The Irish Film Board and Jameson Dublin International Film Festival have announced the return of their joint UNTITLED public screenwriting event for 2012, with an IFB draft loan of up to €16,000 up for grabs.
This year’s theme for UNTITLED submissions is ‘1916’ and shortlisted applicants will be invited to present their screenplay proposal to an industry panel, during the JDIFF in February 2012 - with the winning screenplay receiving a first draft loan from the IFB worth €16,000 for teams of writers or €12,000 for an individual.
The first UNTITLED event took place earlier this year at the 2011 JDIFF. With over 340 submissions received, Enda Loughman and Mike Ahern took home the overall prize of a €16,000 First Draft Loan to go towards the development of their comedy screenplay ‘The Bogman King’, after presenting it to a panel chaired by IFB Development Executive Andrew Meehan and compromised of JDIFF Director Grainne Humphreys; Cheryl Taylor BBC’s Controller for Comedy Commissioning, Irish film director Paddy Breathanach (I Went Down, Man About Dog) and comedy agent Caroline Chignell.
Applicants are invited to submit a one page summary for a feature film with the theme of 1916. The one page summary should be sent along with completed entry form – download it here - and CV to untitledscreenwritingcomp@gmail.com by November 4th. This will be narrowed down to a shortlist of five entries announced Tuesday December 13th 2011, who will then be asked to write the first few scenes of the script and to present their project to the panel and public audience on Thursday February 16th 2011.
Organisers have stated that, for the theme of ‘1916’, they are looking for “lateral thinking; new and confident ways of telling oft-told stories; as well as sideways glances at neglected moments from that ‘interesting time’. We’re not looking for tales torn from dry textbooks. All we ask is that stories are grounded in historical fact. Otherwise please surprise us.”
