2015 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition

Winners & Grand Prize Winner TBA

April 15th, 2016

Fresh Voices is a Hollywood literary consultancy and annual screenplay contest designed to identify, nurture, and bring to market the most promising new voices in screenwriting.

Since its inception in 2009, Fresh Voices has helped thousands of screenwriters hone their voice, and has developed a successful track record of discovering new screenwriters with many of their past clients now signed by representation, produced, and staffed on TV series.

With over $15,000 Cash & Prizes, free feedback and guaranteed script consideration from leading Hollywood Production Companies, Fresh Voices has become one of the top screenplay competitions for screenwriters and a trusted source of material by the industry. In partnership with InkTip and our other sponsors, Fresh Voices gets your winnings scripts read by industry agents, managers, producers and other creative executives by putting winning material directly into the hands of people that matter.

The 2015 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition is honored to welcome Academy Award Nominated Screenwriter Hossein Amini (Wings of the Dove, Drive) as their Headline Judge. This year the competition will donate a portion of the proceeds to support FilmAid International and their humanitarian activities around the world harnessing the power of film to bring hope, joy as well as life saving information to refugees and other communities affected by disaster, wars and other crises.

Hossein Amini may not be a household name, but in the business of screenwriting, Hoss as he is known in the industry, is a name both recognized and highly respected. When you earn an Academy Award nomination for your second film, it certainly sets your career in the right direction. With such screenwriting credits to his name as Drive starring Ryan Gossling, Snow White and the Huntsman, Ronin 47, Killshot, Four Feathers, Shanghai, and an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Wings of the Dove. Hoss has recently directed his first film, which of course he also wrote. It is the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst.

Born in Iran, he moved to England age 11. His career as a screenwriter began with the 1994 British TV production of The Dying Light for which he won his first BAFTA Award. He followed it up in 1996 after being commissioned by producer Andrew Eaton to adapt the book Jude the Obscure, Jude directed by Michael Winterbottom. The Wings of the Dove directed by Iain Softley followed and led to Hossein Amini receiving an Academy Award Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Hoss was soon snapped up and signed to an exclusive deal with Miramax Films. Since then the old adage, "people want what they can’t have" has paid off well, and Hoss has been a very busy, in-demand writer, choosing the projects and assignments he takes on carefully where he feels he can bring something new and fresh to the material.

Hossein Amini stands out in this industry, not just because his path to Hollywood is unusual but because he has developed a long and successful career of lending his unique voice to a wide array of projects from the most commercial of Hollywood films to the most fiercely independent. He has made a name as one of the go to screenwriters to adapt major novels into screenplays, and for rewriting projects so that they get to where they need to go. Whether that’s a pass to lock in talent, or to bring a fresh take to a flawed script, Hoss brings that little bit of polish that will not only bring a script to life, but can get it greenlit.  

Read an exclusive interview with Hossein Amini here.

Photography by Stephen Butler/ Courtesy of BAFTA