The Athena List is an annual script competition that selects exceptional scripts with women leaders at the heart of the story. As the central program in the Athena Film Festival’s Parity Pipeline program, The Athena List’s goal is to raise the profile of the scripts and the writers within the industry with the purpose of getting these movies made and elevating their careers to the next level.
Over the course of seven years, three Athena List films have been released: Little Pink House, written and directed by Courtney Balaker starring Catherine Keener; On the Basis of Sex, written by Daniel Stiepleman and starring Felicity Jones; and Clemency, written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and was released in December 2019 by Neon. In addition, Athena List winner The Burning Season by Jenny Halper will begin shooting soon, Naomi Watts and Sophia Lillis will star, and Claire McCarthy is set to direct, and Athena List finalist The Artemis Protocol by Shamim Sarif, was turned into a novel, is now being adapted for television by Village Roadshow Entertainment Group.
The Athena Film Festival at Barnard College celebrates extraordinary films from across the globe that tell the stories of fierce and fearless women leaders. The curated program includes Academy Award nominated films, award winning features and documentaries, NY premieres, shorts and so much more.
An Athena film is one of defiance, survival, breakthrough and radical joy that comes from living as yourself. There are many ways to be a leader and there are even more ways to be a leader as a woman. Leadership was defined, and continues to be defined by men. Athena Films challenge that narrative and show how women work within and without this traditional definition to change what leadership looks like.
Now in its 11th year, the festival is a project of the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard College and Women and Hollywood. The Artemis Rising Foundation and its CEO Regina K. Scully is the festival’s founding sponsor. We hope that we will be able to be together in person for the The 11th Annual Festival from February 18 – February 21, 2021 at Barnard College in New York City. We are monitoring the situation and will adjust in line with public health recommendations.
There is NO SUBMISSION FEE for The Athena List.
Submissions are open June 15, 2020 to August 31, 2020.
Guidelines, Requirements, and Criteria
- Screenplays must have a woman (girl) or women character(s) in leadership role(s) or position(s). Projects from all genres are accepted, and stories about women from all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural groups;
- Screenwriters of any gender are welcome to apply
- Screenplays must be feature-length (80- 120 Pages). No short scripts will be accepted.
- DO NOT SUBMIT A FIRST DRAFT – The screenplay must have gone through a writer’s workshop or lab.
- Screenplays in pre-production are not eligible. They can be optioned and have producers and/or talent attached.
- There is no SUBMISSION FEE
Our submission process is two-tiered: We will first review the synopsis of your script to see if it fits the criteria above; if it does, it will then be read in full. If your script does not fit the criteria it will not be considered.
