Filmmatic TV Pilot Awards

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 contest closed on 29 June 2026 and is in judging, with quarter-finalists announced on 28 August and grand prize winners on 18 December. No 2027 dates have been published, though the 2026 prize list includes a free 2027 entry, so a further cycle is expected. Across four evidenced cycles the final deadline has landed between 28 and 30 June every year, with the first tier in mid-to-late April, quarter-finalists in late August and grand prize winners in early-to-mid December. The opening date is only evidenced for two cycles, 10 March 2025 and 23 March 2026, so treat March as an observation rather than a rule. Note the tier names changed for 2026, from Early Bird, Regular, Extended and Last Chance to Early Bird, Regular, Final and Extended.

7 Nov 2026

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 round closed on 27 May 2026, with the pitch event on Sunday 12 July. The pattern is one of the most consistent we have found: across 2024, 2025 and 2026 the regular deadline has always fallen between 13 and 17 May, the late deadline exactly fourteen days later, fees frozen at 40 and 50 euro, ten finalists, a 3,000 euro prize, and the pitch always on the closing Sunday of the Fleadh in mid-July. The only drift is the weekday and the cut-off time, which moved from 5pm in 2024 to 23:59 from 2025. Two cautions if you check their pages: the submissions page carries a year typo giving the late deadline as May 2025, and it states GMT when Ireland is on Irish Summer Time in May, which would move the cut-off an hour earlier than most entrants expect.

4 Dec 2026

Closed for this cycle

Playwriting and Screenwriting is part of the 2028 award cycle, with applications opening in autumn 2027, roughly fourteen months away. Exact dates are not yet published. For scale, the last time this discipline ran, applications opened at 10am Eastern on 8 October 2024 and closed at 5pm Eastern on 17 December 2024, with notifications the following summer. The cycle typically runs from autumn into early winter with decisions by mid-summer.

Opens soon

Round 1 2026 closed on 4 September 2026 at 11:59am NZST (a morning deadline), with recipients announced on 30 October. NZWG's page currently lists only Round 1; in August it gave Round 2 as opening on 18 December 2026 and closing on 12 February 2027, so treat those dates as indicative until they are relisted. Seed offers four grants of NZ$12,500 and Seed Advanced two of NZ$15,500 per round.