Submissions Now Open For 2015 WGA Documentary Screenplay Award

Los Angeles and New York – The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) today announced that submissions are now open for the 2015 WGA Documentary Screenplay Award, honoring outstanding achievement in documentary feature writing. Submissions for the WGA’s top theatrical doc writing award may be received from August 18 through November 14, 2014.

WGA Documentary Screenplay nominees, as well as Original and Adapted Screenplay nominees, will be announced on Wednesday, January 7, 2015. The WGA Documentary Screenplay Award will be presented – along with other film, TV, new media, radio, news, and videogame award categories – at the 2015 Writers Guild Awards to be held on Saturday, February 14, 2015, at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York City.

First presented in 2005, the WGA Documentary Screenplay Award was established to spotlight the writer’s primary role in documentary filmmaking’s creative process, recognize the fact that the majority of non-fiction feature films are written, and highlight the benefits of working under a Writers Guild contract. Past WGA doc winners have included such films as Super Size Me (Written by Morgan Spurlock, 2005), Deliver Us from Evil (Written by Amy Berg, 2007), Taxi to the Dark Side (Written by Alex Gibney, 2008), Waltz with Bashir (Written by Ari Folman, 2009), Searching for Sugar Man (Written by Malik Bendjelloul, 2013), and most recently, Stories We Tell (Written by Sarah Polley, 2014).

Qualifications for WGA Documentary Screenplay Award eligibility include:

• Theatrical documentaries must have been written under the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) or under a bona fide collective bargaining agreement of the Writers Guild of Canada, Writers Guild of Great Britain, Irish Playwrights & Screenwriters Guild, New Zealand Writers Guild, La Guilde Francaise des Scénaristes (France), Scriptwriters Guild of Israel, or the Société des Auteurs de Radio, Télévision et Cinéma (Quebec), i.e., “affiliate Guilds.”
• Documentaries must contain an on-screen writing credit and have been exhibited theatrically in Los Angeles or New York for at least one week during 2014.
• The deadline for submissions is 5:30 p.m. (PST), Friday, November 14, 2014.
• Scripts must be feature length (more than 40 minutes).
• Documentaries that received their first public exhibition via broadcast or cable television are not eligible for WGA awards consideration.
• Foreign-language films are eligible, provided they feature English-language subtitles.

Further inquiries regarding the WGA Documentary Screenplay Award may be directed to Jennifer Burt in the WGAW Awards Office at (323) 782-4569, email: jburt@wga.org, or to Dana Weissman in the WGAE Awards Office at (212) 767-7835, email: dweissman@wgaeast.org.

The Writers Guild Awards honor outstanding writing in film, television, new media, videogames, news, radio, promotional, and graphic animation categories. The awards will be presented jointly at simultaneous ceremonies on Saturday, February 14, 2015, in Los Angeles at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza and in New York City at the Edison Ballroom. For more information about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards, please visit www.wga.org or www.wgaeast.org.

For media inquiries about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards Los Angeles show, please contact Gregg Mitchell in the WGAW Communications Department at: (323) 782-4651 or email: gmitchell@wga.org.

For media inquiries about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards New York City show, please contact Jason Gordon in the WGAE Communications Department at (212) 767-7809 or email: jgordon@wgaeast.org.

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) are labor unions representing writers in motion pictures, television, cable, digital media, and broadcast news. The Guilds negotiate and administer contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of their members; conduct programs, seminars, and events on issues of interest to writers; and present writers’ views to various bodies of government. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, West, visit www.wga.org. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, East, visit www.wgaeast.org.