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Record Number of Entries in Academy's 2012 Nicholl Screenwriting Competition

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition has received a record 7,197 entries for 2012, up from last year's record of 6,730. The Academy will award up to five fellowships of $35,000 each in November.

This year, entries came from all 50 states in the U.S. as well as from 65 other countries. The competition includes first-time entries from Estonia, Indonesia, Latvia, Liechtenstein and Nicaragua.

"It's been amazing to watch the Nicholl Fellowships entries climb from 99 in 1986 to a record of nearly 7,200 this year," said Nicholl Fellowship Committee Chair Gale Anne Hurd. "With over 1,000 submissions from outside the U.S., the Academy is especially gratified to be encouraging storytellers worldwide. We're also tremendously proud of our Nicholl fellows, who during the past year alone have had films in festivals from Telluride and Toronto to Sundance and Tribeca."

The Nicholl competition is open to any individual who has not earned more than $5,000 writing for film or television. Entry scripts must be feature length and the original work of a sole author or of exactly two collaborative authors. The scripts must have been written originally in English. Adaptations and translated scripts are not eligible.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

Since the program's inception in 1985, 123 fellowships have been awarded. Among the recent achievements by Nicholl fellows: Destin Daniel Cretton wrote and directed "I Am Not a Hipster," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; Raymond De Felitta’s documentary "Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story" premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival last month; Andrew Marlowe created and executive produces and Terri Miller serves as a writer-producer on the ABC series "Castle"; Jeffrey Eugenides’ third novel, The Marriage Plot, was a 2012 National Book Critics Circle award nominee.

Updated: 05/17/2012

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