Andrew Dipper

Win £10,000 for your comedy film

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Comedy filmmakers could soon be in for a windfall – after a £10,000 prize was announced for this year’s COFILMIC Comedy Film Festival in Manchester.

Filmmakers are encouraged to submit their short comedy films, sketch or pilot of between 5-7 minutes for the chance to win the Wildseed £10,000 Production Award, together with creative mentorship and strategic advice. The categories are:

  • Comedy Short Film: max length 7 mins
  • Comedy Sketch: max length 5 mins
  • Sitcom Pilot or Web Series Pilot: max length 7 mins

The deadline for submissions is 12pm noon on Tuesday 30 September 2014 and people can submit their entries by clicking here.

The COFILMIC panel, which includes Alice Lowe and Steve Oram (writers and stars of Sightseers), Henry Swindell (BBC Writers Room), Mark Boosey (British Comedy Guide) and Kristian Brodie (Head of Development at Agile Films London) will select a winner and runner up in each of the three categories.

Wildseed Studios will then select three projects to take into a development programme, at the end of which one of the projects will receive a £10,000 investment from Wildseed Studios to be made into a longer form project, or pilot for a bigger venture.

The studio’s co-founder Jesse Cleverly said: “We’ve always found short film contest a really fertile area to discover and nurture new talent. We’re thrilled to be partnering with COFILMIC Comedy Film Festival to offer the sort of initiative which directly enables next-generation comedy filmmakers to develop and nurture their work.”

Janet Harrison, founder of COFILMIC, said: “We’re very excited by the Wildseed Studio Production Award which will help to discover, nurture and develop fresh new comedy talent. Since launch we’ve been very impressed with the quality of films entered and hope the Wildseed Studios Production Award will encourage even more filmmakers to enter their work.”

The festival will be held at The Comedy Store in Manchester on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 October 2014.