Film Independent Screenwriting Lab Applications Now Open

The Film Independent Screenwriting Lab is a two-week workshop held in the first quarter of the year, designed to provide individualized story and career development for screenwriters with a fiction feature screenplay.

The Screenwriting Lab helps to further the careers of its Fellows by introducing them to film industry veterans who can offer guidance on both the craft and business of screenwriting. Each Screenwriting Lab Fellow will be paired with a Creative Advisor, with whom they’ll work one-on-one and in group sessions to further develop their project over the course of the program. A variety of guest speakers will discuss their own films and offer career insights, and a final pitch event offers further opportunity for individualized feedback and discussion with industry executives.

Non-Member Deadline: Monday, August 31
Member Deadline: Monday, September 14

Past Screenwriting Lab projects include Adam Meeks‘s Union County, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and will be released theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories in August; Jing Ai Ng’s Forge, which had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival and was released by Utopia in the spring; Billy Luther’s Frybread Face and Me, winner of Best Narrative Feature at the 2023 Urbanworld Film Festival, nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film and currently on Netflix; Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao’s feature debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me; Andrew Ahn’s Film Independent Spirit Award-winning debut Spa Night; 37 Seconds by HIKARI, which won the Panorama Audience Award and CICAE Art Cinema Jury Prize at the 2019 Berlinale Film Festival and is now on Netflix; Ani Simon-Kennedy’s A Short History of the Long Road, which premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and received a Special Jury Mention for Best Screenplay; and Kate Marks’ The Cow of Queens, which was a 2020 recipient of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship.

Be sure to check back here at SCREEN Magazine for more exclusive news and interviews. You can also click right here to subscribe to our weekly email newsletter.