Black List news: First Martin Katz/TIFF Canadian Independent Screenwriting Fellow Chosen
The latest from the Black List:
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA — As the 2014 Toronto Independent Film Festival kicked off featuring twelve films previously featured on the annual Black List, the festival, producer Martin Katz, and the screenwriting institution announced that York University MFA student Kyle Francis will attend this year’s event as their inaugural Independent Screenwriting Fellow.
Alberta native Francis was chosen based on his script BLOOD CREEK, the story of a master thief who retreats to rural Canada to launder his illicit fortune and befriends a teenage survivalist who he must protect from the maniac who pursues him. A Black List hired reader described the script as a crime thriller that’s “action-packed, darkly humorous, and wondrously rich in detail.”
“We created this fellowship to help discover new talent,” said Katz, chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, “And Kyle Francis is a terrific new talent we’re thrilled to have discovered. I’m excited to bring Kyle’s uniquely twisted comic voice to TIFF through the fellowship we have created with the Black List.
Francis, who was informed of the decision several weeks ago, explained, “As a lifelong movie nerd, it’s one of my life’s greatest embarrassments that I’ve never been to TIFF. But now that I’m not just attending, but doing so partly to meet an industry heavyweight who I have tremendous respect for, it really helps ameliorate my shame.”
Francis was chosen by Katz from amongst four indie spirited scripts hosted on the Black List website from unrepresented writers currently living in Canada whose lifetime screenwriting earnings do not exceed $25,000(CAD). The Black List — which recently announced a partnership with the Writers Guild of Canada similar to its already existing partnerships with the Writers Guild of America East and West and the Writers Guild of Great Britain — chose those scripts based on the data collected about them during their time hosted on the site.
The twelve films playing the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival that previously featured on the annual Black List are CAKE, CUT BANK, THE EQUALIZER, FOXCATCHER, THE IMITATION GAME, THE JUDGE, THE KEEPING ROOM, NIGHTCRAWLER, PAWN SACRIFICE, THE VOICES, ST. VINCENT, and WHIPLASH.
Martin Katz
Martin Katz is the president and founder of Prospero Pictures, a film and television production company with over twenty years’ experience in the structuring, financing, and producing of international co-productions. Prospero has initiated or financed co-productions that span the globe, with partners in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, South Africa, and the United States. Prospero’s long-term collaboration with celebrated director David Cronenberg includes the forthcoming Maps to the Stars starring Julianne Moore, Mia Wsikowska, John Cusack, and Robert Pattinson, representing Katz’s fourth production with Cronenberg. Katz is Executive Producer of the award-winning television series Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…, a co- production with David Furnish and Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, which features some fo the most renowned musicians in the world in conversation and performance with Costello, including Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Elton John, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Herbie Hancock, Lou Red, and Sting, among others. Martin Katz also holds degrees in law from the University of Toronto and the Université de Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and is Chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.
THE BLACK LIST
The Black List is an online community where moviemakers find scripts to make and writers to write them and screenwriters find moviemakers to make their scripts and employ them. Google for screenplays, if you will.
Begun in 2005 as an annual survey of several dozen executives favorite unproduced screenplays, the Black List has grown to survey over 500 executives each year (virtually 100% of Hollywood’s studio system’s executive corps.) Over 250 Black List scripts have been produced into films grossing over $20 billion in worldwide box office. Black List scripts have won 30 Academy Awards — including three of the last six Best Pictures (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE KING’S SPEECH, and ARGO) and seven of the last fourteen screenwriting awards (JUNE, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE KING’S SPEECH, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, THE DESCENDANTS, ARGO, and DJANGO UNCHAINED) — from almost 200 nominations.
In October 2012, the Black List launched an online database of every screenplay circulating Hollywood and all those submitted by English language screenwriters from around the world. Since its launch, it has hosted more than 16,000 screenplays and completed more than 25,000 script evaluations. Scores of writers have found representation at major agencies and management companies or sold/optioned their scripts as a direct result of introductions made via the site. The first completed film born of a Black List website introduction, NIGHTINGALE starring David Oyelowo, premiered this week at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
In November 2013, the Black List expanded to include original pilots for episodic content (television, web series, and miniseries).
At any given moment, more than 2500 screenplays are actively hosted for perusal by over 2500 film industry professionals ranging from agency assistants to studio chairs.
Another great Black List initiative. Here is the complete list:
Cassian Elwes / Sundance Film Festival — Black List
Hasty Pudding Institute Screenwriting Fellowship — Black List
Martin Katz/Toronto International Film Festival — Black List
Walt Disney Studios — Black List
And don’t forget the 2014 Black List Screenwriters Lab, the follow-up to last year’s inaugural event. An announcement on that coming up soon!