Great news, female screenwriters! The Athena Film Festival has announced that it will be partnering with IRIS to present the inaugural Athena IRIS Screenwriting Lab.
The unique lab will be offered as a part of the 2017 Athena Film Festival, which will celebrate its seventh year from February 9–12, 2017. The festival is an annual celebration of women and leadership, co-founded by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College and Women and Hollywood.
IRIS is a women’s filmmaking collective, which has “sought to amplify the female voice through narrative film. Founders Elizabeth Kaiden, Kyle Ann Stokes, and Nitza Wilon created The Writers Lab, co-produced by New York Women in Film & Television and funded by Meryl Streep, to develop screenplays written by women over 40. IRIS is committed to expanding its efforts to support and promote female screenwriters and other women in film.”
“We are thrilled to partner with IRIS, an incredible organization whose dedication to promoting women’s voices in film is inspiring and folds perfectly into our goals at the Athena Film Festival,” said Melissa Silverstein, Athena Film Festival co-founder and artistic director. Silverstein, who is also the founder and publisher of Women and Hollywood, added, “We are always looking to develop new voices, and with the partnership of IRIS we are excited about the scripts we will be working on in our 2017 lab.”
“The Athena Film Festival is at the forefront in addressing gender inequality in film. This is our mission as well, so this partnership feels like kismet,” said Elizabeth Kaiden, co-founder of IRIS. “While the volume of public discourse is up, the numbers are not. There’s still work to be done. And when two goddesses get together, they’re bound to have an impact.”
The lab is open to female writers with scripts focusing on strong and courageous female characters and is designed for female writers who have not yet had a script produced. Screenplays must be feature-length narratives and include “one or more strong female characters in a leadership role at the center of the story.” The submissions period is open now through October 31. Eight to ten finalists will be chosen by a committee and four winners will be notified in January 2017. So get those fingers typing and pens writing. For more info, head to the Athena Film Festival’s site.
