European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE), Storyboard Collective, WIFT Sweden and the European Women’s Audiovisual Network are among the first organizations that have joined Main Character, ARTEF‘s pan-European search for unproduced feature fiction screenplays
Main Character was officially launched earlier this month at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival by ARTEF. The organization’s official name is the Anti-Racism Think Tank for European Film.
Main Character invites writers from across Europe to submit original, unproduced feature fiction screenplays offering European perspectives missing from the screen. The initiative is open to all genres, periods and settings, and welcomes writers of all ages and levels of experience, provided they have a draft feature-length screenplay.
Twelve projects will be selected and announced at the 2027 Göteborg International Film Festival, alongside a report analysing the themes, perspectives and narratives emerging across the submissions.
Main Character was developed on the findings of ARTEF’s 2026 Think Tank Report, A New Europe Must Emerge: Rethinking Power, People and Pipelines in European Cinema, which brought together research, think tanks and consultations conducted across the European film value chain throughout 2025. The report explored how stories move through the European film value chain.
ARTEF Steering Committee member and author of the organization’s report, Victoria Thomas, presented Main Character at Karlovy Vary. During her presentation, Thomas said: “Throughout our research we kept returning to one question: What is a European story? Across our think tanks and consultations, we found a common thread. Writers were eager to bring forward new stories, while industry professionals were keen to discover new narratives and connect with new audiences. Main Character is designed to bring those ambitions together. It begins with a simple invitation: What is your European narrative?”
Thomas added: “Through an anonymous, merit-based process, we hope to create new opportunities for stories to be discovered, for the industry to encounter fresh perspectives, and for audiences to have the opportunity to engage with an even broader range of European narratives.”
Submissions are now open, with the first round closing on 21 September 2026. Every submission will be assessed anonymously. 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.
