Categories, Prizes and Criteria

WE ACCEPT SCRIPTS WITH 1-120 PAGES

 

SUBMISSIONS FOR 2024 ARE OPEN!

 

Our MAIN FESTIVAL accepts submissions for one-page scripts to features and full-length plays. There are categories to suit all script lengths and budgets.

Courtesy of our partnership with POSTERITY ENTERTAINMENT, we'll send them all feature screenplays or full-length stage plays that we think they'd like, thus offering you a potential route to production.

We don't separate entries into genres, but into varying lengths (and in shorter categories, plays, audio plays/podcasts and screenplays are pitted against one another). We judge each script on its own merits, whatever the subject matter.

Prices are on FILMFREEWAY (they vary depending on when you enter: the earlier you enter, the less it costs), and categories are:

PRIZES

Quarter-Finalists, Semi-Finalists, Finalists and Winners will receive laurels, emailed to print or post on social media/websites.

Winners will leave the Festival on 12 May 2024 with personalised S&Co glass trophies (sent, with postage at your cost, if you can't attend).

All Winners and Runners-up will receive a licenced copy of FD12, thanks to FINAL DRAFT, producers of the world's industry-leading scriptwriting software.

And if your script is sent to Posterity Entertainment - at judges' discretion - you could enjoy career-changing opportunities via talks with us and them, and the chance of a direct route to production. Below is what they're looking for:

S&CO/POSTERITY CRITERIA: SCREEN

We're looking for original, commercial, marketable feature film concepts, so arthouse,  idiosyncratic or 'worthy' stuff is unlikely to cut it here (though it's welcomed in the  main competition). American accents and vernacular are welcomed, since the US is Posterity's (and everyone else's) biggest audience. Realistically, we're unlikely to select anything too 'parochial', or that requires strong UK accents, and if it's British comedy you'll have to work extra-hard to impress. Keep a keen eye on the budget - aim for £100,000 maximum. The likely winner? A movie with a universal theme that harnesses the Zeitgeist and will sell all over the world.

S&CO/POSTERITY CRITERIA: STAGE

They seek plays that are innovative, immersive and designed for the round, and MUST be full-length and include an interval. We're anticipating a cast of 3 to 8 players and a mix of genders in a staged production that's likely to utilise multi-media and will definitely be original, distinctive, inventive and challenging. Explore, imagine and think outside the box to create an extraordinary and ground-breaking piece of theatre. Although aimed at a primarily adult audience, your cast may include children. Magic, illusions, projections, audio-scapes, aroma-scapes, more? Bring them on - inspire and excite us! 

S&Co's Zanna Cardash (Artistic Director) and Alex Hollister (Lead Script Consultant) will send Finalists' scripts to Posterity if they meet the criteria above. And if Posterity likes your script, S&CO will work with you develop it  with a view to producing a feature film with international distribution; and/or a play with an A-list cast, to be staged in the UK.

 

RESULTS

S&Co will draw up and publish lists of Quarter-Finalists, Semi-Finalists, Finalists and Winners for all categories in the Main Festival.

Whichever category or categories you choose (you can enter as many times as you like), we wish you GOOD LUCK!

 

SCRIPT NOTES

After the festival, in exchange for a nominal £25 admin fee, we'll send judges' notes to any writer who reached the Quarter Finals, Semi-Finals or was a Finalist or Winner. The higher you were placed, the more comments you're likely to see! If you'd like to know what we said, and why you did or didn't progress further, just order your notes.

 

 

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