Video Contests, Film Festivals, and Awards

Jug Face, the horror and thriller entry written by Chad Kinkle, has won the 2011 Slamdance Writing Competition Grand Prize from over 2,300 submissions. Jug Face tells the story of a teenage girl, pregnant with her brother's child, who tries to escape from a backwoods community when she discovers that she must sacrifice herself to a creature in a pit. Kinkle has been awarded $7,000 in cash prizes for his horror feature screenplay at the 2011 Slamdance Awards Ceremony.

Slamdance recognizes four categories in its Writing Competition. Each top place will receive additional cash prizes, or in the case of best short screenplay, the option to be produced and premiere at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival. The top three Slamdance screenplays in each prize category are as follows:

GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Jug Face by Chad Kinkle - Winner of $5,000

FEATURES
1st Place, Winner of $2,000 - Appearances by Frederic Richter
2nd Place - Dearborn Hotel by Peter Gaffney
3rd Place - Motor City by Matthew Kohnen and Sean Kohnen

HORROR & THRILLER
1st Place - Jug Face by Chad Kinkle - 1st place horror $2,000
2nd Place - The Hollow by Will Simmons
3rd Place - 19 Floors by Lee Brandt & Christopher Lawrence

SHORTS
1st Place, Winner to be produced by Slamdance - Harold's Bad Day by RJ Buckley
2nd Place - He Knows by Stuart Creque
3rd Place - Six Years, Four Months and Twenty Three Days by John Mawson

TELEPLAYS
1st Place, winner of $3,000 - Uncivilized by Adam Aresty
2nd Place - Mad Men "Semper Fi" by Rory Kozoll
3rd Place - Dexter "Cop Killer" by Teresa Vilaseca

"The competition was restructured slightly this year with great results. Among the changes were increased prize money and lowered submission fees which helped to make this year's contest even stronger than it's been in years past," explains Slamdance Submissions Manager, Summre Garber. "With nearly 2,300 submissions our readers had a difficult time deciding on 12 finalists. We thank everyone who submitted and deeply appreciate their support of Slamdance."

Writers Guild of America, West Vice President Howard A. Rodman states, "The WGAW shares with Slamdance the goal of supporting emerging writers and those operating within limited budgets. Slamdance's excellent annual Screenwriting and Teleplay competition helps find writers of talent, and provides them with opportunities to showcase and advance their work." In addition to The WGAW, competition sponsors include Final Draft Inc. and Pierce Law Group, LLP.

The success of the Slamdance Screenplay and Teleplay Competition over the past fifteen years and the writers it has discovered continues to attract the attention of industry professionals searching for the best new independent writing talent. Previous competition-winning screenplays that were acquired for production include: Nicole Kassell's The Woodsman, Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace, Tim Boughn's Neo Ned and Nancy Kissam's Drool that was produced by Slamdance and Upload Films and theatrically released by Strand. Last year's winning short screenplay, Dead In The Room written by Marjory Kaptanoglu, was produced by Slamdance, directed by Adam Pertofsky and premiered at the 2011 Festival. To date, Dead In The Room has played in 8 other festivals and won 2 Best Short Film Awards.

Resources:

www.slamdance.com