Submissions are now open for the fifth annual Cassian Elwes Independent Screenwriting Fellowship. From the Black List and producer Elwes (“Lee Daniels’ The Butler”), the fellowship will grant two screenwriters an all-expenses paid trip to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The program, which is “designed to encourage and identify new talent in the field of independent cinema,” will also offer selectees the chance to meet Elwes at the fest.
From now until the end of the submissions period (November 5), unrepresented screenwriters who have earned less than a cumulative $5,000 in their film/TV writing careers are eligible to apply for the Elwes Fellowship via the Black List website. Once the deadline has passed, the Black List will select the 10 best scripts. Elwes will then pick the two fellows by the end of 2017.
Previous Elwes fellows include Keely Lewis Wise and 2016 Athena Black List Mini-Lab candidate Kristina Zacharias. “Plain Jane,” Wise’s 2017 Fellowship script, is a romantic comedy about a news anchor who must stop a “salacious secret” from getting out when she goes home to the Bible Belt. Zacharias’ 2016 Fellowship screenplay, “Restavek,” is a feature about a child slave in Haiti.
Fellowship submissions will be accepted until November 5, 2017. Go to the Black List website to submit your script or find out more.
