Atlanta Film Festival and ScreenCraft Announce The ScreenCraft Writers Summit (2018)

The Atlanta Film Society and ScreenCraft are proud to partner in 2018 to co-present The ScreenCraft Writers Summit, to take place at the 2018 Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF). Atlanta is the entertainment industry’s busiest city for film and TV production, outpacing Los Angeles last year!

The Summit will kick off Friday, April 13th 2018, the shared opening day for both The ScreenCraft Writers Summit and the 2018 Atlanta Film Festival. The Summit will continue for three days of programming: Saturday April 14th, Sunday April 15th, and Monday April 16th.  

Programming will include:

• panels, keynotes
• workshops
• live table reads
• small-group mentorship
• a closing mimosa brunch
• and a pitch competition where writers and filmmakers can compete for prizes and the chance to pitch to agents, producers and A-list screenwriters.

Social hours and shared evening galas will bring Summit writers together with filmmakers and over 25,000 film enthusiasts and industry professionals attending the Atlanta Film Festival.

Panels and Workshops will include:

• Screenplay Craft and Structure
• Adapting Intellectual Property
• Writing the Television Pilot
• How to Secure and Work With an Agent/Manager
• Producing Independent Film
• The Failure Panel…a returning attendee favorite!

In addition to high-level writers, the “Your Voice” track will offer panels and instruction specifically for writers and filmmakers in the Atlanta area to utilize local production expertise to produce and create content.  There will also be programming dedicated to diversity onscreen and faith-based content, topics of great interest for Atlanta artists and beyond.  

Confirmed speakers include:

• Eric Heisserer (Oscar-nominated writer of Arrival)
• Doug Jung (Writer, Star Trek Beyond, Banshee)
• Malcolm Spellman (Writer, Producer on Empire)
• Keya Khayatian (Senior Literary Agent at UTA, clients wrote Stick It, Dallas Buyers Club, Brokeback Mountain, Serendipity, etc)
• Eric Fineman (Producer, Spiderman: Homecoming, Miracles From Heaven)
• Hannah Ozer, (Literary Manager at Kaplan/Perrone)
• Michael Lucker (Lilo & Stitch 2, 101 Dalmations II, Vampire in Brooklyn)
• Jacob Krueger (Writer, The Matthew Shepard Story, founder and instructor of Write Your Screenplay)
• And more!

In tandem with the Writers Summit, the Atlanta Film Festival spotlights the art and craft of screenwriting through its annual Screenplay Competition. Three grand prize-winning feature film screenwriters will participate in an exclusive two-day screenwriting retreat leading up to the Writers Summit and will be recognized at the Summit Awards Ceremony. Michael Lucker (Writer, 101 Dalmatians 2, Lilo & Stitch 2, etc) will lead the retreat mentorship, with additional mentors to be announced soon.

The ScreenCraft Writers Summit will be a unique opportunity to learn from the best in Hollywood, in a small-scale environment where meaningful, long-term partnerships can be forged.  Hollywood heavyweights are coming to Atlanta in 2018 to share stories and insight over Southern hospitality – join us!

ScreenCraft is a boutique consultancy, education and talent discovery platform for screenwriters worldwide.  ScreenCraft’s education and media partners include The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Huffington Post, IndieWire, Variety and more.

Building on ScreenCraft’s legacy of screenwriting excellence and educational events worldwide (Shanghai Film Festival, Nashville Writers Conference, Napa Valley Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, etc) and ATLFF’s prestige as a world-class film festival in America’s fastest-gro

wing entertainment city, both partners are eager to shine a new spotlight on the art and craft of writing screenplays, literary works and new media and to celebrate the best of entertainment writing worldwide.

ScreenCraft partners with film festivals and literary events to bring top-tier Hollywood insight and education to writers worldwide.  Past partners include: the Nashville Film Festival, the Shanghai Film Festival, The Austin Film Festival, The Bahamas International Film Festival, The Calabash Literary Festival (in Jamaica), The Woods Hole Film Festival (in Cape Cod), The Annapolis Film Festival, The Santa Fe Film Festival, the Napa Valley Film Festival. Educational events have featured Andrea Berloff (STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON), Mark Bomback (WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, INSURGENT) Jeb Stuart (DIE HARD), Chad & Carey Hayes (THE CONJURING 1 & 2), Bobby Moresco (Oscar-winner, CRASH, MILLION DOLLAR BABY), Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (JURASSIC WORLD, AVATAR), Max Borenstein (KONG: SKULL ISLAND, GODZILLA), James Gunn (Writer/Director, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 1 & 2) and many more.

The Atlanta Film Festival: Now in its fifth decade, the Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF)—one of only two-dozen Academy Award® qualifying festivals in the U.S.—is the area’s preeminent celebration of cinema. Operated by the Atlanta Film Society, ATLFF is one of the largest and longest-running festival in the country, welcoming an audience of nearly 25,000 to discover hundreds of new independent, international, animated, documentary, and short films, selected from nearly 7,000 submissions from all over the world.

Recent festival guests include William H. Macy, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Sherri Shepherd, Richard Chamberlain, Margaret Cho, Abigail Spencer, Drivin’ N Cryin’, Jeff Foxworthy, Jasmine Guy, Kara Hayward, Martin Henderson, Georgie Henley, Chris Lowell, Ludacris, Pras Michel, Julianne Nicholson, Tye Sheridan, Chris Tucker, Eddie Vedder and many others.

The Atlanta Film Society is a membership-based 501(c)(3) arts non-profit with a mission to lead the community in creative and cultural discovery through the moving image.  ATLFF presents a diverse slate of year-round offerings for film-lovers and filmmakers. By bringing audiences and filmmakers together, the Festival has the opportunity to broaden the perspective of both artists and moviegoers.