The Author Foundation announces the IX SGAE Script Award for Feature Film 'Julio Alejandro'

Participants, residents of Spain or Latin America, may submit their work until February 27, the date on which the registration period closes. The winner will be announced within the framework of the next Malaga Spanish Film Festival.

The General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE) and the Buñuel Institute announce the IX edition of the SGAE Julio Alejandro Feature Film Screenplay Award. As in previous editions, the contest is open to all SGAE member authors of any nationality and to authors without links to any society or copyright management entity residing in Latin America.

The deadline for submitting the original texts, which can be written in any of the official languages ​​of Spain, will end on February 27. The bases are available on the page web of the SGAE. The names of the five finalists, who will compete for the only prize consisting of a payment of 40,000 euros, will be announced in 2012 during the Malaga Spanish Film Festival.

The SGAE Julio Alejandro Screenplay Award is, in addition to a promotional platform for young film values, a tribute to the memory of the screenwriter and playwright from Huesca Julio Alejandro (1906-1995), a close collaborator of Luis Buñuel. In fact, he worked alongside the Teruel genius on some of his most emblematic titles, such as Viridiana, Nazarín, Simón del Desierto or Tristana. The SGAE founded this award to enhance the quality of creation by authors in the audiovisual sector and encourage the launch of film projects based on the creation of scripts.

The works participating in this ninth edition will be analyzed by the Reading Committee chosen for the occasion, who in 2012 will announce the names of the five finalists aspiring to the final prize of 40,000 euros. From that moment on, the finalists will receive 600 euros so that they can prepare a public exhibition of their script before the Competition Jury during the next edition of the Malaga Spanish Film Festival, which will take place in April 2012 and where the winner of the competition will be announced.

Coming soon to the big screen

Mexican Jano Mendoza won the VIII SGAE Julio Alejandro Screenplay Award for Feature Film for his work When horses learned to cry in the last edition held last 2011 and which is currently in the pre-production phase. Just like We all have a plan (Tornasol Films), by Ana Piterbarg, who has taken the script with which she won the V edition -2008- to the cinema, and which stars Viggo Mortensen. The film will premiere in Argentina in April and will arrive in Spain in June. Likewise, another notable text from this prestigious event can be seen on the big screen starting next April. It will be the new work of director Imanol Uribe, orange honey (Alta Films), script by Andalusian director Remedios Crespo, which won the VI SGAE Julio Alejandro Award in 2009. Filmed in the city of Jerez, it features Blanca Suárez, Ibán Garate and Ángela Molina, among others, in the cast.