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An independent film festival has launched a new screenwriting award named after a Channel Island writer to champion scripts which “tell a different kind of female story”.
The 13th Parish Festival of Independent Film and Music has teamed up with successful Jersey-born screenwriter Jenny Lecoat to launch a new film award open to all writers with strong ties to the Channel Islands.
The ‘Jenny Lecoat Award’ seeks to commend short film scripts that tell “innovative or untold stories” about women, “that raise or challenge women’s issues, or that show female characters in a light not usually seen in mainstream cinema and television.”
Ms Lecoat, writer of major film ‘Another Mother’s Son’ and the new award’s namesake, told Express that she first got involved with the 13th Parish Festival because she was good friends with some of the organisers, Martin Greene, Bruce Labey and Tony Langlois, when she was growing up in Jersey.
Pictured: The 13th Parish organisers. Image credit: David Morgan.
On her research trips back to Jersey whilst writing the screenplay for ‘Another Mother’s Son’ – a film set in Jersey during the Occupation and inspired by the life of Jenny’s great-aunt Louisa Gould – the writer reconnected with these school friends and the idea for a film award was born.
Ms Lecoat said: “…when they decided to put this festival together, I think they were automatically thinking of people connected to films, particularly Channel Island films that they knew, so it was an obvious connection I suppose.”
The competition is welcoming short film scripts from writers either born in the Channel Islands or who have a strong connection with the islands which centre on women’s stories.
Speaking about the female focus of the brief, Jenny explained that it came from a combination of her own interests as a writer as well as her frustrations with the limited way in which women are represented in the film industry.
“…I’ve always regarded myself as a feminist and always been interested in women’s issues and women’s politics. ‘Another Mother’s Son’ had a female protagonist and was a story that was probably more dominated by women, really… if I was going to put an award in my name for this festival, this felt a natural path for it really.”
The screenwriter continued: “I’ve been very bored over the last few years as have many other women I know – many other people I know – with the way that women are often portrayed in mainstream film and mainstream television. I think that is now beginning to change very slowly, but I got to a point where I did not want to watch another drama where a woman has been murdered, or a woman has been raped, or a woman has been stalked.
“I’m just so fed up of seeing those victimisation images of women,” Ms Lecoat told Express.
It was this which motivated her to create a brief that would attract scripts that are “finding a new perspective… and coming at it from a new angle.” However, she emphasised that the award is open to everyone, not just women writers.
The Jenny Lecoat Award, which is sponsored by the Jersey branch of the Soroptomists International, will be given to the script which Ms Lecoat and her fellow competition judges to be the most promising.
The first-prize winner will be given £300 and two runner-ups will receive £100 each – prizes which will be presented by Ms Lecoat at a ceremony in May at the Jersey Arts Centre after a live reading of all of the finalists’ work.
Offering some words of wisdom for entrants to the competition, she said: “The thing about short film is that it has to be very concise… you’re working with a very small palette so you have to try to get as much detail into a very small timeframe which takes quite a lot of skill. It’s like painting a miniature, really… and that means that there’s no time to waste.
“With a short, even a sloppy, unnecessary ten seconds will stand out so every moment has to count.”
Details of how to enter the competition as well as entry criteria and rules are available on the 13th Parish website.
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