Yahoo Lifestyle Humanitas Opens Submissions Process for 2025 Awards, Expands Documentary Prizes (EXCLUSIVE)
Humanitas has started accepting submissions for its 2025 Humanitas Prizes, as well as its New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards.
A nonprofit that seeks to “honor and empower writers of film and television exploring the human experience,” Humanitas last year honored projects including “Hacks,” “Fellow Travelers,” “Black Cake” and Ava DuVernay‘s “Origin” in nine juried categories, including TV, film and documentary fields.
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The Humanitas Prizes are for to film and television writers across nine categories — including drama teleplay, comedy teleplay, limited series teleplay, children’s teleplay, drama feature film, comedy feature film, family feature film, documentary and short film. For the first time this year, the Humanitas Prizes will include two awards in the documentary category instead of one (one to a documentary feature and another for docuseries episode).
Meanwhile, the New Voices Fellowship is a six-month mentorship for unrepresented early-career writers, and the Humanitas College Screenwriting Awards honor college/university students.
Submissions for the Humanitas Prizes are due by April 1; studios, networks and production companies’ awards teams can submit to the Humanitas Prize, but individual writers can also submit their own work. Application deadlines for the New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards is April 15, 2025. The awards will be presented at a Humanitas gala in September. (Additional details about early and regular deadlines are available online.)
“The entertainment industry is in constant flux, and the feelings of trepidation and anxiety are ubiquitous right now, but what will always stay the same is the writing community’s creative energy, community, and ability of film and television to tell complex and meaningful stories about the human condition,” said Humanitas executive director Michelle Franke. “Showcasing this work and the people who do it is a treasured part of our year.”
More than 40 writers, professors, filmmakers, executives and others will judge the entries, which will then lead to up to 40 nominees across nine categories (eight for scripted material and one for documentary).
The Humanitas New Voices Fellowship selects five writers each year who are currently working on a TV pilot or feature film screenplay. The program has seen many participants move on to jobs as staff writers, directors, producers and other endeavors.
As for the Humanitas College Screenwriting Awards, the org hands out two prizes annually to recognize excellent student screen and television writing: The David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Award and The Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award. The two student-writers each receive a trophy at the annual Humanitas Prize event in September, as well as $20,000, a professional notes session with a writer in the Humanitas community and a package of benefits.
Sponsors for the awards programs include UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, The Black List, Script Anatomy, Final Draft, Michael Wiese Productions, Canva, NFMLA, the Snap Foundation, Starz #TakeTheLead and the state agency California Arts Council.
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