The 2021 Nicholl Fellows: Haley Hope Bartels, Karin delaPeña Collison, Byron Hamel, R. J. Daniel Hanna and Laura Kosann

MovieMaker

The Nicholl Fellowship is one of the most important and prestigious screenwriting competitions. There are countless articles online about how to win — but we thought it would be best to just ask the 2021 Nicholl Fellows about their achievement.

Here are their names and some details about their winning scripts:

Haley Hope Bartels (Los Angeles), Pumping Black: After a desperate cyclist takes up a team doctor’s dangerous offer, he seems on course to win the Tour de France. But as the race progresses and jealous teammates, suspicious authorities, and his own paranoia close in, he must take increasingly dark measures to protect both his secrets and his lead.

Karin delaPeña Collison (West Hollywood), Coming of Age: In 1965 Britain, Charlotte, a sheltered, studious schoolgirl, lands on a British Farce tour her mother stage manages, where private tutoring by company members replaces her formal schooling, with surprising success, and she experiences a Lolita-like flirtation in the morally wobbly era of Free Love, which leads both her and her mother to "come of age."

Byron Hamel (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada): Shade of the Grapefruit Tree: When a severely abused white boy befriends his sci-fi obsessed Black landlady, his fantasy of becoming a robot empowers him to recklessly confront his murderous stepdad.

R. J. Daniel Hanna (Los Angeles), Shelter Animal: A fiery, female prison trustee working at the county animal shelter finds purpose rehabilitating an abused pit bull, but her attempts to rally employees and the broader community for shelter

reform puts her own freedom at risk.

Laura Kosann (New York City), The Ideal Woman: Set in American suburbia during the Cuban Missile Crisis: A 1960’s ex-actress and housewife finds her house-of-cards world begin to tumble as she continues to be pitted against two identities.

Here's some information on how to enter the competition this year.

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