Climate Spring: The Hot House Development Lab

Recognising the power of storytelling in how they see and shape the world, this year’s The Hot House development lab focuses on ‘stories of the climate transition’. This brief has been chosen to encourage the creation of hopeful stories on how humanity can navigate through this crisis collectively, offering a ‘counter-narrative’ to the dominant ‘doomsday’ narrative frequently encountered in the climate discourse.

Who tells the stories matters and they recognise that creators from diverse backgrounds have faced structural barriers to working in the screen industries and that this limits the perspectives and stories they see. They therefore particularly encourage applications from writers who have been historically marginalised by the screen industries.

Award Information

• Writers selected to participate in the lab will be paid £1,000 on delivery of a five page Synopsis by 1st September 2024 in compensation for their time on receipt of a valid invoice.
• Writers selected to participate in the lab agree for their work to be shared with script editors (“Script Editors”) as selected by The Organisers who are participating in a training programme run by The Organisers September – December 2024. All Script Editors in the training programme will be bound by confidentiality from sharing any details of the project to any third party without the express permission of the Writers.
• Selected Projects may be offered an opportunity to enter into a development agreement with the Organisers. The Organisers reserves the right not to offer a contract to any Writers, at the sole discretion of the Organisers.

Who is eligible?

• The Hot House 2024 is open to individual writers and writing partnerships. All applying writers must be over 18 and not in full time education, and can be based anywhere in the world.
• Writers must have/have done at least one of the following:
  • An agent
  • Have written a short film that has been screened at an Academy Award qualifying short film festival OR a BAFTA qualifying short film festival
  • Have written a stage play which has had at least a two week run in a theatre or festival, including fringe festivals.tival
  • Have a writing credit for a produced feature film or TV series
• They will allow writing partnerships of up to three individuals.

Terms and Conditions

• The Program is for scripted feature films and long form TV written in the English language.
• Pitches should be between three and five A4 pages and be submitted as a PDF.
• Scripts should be no less than 50 pages and no longer than 120.
• Scripts must be submitted in a legible format and that the Application Materials are submitted as PDFs no larger than 15mb.
• Once a Project has been entered in the Program, no substitutions of new drafts or corrected pages will be accepted.

For more information, visit Climate Spring.