Climate Spring in partnership with Film London are pleased to announce the launch of The Hot House: Shorts, a short film competition for scripted live action short films about climate change. The partners will select a project to receive a production award of £10,000, development and executive producer support, as well as sustainable production guidance and certification to make their film.
Who is it for?
Hot House is for filmmaking teams (producer, director and writer), and is open to all creators over 18 not in full time education. At least one of the filmmaking team must self identify as coming from a marginalised background. By this, we mean an individual who has lived experience of racial inequity, a disability, economic or educational disadvantage, LGBTQI+, caring responsibilities. The writer can also be the producer or the director, but the producer may not be the director.
What they are looking for
Hot House are interested in stories that explore climate change creatively. They are not interested in apocalyptic dystopias and would like to see projects that are engaging in the challenge of navigating away from a high consumption, fossil fuel and extractive based society to one that is regenerative and renewable. The projects do not have to be explicitly about climate. In fact they are interested in stories that might not obviously be about climate. They can use metaphors or explore issues subtlety. Types of stories they are interested in:
World Building: Great stories that have nothing to do with climate change, they could be a love story, comedy, crime or adventure, but are set in a world without fossil fuels and extractive economies. The near future world would be one that is regenerative but that is merely the background to the main story which is not about environmental issues.
Impacts: Stories that are about navigating the impacts of climate change while trying to solve worsening impacts
Collective Heroes: Stories that are about people coming together to create renewable, regenerative solutions to energy, food, water, housing or transport need. This could be the core of the story or incidental to the main story.
Reveal the truth: stories about confronting the bad actors holding back progress on climate and challenging corruption, lies and greenwash.
Stories can be any genre, but must be live action, scripted, and less than 20 minutes.
Applications
Applications for The Hot House: Shorts are now open and close at 5pm on Monday 19th June 2023. Applicants will need to submit a draft script, alongside a sample of completed work for each member of the team. This can be any filmed work, including a filmed recording of a stage play. For the writer this may be a script which has not been produced.
Full terms and conditions are available here.
Please submit your application form here.
Deadline: 5pm on Monday 19th June 2023.
Source: BBC Writersroom