The Academy Partners with Global Screenwriting Programs for Nicholl Fellowships, The Black List to Serve as Submission Portal

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, an international program that identifies and nurtures talented new screenwriters, will now exclusively partner with global university programs, screenwriting labs and filmmaker programs to select Nicholl fellows. Each partner will vet and submit scripts for consideration for an Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and The Black List will serve as a portal for public submissions. All scripts submitted by partners will be read and reviewed by Academy members.

“As part of the globalization of the Academy and to deepen our relationship with educational partners around the U.S. and the world, we are excited to evolve the Nicholl Fellowships program to include a stronger connection to universities, screenwriting labs and filmmaker programs and their incredible pool of emerging talent,” said Howard Berger, Academy governor and president of the Academy Foundation Board. “Our commitment to discovering and supporting new voices remains stronger than ever, and I’m thankful to my fellow Academy members for dedicating their time and expertise to support this mission.”

Nicholl fellows receive support from the Academy and mentorship from an Academy member throughout their fellowship year. They also participate in a week of virtual seminars, a virtual meet and greet with the Nicholl Fellowships committee, and in-person networking events. Fellows additionally receive ongoing career advancement support through the Gold Alumni Program, which provides continued access, opportunity, professional development and education for alumni of the Academy’s talent development programs.

Nicholl program partners for 2025 include:

American Film Institute 
Australian Film Television and Radio School 
Bangkok University
Berlin International Film Festival
The Black List
California Institute of the Arts
California State University, Los Angeles
CAPE 
Chapman University
Columbia University 
Edinburgh Napier University
Gold House
Howard University
IFFR Pro 
Latino Film Institute
London Film School
Loyola Marymount University
New York University
Northwestern University 
RMIT University
Savannah College of Art and Design
Sundance Institute
Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto Metropolitan University
Universidad del Cine
University of Arts London
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Cape Town
University of North Carolina School of the Arts 
University of Oxford
University of Texas at Austin
Urbanworld Festival
Victoria University of Wellington

Partner script submissions to the Academy will open in late July, and the deadline will be in late August. Nicholl fellows will be awarded in spring 2026.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that recipients will complete feature-length screenplays during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

The Nicholl Fellowships were established in 1985 through the support of Gee Nicholl in memory of her husband, Don Nicholl. One hundred eighty-six fellowships have been awarded since 1986.

For more information and updates on the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting and its partners, visit oscars.org/nicholl. 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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