This year's Annual Oscar Moore Screenwriting Prize of £10,000 has been won by Marcus Lloyd for his dark, urban thriller Cuckoo.

Launched in 1997, The Oscar Moore Foundation is supported by the British film industry and administered by film trade bible Screen International. Set up in memory of Screen's late editor-in-chief and Guardian columnist, whose fight against AIDS was recently brought to the stage in London's Drill Theatre by Malcolm Sutherland, its aim is to recognise and reward new and exciting European screenwriting talent by awarding annually the Oscar Moore Screenwriting Prize.

Marcus describes his award-winning script: "Surrogacy takes a dark twist when a Harley street doctor seduces a homeless teenager. She thought he wanted her body. She was dead right."

Chairwoman Anne-Marie Flynn said "The Oscar Moore Screenwriting Prize is unique in that it exists to discover and nurture fresh screenwriting talent Europe-wide. Its board of trustees boasts some of Britain's most successful producing, screenwriting and directing talent, making this Award one of the most prestigious in its field. Aside from the cash prize, the Award provides mentoring for screenwriters through its work with the Arista Screenwriting workshop and the Script Factory, which will host a performed reading in the coming months. It is fast becoming Europe's highest profile, and most important screenwriting Award".

Lloyd is a previous winner of the London Playwriting Festival, the New London Playwrights Festival, and The Double Exposure Script Writing Competition. His stage play Dead Certain was performed at the Royal Court in 1999 and his script A Relative Stranger was performed on BBC2 in 1996.

The Oscar Moore Foundation hosted the Prize-giving and annual fund-raising film quiz at Sound in London's Leicester Square on the evening of Nov 28th.

In addition to the Foundation's trustees Duncan Kenworthy Eric Fellner, Scott Meek and Anthony Minghella, this year's guest list included Emma Thomson (the Foundation's Honorary Patron), and her partner Greg Wise, Stephen Fry, Hugh Lawrie, Hugh Grant, Sir Derek Jacobi, Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry and Richard Curtis.