Cinema St. Louis is now accepting submissions for the 2011 CinemaSpoke Screenwriting Competition and Workshop. CinemaSpoke is an opportunity for St. Louis-area screenwriters to have their work read aloud in a public forum by professional and amateur actors and to receive feedback from a panel of film-industry experts experienced in producing, screenwriting, filmmaking, development, and criticism. Deadline for submissions is Feb. 28, 2011. 

A committee of selection judges will read the first 30 pages of each submitted screenplay. Based on these 30 pages, the judges will then select five scripts for the competition. The five 2011 CinemaSpoke finalists will be announced on Thursday, March 31.

The first 30 pages of each selected script will be given a public reading. Readings will be held at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of every month - April 11, May 9, June 13, July 11, and Aug. 8 - at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand Blvd. in Grand Center. The winning screenplay will then receive a full reading during the 20th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival, held this year from Nov. 10-20. All readings are free and open to the public.

Writers will be allowed to play a role in casting the actors who will do the live readings of the competition scripts. A panel of film professionals will offer criticism and feedback based on these readings. The author will also respond to questions from both panelists and audience members and has the option to rewrite the script based on feedback from the panel. Once the panel has read the final versions of all five scripts in their entirety, a winning script will be selected from the five.

CinemaSpoke selection judges are writer/director Ryan Eslinger (“When a Man Falls in the Forest,” “Daniel and Abraham”), St. Louis Beacon film critic Harper Barnes, former HBO and PBS programming associate Amani Roland, and Missouri Film Commission assistant director Andrea Sporcic. CinemaSpoke finalist judges are TV writer/producer Paul Guyot (“Judging Amy,” “Felicity”), TV writer Rift Fournier (“NYPD Blue,” “Kojak”), screenwriter Timothy Breitbach (“Dopamine”), film producer Buzz Hirsch (“Silkwood”), St. Louis Post-Dispatch film critic Joe Williams, and St. Louis writer/producer Bobbie Lautenschlager.

For more information, contact Cinema St. Louis at 314-289-4150 or visit its Web site at www.cinemastlouis.org.