USC Annenberg’s Hollywood, Health & Society has announced their first ever horror short film contest, PLASTIC KILLS! In collaboration with Plastic Pollution Coalition, the contest highlights the terrors of plastic pollution and its toxic effects to our bodies, our children, our pets, and our planet. PLASTIC KILLS! continues Hollywood, Health & Society’s commitment to elevating critical societal issues through entertainment and storytelling, helping reshape narratives that have the potential to create meaningful change.
Submissions will be judged by writers, producers, directors and actors from Scream Queens, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Handmaid’s Tale, Mayfair Witches, Vampire Diaries, Lost, Grimm, Dahmer, The Purge and more. The winning selection will be shown at HH&S’s annual Sentinel Awards in December, and winners will be awarded a prize of $2,000.
The deadline for submissions has been extended to Friday, October 13th, 2023 – OF COURSE! – and the winner will be announced on Halloween, October 31, 2023. There is no entry fee. Tell whatever story you want in a short 1-3 minute horror film. The tone can be straight horror, comedic horror, thriller, or suspense; just remember, we’re dealing with a killer here. Full rules and details can be found HERE.
When it comes to killers, no one and nothing is quite as demented, as twisted, as prolific as… PLASTIC! Eat your heart out, Freddy Krueger, but be warned: there’s probably plastic in it. Plastic pollution and microplastics haunt every aspect of life on earth. Microplastics have been found in human blood, hearts, lung tissue, placenta, and even breast milk. Beaches and shorelines are regularly lined with plastic pollution, with more washing up daily, like ghosts of our past trash. The plastic pollution horrors persist, but if we collectively work to highlight these issues, we can Flip the Script on Plastics and work towards a plastic-free future.
