The Anti-Racism Think Tank for European Film (Artef) has launched the Main Character initiative to champion unproduced screenplays from across Europe that tell stories not widely represented on screen.
Main Character will culminate in a showcase of 12 screenplays at Sweden’s Goteborg film festival in February 2027. It was launched today (July 7) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Writers from across Europe can submit original, unproduced feature fiction screenplays from today. The initiative is open to all genres, periods and settings, and writers of all ages and levels of experience, provided they have a draft feature-length screenplay.
Artef will work with outreach partners to encourage writers from underrepresented groups to apply.
“We can be very intentional about going to these specific communities and amplifying the call, so they know it’s not just another European scheme, it’s really for the stories we have not seen, or heard,” said Victoria Thomas, Artef steering committee member, Glasgow-based Republic of Story producer and London Film School lecturer.
Artef also plans to publish a report analysing the themes, perspectives and narratives emerging across submissions.
Main Character builds on the findings from Artef’s 2026 think tank report, A New Europe Must Emerge: Rethinking Power, People and Pipelines in European Cinema, co-authored by Thomas.
“One of the things that came out of the [report] round tables was people [from underrepresented groups] saying, ‘We haven’t been funded’. But when we asked them how many times they had been rejected, they said they’d never applied. The funds are then saying, ‘We really want the stories but they don’t apply.’ We feel the result is to kick-start the conversation.
”We don’t know which countries will be involved until we see the screenplays, but we’re hoping film funds or producers from those countries will then have a conversation with those people.”
Artef said each submission will be assessed anonymously to remove any bias. Loglines and short synopses will be read by an initial panel, long synopses by a second independent panel, and shortlisted feature screenplays by a pan-European jury. At every stage, readers assess the work without knowing the writer’s identity, previous credits or production company affiliations.
Artef was founded in 2020 as the brainchild of Matthijs Wouter Knol, the director and CEO of the European Film Academy. It formed following the murder of the Black US man George Floyd, and the ensuing industry debate around structural racism.
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