Humanitas Prize begins application process for 2026 awards

humanitas We have revealed the application process for this year’s The Humanitas Prizes and two artist development programmes, the New Voices Fellowship and the College Screenwriting Awards. All three honors will be announced at an awards ceremony on September 9 at the Avalon Hollywood in Los Angeles.

In one significant change, Humanitas will now manage the submission and early review process for the New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards, which it previously ran in partnership with Coverfly (which ended last August).

The Humanitas Awards began in 1974 to honor “professional film and television writers whose work demonstrates screenwriting skills while exploring the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way.” Categories include Drama Teleplay, Limited Series Teleplay, Drama Feature Film, Comedy Feature Film, Comedy Teleplay, Children’s Teleplay, Documentary (Feature), Family Feature, Documentary (Documentary, Single Episode) and Short Film.

last year’s winner These include “The Pitt,” “Dying for Sex,” “Sing Sing,” “A Real Pain,” “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh,” “Heartstopper,” “Patrice: The Movie,” “Inside Out 2,” “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae” and “The Cockroach.”

The New Voices Fellowship is a six-month mentoring program for emerging television and screenwriters, and the College Screenwriting Awards presents the David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Award or the Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award to student writers currently enrolled in a full-time college program. Writers interested in becoming a reader for the 2026 New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards program can submit entries. here.

“We are very excited about the opportunities presented by this program cycle,” Humanitas Executive Director Michelle Franke said in a statement. “The Humanitas Prize mission to highlight work that highlights the commonalities of our humanity is more important than ever, and the New Voice Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards will continue the work of finding storytellers to carry out this vision. The new platforms and processes we are introducing this year will allow us to do what we have long wanted to do: engage directly with the writing community as readers.”

Meanwhile, a new video narration component has been added as part of the New Voices Fellowship application.

Daniel Plagens, Humanitas Program Manager, said: “For a writing career in film and television, aptitude for writing and storytelling are paramount, but between pitching, networking and discussions in the writers’ room, public speaking is inevitably involved, and including a video description component is the best tool for gauging the skills of many applicants in this field.”

Funding from the Humanitas Prizes event supports the organization, including award programs and public programs such as grocery stores for writers and writers’ rooms. It also supports Industry 101, Humanitas’ conversation event series that returns this month with topics including adaptations, writers’ rooms, legal issues in screenwriting, personal branding, mentorship, fundraising, and more.