 07/10/2018
CALL FOR ENTRIES! Shriekfest, the Los Angeles Horror/SciFi Film Festival continues its tradition as Los Angeles' Premier horror film event, presenting an exciting program of films each fall with beautiful Los Angeles as its backdrop. Now, in its 17th year, Shriekfest takes place at the legendary Raleigh Studios, which is the largest independent studio operator in the country.
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Final Deadline: 07/31/2018
To make Hollywood more accessible than ever before to more aspiring screenwriters, Filmmakers.com is forming strategic alliances with the powers that be... Championing Emerging Artists. FilmMakers International Screenwriting Awards has been in existence since 2000 (formerly known as The Radmin Company / FilmMakers.com Screenplay Contest) and its association with the Radmin Company has been going on since late 2000.
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Final Deadline: Monthly.
WILDsound Monthly Screenplay Festival offers screenwriters at all levels the fantastic opportunity of hearing their scripts read out loud using Top Professional Actors and seen by 10000s of people online, including producers and agents. At least 5 winning readings done every single month. Click the website info and watch the winning videos.
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Final Deadline: Monthly.
With two cycles of our main competition clashing almost directly with the deadline dates of our Monthly Contest, we’ve decided to delay relaunching our Monthly Contest again until at least January 2017. Anyone who has submitted to our Monthly contest since the start of August will be offered a free entry to the main contest (representing a significant discount on its current entry price), which currently closes at the same time as the September competition would have done anyway! In place of the Monthly Contest, we’d like to introduce our new FEATURED SCRIPT OF THE MONTH.
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Final Deadline: 08/01/2018
Awards Ceremony at a Film Festival! Screenplay Festival winners get that rarest of experiences for a writer; applause from an audience. Our winners get to come out from behind the keyboard and be celebrated! Now Accepting Television Scripts! The writers spoke, and we listened. We have now added four categories to our contest for television scripts.
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Final Deadline: 08/31/2018
The objective of the Moondance International Film Festival is to inspire, motivate, promote and encourage the best writers & independent filmmakers, from every country in the world, and to inspire a greater understanding about the vital role of the arts in enhancing creativity, community spirit, and the preservation of our cultural heritage.
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Final Deadline: 10/29/2018
Our intention is to help open doors for the aspiring television writer. There are four categories you can submit to, which include 1 hour existing spec scripts, 1/2 hour existing sitcom spec scripts, original pilots, and reality programs. This competition is designed with the TV writer and crossover screenwriter in mind. The participants we have chosen to read the winning scripts are individuals from established production companies.
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Final Deadline: 11/07/2018
Since 2009, Fresh Voices has distinguished itself as a screenplay competition designed to discover, empower and promote the next generation of storytellers, writers and filmmakers. As the name would suggest, Fresh Voices has done this by identifying writer's with a unique and memorable voice that demands to be read. Now in our ninth year, we have helped guide dozens of talented screenwriters to secure literary representation, option agreements and other work-for-hire writing assignments that have been the stepping stones to significant careers Will you be Hollywood's next success story? Enter now and let your voice be heard!
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Final Deadline: 07/15/2018
To discover and honor the new voices of independent film. Screenplays will be judged on creativity, innovation, vision, originality and the use of language. The key element is that of communication and how it complements and is transformed by the language of film.
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Final Deadline: 10/09/2018
We don't offer any of the usual screenplay contest smoke and mirrors. No coverage from someone being paid $10 per script (please ask Mom). No cash (please ask Grandma) or writing clinics from gurus who have never sold a screenplay (Dad?). What our winners do receive is: INDUSTRY ACCESS AND INDUSTRY READS.
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Final Deadline: 08/31/2018
Discovering new screenwriting talent from around the world. Shore Scripts Screenwriting Competition is focused on finding the best scripts from around the world and getting them into the hands of the producers and production companies who have the ability to get them made. Patrick Tobin, the writer of CAKE starring Jennifer Aniston is just one of our successes.
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Final Deadline: 11/01/2018
We are all about giving agents, showrunners, and executives exactly what they now are looking for: Spec pilot teleplays that showcase you, the new writer operating at your very best. If the suits love the writing of a spec pilot, they have the best reason in the world to trust the writer to come through in the development process. A strongly-written spec pilot shows you’re ready for the gig.
