MISSION

Humanitas honors and empowers film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way.

VISION

Humanitas recognizes that each human being is a world to be discovered. We celebrate the stories that explore the human experience because the act of acknowledging our common humanity is transformational.

OUR PROGRAMS

The HUMANITAS PRIZES are awarded to honor film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way. Prizes are presented at an annual event where winners receive a trophy and a cash prize.

The NEW VOICES FELLOWSHIP is an approximately six-month mentorship program for emerging television and screenwriters. The program is committed to identifying and empowering five unrepresented writers each year who are currently working on a 30- or 60-minute pilot or feature film screenplay that upholds the mission of Humanitas.

The Humanitas COLLEGE SCREENWRITING AWARDS recognize writers whose work advances the Humanitas mission and who are currently enrolled in a college or university program. Humanitas annually awards two prizes which recognize excellent student screen and television writing: The David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Award and The Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award. The two students selected each receive a $20,000 cash prize and more.

Humanitas also presents a number of PUBLIC PROGRAMS throughout the year. Industry 101 introduces and explores topics foundational to understanding and launching television and film writing careers. The Writers Room is a TV writing intensive for high school students which was piloted at Hollywood High beginning in August 2023.

GROCERIES FOR WRITERS is a direct aid project for WGA writers and writers room support staff originally launched in response to the 2023 WGA Strike.

HOW OUR STORY BEGAN

In 1974, Fr. Ellwood "Bud" Kieser, C.S.P. went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean and “got a brilliant idea” to change the television landscape, which, he believed, was not fulfilling its potential to both entertain and uplift audiences. 

To encourage the entertainment industry to enhance the lives of its viewers, he built a broad coalition to create the Humanitas Prizes, which emphasized the role of the writers. He believed that, while film and television are collaborative mediums, the passion, intellect, and point of view of the writer is always the defining creative force of any project.

“Whatever we can do to empower, enrich, and support writers, we should do because it is writers who show us where we’ve been and where we are going as a culture,” Kieser said, “and that is a journey we need to explore richly and deeply with writers leading the way.”

Achieving the mission of Humanitas requires an environment of trust, safety, mutual respect, free expression, and inquiry. Community members ought to integrate these values into their experience with Humanitas, whether in workshop discussions or engaging in Industry 101 chat rooms. Through a collective commitment to these beliefs, we can create an environment in which we can strive to achieve our full potential as writers. Being disruptive or otherwise failing to carry out these values may result in removal from events.