Official Rules

No entrant may have earned money or other consideration as a screenwriter for theatrical films or television, or for the sale of, or sale of an option to, any original story, treatment, screenplay, or teleplay for more than $5,000.

Entrants must be 18 years or older to enter the contest. Misrepresentation of age, upon discovery by American Zoetrope, will disqualify the applicable entrant.

The rights to the submitted screenplay should not have been previously optioned or sold.

Employees of American Zoetrope and its affiliated companies and their immediate families are not eligible.

Screenplay submissions should be in the U.S. Motion Picture industry standard screenplay format and must be between 82-145 pages in length. Submissions should be written in the English language.

Screenplay submissions must be the original work of the applicant and may not be based, in whole or in part, on any other fictional or non-fictional material, published or unpublished, produced or unproduced for which the writer does not have rights, excepting those works that are in the public domain.

Entries may be adapted from the applicant's original work, works in the public domain, and from works to which the author owns all film rights—this should be noted in the entry form. If the script is based on a true story, historical or contemporary, that should be noted in the entry form.

Under no circumstances will substitutions of corrected pages or new drafts of submitted screenplays be accepted.

Entry fees will not be returned or adjusted.

Collaborative work is accepted. One of the writing partners should be selected as the prime contact. Writing partners selected as winners will divide the award equally.

Entrants must submit screenplays and payment online.

The winner will receive $5,000.

The winning and ten finalist screenplays will be announced on or around February 1, 2014.

Submissions for the EARLY DEADLINE should be submitted online no later than August 1, 2013, at 11:59:59 p.m. PST. Submissions for the FINAL DEADLINE should be submitted online no later than September 6, 2013, at 11:59:59 p.m. PST.

An entry fee of US$35 (for early deadline) or US$50 (for final deadline) must be paid online by credit card at the time of script submission.