The Austin Film Festival has announced the winners of its 2026 Script and Film Competitions, recognising writers and filmmakers across feature films, television, short films, animation and other storytelling formats. The winners were honoured at the festival’s Awards Luncheon on Saturday, October 31, in Austin, Texas, as part of its 33rd annual Festival and Writers Conference.
This year’s competitions received more than 12,500 submissions, with 78 scripts advancing to the finalist round. A total of 21 writers and writing teams were selected as winners in the Script Competition. Among the notable recipients were Keith Rubin, whose screenplay Helicopter received two awards, and Saoirse Ronan, who won the Narrative Short award for Paper Plane.
The Script Competition recognised projects across several genres and formats. Zenas Cao won the Drama Feature Award, presented by the Writers Guild of America, East, for Sisters, while Sarah Peele received the Comedy Feature Award for Pure Intentions. Robert Barker and Jim Russo won the YMH Studios Comedy Fellowship Award for Derek Darling.
Keith Rubin received two honours for Helicopter, winning both the William N. Collage Screenwriting Award and the Enderby Entertainment Award. Other feature screenplay winners included Lisa Cole, whose Filthy received The Donners’ Company Screenwriting Award; Eric Goldberg, whose Devilish won the Valhalla Entertainment Award; and Bobby Marino, whose Dyscopia received the Horror Feature Award. Matt Foss and Cora Vander Broek won the Chronology Screenwriting Award for Method.
Parker Rawlins and William Cowser received the Sci-Fi Feature Award for Louis and Puck, while Haley Mancini won the Roadmap Writers Representation Fellowship Award for I Want My Present Back. The awards recognised projects across drama, comedy, horror and science fiction, reflecting the range of material represented in this year’s screenplay competition.
The television and other writing categories also recognised a variety of projects. Eric Williams won the Drama Teleplay Pilot Award for Gay Harlem, while Michael Connors received the AMC One-Hour Pilot Award for House of Devlin. Mac Alsfeld won the Comedy Teleplay Pilot Award for Arkadelphia, and Chase Norman received the Adult Animated Comedy Teleplay Fellowship for Evolved.
Other screenplay honours went to Laura Hunter Drago for Dexter: Resurrection: The Gamblers in the Drama Teleplay Spec category and Dawn Cowle for Hacks: Chicken and Egg in the Comedy Teleplay Spec category. Aaron Roman won for the short screenplay The Semicolon, while Rigel Harris received recognition in the stage play category for Body of Work. Sunny Bleckinger won in the fiction podcast category for The Cold Plunge. The scripted digital series award went to Matthew McFadden, Dawn Cowle and Baylor Knobloch for Old Bogus Massacre.
In the Film Competition, Harvey Zielinski’s Sweet Milk Lake won the Narrative Feature award. The Comedy Vanguard Feature honour went to Pickpockets, written by Lucy Green and D.C. Fairhurst and directed by Fairhurst. Laura Waters Hinson’s Strange Ashes: The Untold Story of Elisabeth Elliot received the Documentary Feature award, while All the Way Down, directed by Collin Davis and Matthew Valdez-Litwiller, won in the Dark Matters Feature category.
Saoirse Ronan won the Narrative Short award as the writer and director of Paper Plane. Gabriel Foster Prior’s Don’t You Want Me Baby? received an honourable mention. Other short-film winners included Rabbit Heart in the Student Short category, Buried Under Years of Dust in Documentary Short and How Not to Die on an Alien Planet in Animated Short.
The Produced Digital Series award went to Matched. The Kilter Films Filmmaker Fellowship awards recognised Rated in the feature category and Assembly Required in the short category. The Enderby Entertainment Filmmaking Fellowship was awarded to Soul Heirs.
The Austin Film Festival’s competitions are designed to recognise storytelling across different formats while creating opportunities for emerging talent to connect with the industry. Through its Writers Conference and Producers Book, the festival helps finalists reach agents, managers, producers and executives. Several awards also offer fellowships that provide opportunities for mentorship and career development, extending the competition’s role beyond recognition to supporting writers and filmmakers as they pursue further work.
Winners in the narrative, documentary and animated short-film categories are eligible for Academy Award consideration. With recognition spanning multiple genres and formats, the 2026 competitions highlight the festival’s continued focus on supporting writers and filmmakers at different stages of their careers, while bringing attention to projects across both the screenplay and completed-film categories.
