Here Are the Script and Film Competitor Award Winners from This Year’s Austin Film Festival

After a busy weekend at the 33rd installment of the Austin Film Festival, the festival, founded on the principle of honoring the screenplay, has officially unveiled its 2026 Script and Film Competition Award winners.

And, as you might expect, they’re all quite intriguing, full of promise, and an inspiring lot of scripts, pitches, films, and ideas that, if you’re into the craft of screenwriting or just filmmaking in general, are worth checking out.

So, without further ado, let’s check out this year’s winners and explore these projects.

Austin Film Festival 2026 Award Winners

Always a popular festival for writers and aspiring filmmakers alike, this year’s Austin Film Festival reports that its Script Competition alone received more than 12,500 submissions, with 78 scripts advancing to the finalist round. About as prestigious a screenwriting contest as they come, this year 21 writers and writing teams were selected for Script Competition awards and industry fellowships, while filmmakers were recognized across AFF’s Film Jury Competition categories.

“For more than 30 years, our competitions have been about recognizing great scriptwriting. We want talented storytellers to leave Austin with more than an award. We want them to leave with new relationships, meaningful industry access and opportunities that can help move their careers forward. This year’s winners represent exactly the kind of bold, original voices we are proud to champion.” - Barbara Morgan, Executive Director of Austin Film Festival

Announced at the Festival’s annual Awards Luncheon on October 31st, the winners received AFF’s signature Bronze Typewriter Award and now get the chance to launch their projects and careers to meet the heights achieved by past winners and a quite noted group of judges including showrunners, creators, producers, and writers whose credits include hit shows and films such as Widows Bay, The Bear, Succession, Parks and Rec, BoJack Horseman, Abbott Elementary, Spider-Noir, Black Rabbit, Hacks, South Park, Snowpiercer, It, King Richard, The Order, among others.

Let’s check out the winners.

2026 SCRIPT COMPETITION AWARD & FELLOWSHIP WINNERS

The 2026 Austin Film Festival Script Competition featured 21 categories.

• Drama Feature Award Presented by Writers Guild of America, East – Sisters by Zenas Cao
• Comedy Feature Award – Pure Intentions by Sarah Peele
• YMH Studios Comedy Fellowship Award – Derek Darling by Robert Barker and Jim Russo
• The Donners' Company Screenwriting Award – Filthy by Lisa Cole
• The William N. Collage Screenwriting Award – Helicopter by Keith Rubin
• The Enderby Entertainment Award – Helicopter by Keith Rubin
• The Valhalla Entertainment Award – Devilish by Eric Goldberg
• Horror Feature Award – DYSCOPIA by Bobby Marino
• The Chronology Screenwriting Award – METHOD by Matt Foss and Cora Vander Broek
• Sci-fi Feature Award – Louis & PUCK by Parker Rawlins and William Cowser
• The Roadmap Writers Representation Fellowship Award – I Want My Present Back by Haley Mancini
• Drama Teleplay Pilot Award – Gay Harlem by Erin Williams
• The AMC One-Hour Pilot Award – House of Devlin by Michael Connors
• Comedy Teleplay Pilot Award – Arkadelphia by Mac Alsfeld
• Adult Animated Comedy Teleplay Fellowship Award Presented by Starburns Industries – Evolved by Chase Norman
• Drama Teleplay Spec Award – Dexter: Resurrection: The Gamblers by Laura Hunter Drago
• Comedy Teleplay Spec Award – Hacks: Chicken and Egg by Dawn Cowle
• Short Screenplay Award – The Semicolon by Aaron Roman
• Stage Play Award – Body of Work by Rigel Harris
• Fiction Podcast Award – The Cold Plunge by Sunny Bleckinger
• Scripted Digital Series Award – Old Bogus Massacre by Matthew McFadden, Dawn Cowle, and Baylor Knobloch

2026 FILM COMPETITION AWARD & FELLOWSHIP WINNERS

The 2026 Austin Film Festival Film Jury Competition featured eleven categories of competition.

• Narrative Feature Presented by Valhalla Entertainment – Sweet Milk Lake; Writer/Director: Harvey Zielinski
• Comedy Vanguard Feature – Pickpockets; Writer: Lucy Green & D.C. Fairhurst; Director: D.C. Fairhurst
• Documentary Feature – Strange Ashes: The Untold Story of Elisabeth Elliot; Writer/Director: Laura Waters Hinson
• Dark Matters Feature – All the Way Down; Writer/Director: Collin Davis & Matthew Valdez-Litwiller
• Narrative Short – Paper Plane; Writer/Director: Saoirse Ronan / Honorable Mention: Don’t You Want Me Baby?; Writer/Director: Gabriel Foster Prior
• Student Short – Rabbit Heart; Writer: Anna Leah Bolln; Director: Stella Fachinger
• Documentary Short – Buried Under Years of Dust; Writer: Emily Grodin; Director: Sophie Sartain
• Animated Short – How Not to Die on an Alien Planet; Writer: Carlos F. Puertolas, Anthony Hodgson; Director: Carlos F. Puertolas
• Produced Digital Series – Matched; Writer: Dominique Salerno, Director: Elvira Ibragimova
• Kilter Films Filmmaker Fellowship Award (Feature) – Rated; Co-Writer: John Fortson & Christie Lynn Smith, Director: John Fortson
• Kilter Films Filmmaker Fellowship Award (Short) – Assembly Required; Writer/Director: Andy Volk
• Enderby Entertainment Filmmaking Fellowship Award – Soul Heirs; Writer: Harrie Hayes & Tom Machell; Director: Richard Turley

Congrats to the winning projects and films. If you’d like to enter the 2027 Script and Film Competitions, submissions open this December, and you can find more info on the festival’s website here.