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Final Deadline: Last Day of any calender month
We pick the best and most marketable (in our opinion of course) CLIENT SCRIPT and announce it with shameless prominence on the MAIN page of our web site. Our winner will also be invited to POST their log line, link and even a scene or two (if you so choose) from your winning work to which we’ll add our GLOWING REVIEW and convert the whole thing into professional “COVERAGE” (FOR FREE) which can be used for submission purposes as well as being POSTED on our site.
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Final Deadline: 11/15/2018
Created by Dr. Ted Baehr, founder, publisher and executive producer of MOVIEGUIDE® and founder and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, and Dr. Jack Templeton, the primary purpose of the prize is to further the influence of moral and spiritual values within the film and television industries. Seeking to promote a spiritually uplifting, redemptive worldview, MOVIEGUIDE® announces the Kairos Prize that will help inspire first-time and beginning screenwriters to produce compelling, entertaining, spiritually uplifting scripts that result in a greater increase in either man’s love or understanding of God.
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Final Deadline: 06/28/2018
GRAND PRIZE WINNING EMERGING SCREENWRITER Receives CASH ISA DEVELOPMENT SLATE INVITATION SCRIPT READS BY INDUSTRY REPS Our goal is to help you, the emerging screenwriter develop as a storyteller, show off your talents to industry, and provide you with a cash prize to help propel you along in your screenwriting career. The new season of the Emerging Screenwriters Screenplay Competition is proud to announce that the Grand Prize Winning screenplay is guaranteed to be read by literary managers and executives! You will also receive an invitation into the ISA Development Slate, where the team will work with you to further package and champion your winning script to more industry execs for a full year! 8 writers have signed option agreements or signed with an agency in the past 18 months.
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Final Deadline: 07/27/2018
The Slamdance Screenplay Competition is dedicated to discovering and supporting emerging writing talent. We welcome screenplays in every genre, on any topic, from anywhere in the world. A unique feature of the competition is providing constructive feedback for every entrant. In addition to this, we also offer a more intensive coverage service for a supplementary fee.
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Final Deadline: 08/01/2018
This season we're taking the Feature/Pilot winner to Austin during during the Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference this October. Like those Table Read winners who have received Oscar Nominations, or have premiered their produced scripts at a major film festival like Cannes, Table Read My Screenplay will help to motivate your passion for writing through the film festival and showcase experience, put some cash in your pocket, give you the opportunity to confidently network with the title of “Grand Prize Winner,” and a support mechanism for layering a long-term career with an invitation to be a part of the elite ISA Development Program Slate.
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Final Deadline: 07/17/2018
Big Break is an annual, international feature and television screenwriting contest designed to launch the careers of aspiring writers. Big Break rewards screenwriters with over $80,000 in cash and prizes, including a trip to Los Angeles for a series of A-list executive meetings. Winners and finalists alike have had their screenplays optioned and produced and have secured high-profile representation as well as lucrative writing deals.
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Final Deadline: 09/01/2018
The mission of the American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest is to find and promote new and innovative voices in cinema. Every script is read closely by a select handful of professional readers, and Francis Ford Coppola selects a grand prize–winner from among the top ten finalists. The grand prize–winner receives a cash prize, and the scripts of all top ten finalists are sent by Zoetrope to leading production companies and talent agencies for consideration.
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Final Deadline: Last day of the month.
Movies have been developed pretty much the same way since talkies were considered cutting-edge. But here at Amazon Studios, we believe 21st-century technology creates opportunities to make and share movies and scripts more easily than ever. We invite you to: Win money. Amazon Studios will award a combined $2.7 million in our first year's worth of monthly and annual contests for the best scripts and movies.
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Final Deadline: 12/21/2018
$15,000 in Cash Prizes. $10,000 1st Place Cash Prize for Feature screenplays! The Vail Film Institute launched the Vail Film Festival Screenplay Competition in order to find and foster the next generation of the film world's most innovative and creative screenwriters. With the realization that every great film needs a great story, the festival is dedicated to supporting talented screenwriters by utilizing the resources of the Vail Film Festival to foster the winning screenwriters through networking opportunities, and film industry access.
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