$50,000 For Uplifting Scripts
by Ted Baehr

First-time screenwriters with a religious message will have a chance to get their scripts noticed by top Hollywood executives in the First Bi-Annual John Templeton Foundation Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays, as announced today by the Templeton Foundation and the Christian Film & Television Commission™.

Co-sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and the Christian Film & Television Commission™, the top three winners not only will receive prizes totaling $50,000, their names and scripts will also be announced at the 14th Annual Movieguide Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry, attended by more than 200 top executives, filmmakers and celebrities.

Several of the top movie studios have already promised to give a first-look at the three winning scripts. The existing Templeton Epiphany Prize for inspirational films has had great influence. Last year’s winner was “The Passion of the Christ.”

This new prize for films yet-to-be is designed to encourage aspiring screenwriters to create more movies with storylines that help to increase man’s love for and understanding of God, similar to the criteria for the Epiphany Prize. The John Templeton Foundation Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays includes a $25,000 grand prize and runner-up awards of $15,000 and $10,000 each. First-time scribes need to submit their scripts right away to be considered for this inaugural edition of the prize, which will be awarded – along with the annual Epiphany Prize – at the Movieguide Awards Gala on March 2, 2006.

“We hope t he establishment of the Kairos Prize will encourage talented young screenwriters with new ideas and a great respect for the biblical faith to move forward on that project they have in mind, and to inundate Hollywood with moral, inspirational movies,” Dr. Jack Templeton, son of Sir John Templeton, said. Sir John Templeton has long believed that the media – and specifically the entertainment media – plays a role in how individuals form their ideas about faith and values. For this reason, nearly 10 years ago he and I established the Epiphany Prize for Inspiring Movies & TV, to honor those films and shows that help increase man’s understanding and love of God, modeled upon the famous Templeton Prize awarded every year for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities.

Specific criteria for the Kairos Prize describe screenplays that are wholesome, uplifting and inspirational, and which result in a greater increase in either man’s love or understanding of the “one true creator God.”

While more than 50,000 original screenplays are submitted every year to the Writers Guild of America, lackluster box office numbers show that by and large, the best and most creative scripts are still not being discovered and produced. The Kairos Prize offers a real chance for the untried and fearful ‘Davids’ to take on the Hollywood Goliath. This prize package is larger than the vast majority of hundreds of other scriptwriting contests, and it is one of the few guaranteeing the script a review by a major studio or producer.

Dr. Ted Baehr is Founder and Executive Producer of Movieguide, and Founder and Chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission

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