HollyShorts Announces Screenplay Semifinalists

Updated: 09/25/2020

The HollyShorts Film Festival has announced semifinalists from a record number of over 1,000 submissions to their 7th annual screenplay contest.

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Screenwriting Contest News

Scriptapalooza Names 2020 Contest Winners

A Reindeer Story by Jay Michael Jorgensen & Lisa Juslin has been named the 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition. [Updated: 09/22/2020]

PAGE Names 2020 Finalists

The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards has announced the top 10 Finalists in each of their ten genre categories. This year’s Finalists include writers from all across the United States and 14 foreign countries: Australia, France, Belgium, Spain, England, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Mexico, and Canada. [Updated: 09/16/2020]

Write LA Names 2020 Semifinalists

Fifteen semifinalists have been announced for the 2020 Write LA Screenwriting Competition. Each semifinalist will receive a free screenwriting book courtesy of Michael Wiese Productions, a phone call from head judge Tim Schildberger to discuss their scripts, and a professional logline polish from co-founder Angela Bourassa. [Updated: 09/15/2020]

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HollywoodIQ

News, opinions, interviews and more from Hollywood and the screenwriting contest scene.

Interview with Author/Screenwriter Michael Weinreb

Michael Weinreb studied journalism at Penn State, and creative writing at Boston University, and published a book of short stories and several books of non-fiction before trying his hand at screenwriting with The Big D, a sports drama based loosely on the SMU football scandal of the 1980s.
Interview with Screenwriters Carlo and Erin Carere

Carlo and Erin Carere are partners in life and in writing. Carlo was born in Naples, and published several novels in Italy before turning his attention to screenwriting. Minneapolis native Erin, meanwhile, was a playwright and singer-songwriter. The couple have been writing together since 2014, and their sci-fi TV pilot Dark Horizons has scored more than a dozen contest placements from some of the best-rated contests on MovieBytes.
Interview with StoryPros Comedy Category Winner Thomas Leupp

Comedy writer Thomas Leupp was born and raised in Los Angeles, and his sports comedy Tres Banditos was the comedy category winner of the 2019 StoryPros Awards, and a runner-up for the 2019 Inroads Fellowship.
Interview with 2020 Fresh Voices Horror Division Winner Harry Aspinwall

Harry Aspinwall is a writer and actor who grew up in Scotland, but has been living the U.S. - currently Brooklyn - since he was 16. His historical horror script Henrietta was the First Place Winner of the Horror Division of the 2020 Fresh Voices Screenwriting Competition.
Interview with 2019 Shore Scripts Short Film Fund Winner James Gould-Bourn

James Gould-Bourne, winner of the 2019 Shore Scripts Short Film Fund Competition, is originally from Manchester, England, but now lives with his wife in Malaysia after four years of living in Lithuania. His debut novel, Bear Necessity, will be published in U.S. on August 4, 2020.
Interview with 2019 Creative World Award
Winner Taylor Hopkins

Taylor Hopkins was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2019 Creative World Awards for his screenplay, Stagecoach Mary, a true story about a hard-drinking, cigar smoking black woman in Montana in 1885, who uses her six shooter and tough as nails attitude to defend a convent of nuns from the perils of the Wild West.
Interview with 2018 CineStory Second Place Winner Avishai Weinberger

CineStory Co-Executive Director Carlo Martinelli catches up with the 2018 CineStory Fellowship second place winner, Avishai Weinberger.
Interview with ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner Davia Carter

Davia Carter was named a 2018 ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner on the basis of her TV pilot Double Time Dames, a one-hour drama set in the jazz age that tells the story of a brilliant female trumpeter who sheds her life of abusive men and attempts to start an all-female band as an Italian mob tries to stake their claim in her town.
Interview with ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner Georgina Love

Georgina Love was named a 2018 ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner for her sci-fi feature Pig, which follows an experimental scientist as he raises a sentient pig as a mirror image of his terminally ill son. When the pig learns his "father's" plans have a sinister bent, he fights to resist the inevitable.
Interview with ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner Brock Newell

Brock Newell was named a 2018 ScreenCraft Fellowship Winner for his feature screenplay Ravenous, a fresh take on the cabin in the woods horror genre, about a man who invites his new girlfriend on a camping trip with his friends, only to realize that she's a cannibal who intends to kill them all. Brock graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a degree in Creative Writing, and has been living in LA for 10 years by way of Chicago.