2010 NSFA Screenwriting Competition Press Release
On the 27.10.2010, the National Student Film Association (UK) launched its first screenwriting competition, inviting all student film-makers to submit their short film scripts. The competition was aimed at UK students of all kinds who are looking for a career in film but had not yet had the chance to present their work to industry professionals. Not only did the competition offer fantastic prizes such as a mentoring meeting at BAFTA as well as BFI and IMAX vouchers, but students also had the opportunity to get their scripts read by two members of the high calibre jury.
Screenplay submissions were allowed to be up to five pages long and of any genre with the submission deadline set to the 7th November 2010. Overall, 97 submissions were received and the overall quality was excellent.
The competition was run in partnership with the British Film Institute, which offered invaluable support in the organisation and marketing process. It further sponsored six pairs of BFI event vouchers as well as three IMAX tickets for the runner up prizes. As the main award, the NSFA was very lucky to win the support of BAFTA and BAFTA winner Asitha Ameresekere, who, together, offered the opportunity for a mentor lunch at BAFTAs restaurant in London.
Asitha Amesekere did not only offer himself as mentor for the winner, he also participated in judging a part of the submitted scripts. Overall, 22 industry experts offered their opinion on the student work. Judges included David Chamberlain from the London Screenwriters' Festival, board members of Women in Film and Television and Industrial Scripts, Emmy winner Jez Freedman and Emmy nominee Nathan Marshall. Asitha Ameresekere commented, "This is a fantastic opportunity for students to expose their work to members of the industry and gain invaluable experience in the competitive screenwriting business.
The competition was hosted online at Circalit, an online platform for aspiring writers, where all the entries were visible to the public in order to offer the students as many opportunities for feedback as possible. Raoul Tawadey, CEO of Circalit, commented, "Starting a career in film can be a difficult process and the gap between writing your first screenplay and seeing your work produced can be very daunting. I hope this competition and the work that the NSFA are doing will give students the opportunity to kick start a career in the film industry.
On the first of December 2010, a week after a 10 student strong short list had been made public, the final winners were announced on the NSFA website. Winning script was Fancy That by Gavin Gunter, an MA Screenwriting student from Bournemouth. Festival judge John Dalton commented, This is a pretty sharp script with a nice hook. Good on the tech side and nicely done overall.
As a special service, the NSFA offered all students who had submitted the forwarding of judges feedback. 95% of the requests could be fulfilled and the NSFA hopes that many of the aspiring screenwriters found the comments useful for their professional development.
The National Student Film Association (UK) would like to thank all partners who made the screenwriting competition 2010 possible and hopes to have equal success with collaborations in the future! For further information on the NSFA (UK) and the screenwriting competition, please visit www.studentfilm.org.uk.