AFI Announces Winners of Writing Contest

Six screenwriters have been selected as winners in a second annual national competition to encourage minority writers sponsored by the American Film Institute Alumni Assn.

The winners will receive $500 awards and have scenes from their scripts performed by actors during ceremonies Wednesday at the AFI campus, 2020 N. Western Ave.

The writers are: Chuck Cummings of Decatur, Ga., who wrote a horror mystery, “Long Way From Home”; Michael Jones of Los Angeles, who wrote a horror film, “Torch,”; Renaldo Primas of Oakland, who penned an action script, “Man in the Window”; Scott Takemoto of Stamford, Ct., author of a drama, “Orphans,”; and, splitting the prize money because of a tie for the fifth prize, Jeremy Lew of La Habra for his drama “Rescue Me” and Steven Ramirez of Azuza for his action script “Deadeye.”

AFI’s Willard Rodgers, who has headed the the Alumni Assn. Writers Workshop since its founding in 1979, said a “lack of opportunity for minority writers” in the entertainment industry was the impetus for the program, which is funded by the Los Angeles City Cultural Affairs Department and Walt Disney Studios.

He said the “1989 Hollywood Writers Report: Unequal Access and Unequal Pay,” commissioned by the Writers Guild of America West, showed that only 2% of writers hired to write for motion pictures and TV were ethnic minorities. The report also presented statistics showing that from 1982 to 1987, white males accounted for more than three-fourths of the writers employed in film and TV.

Rodgers said that three of last year’s winners of the minority workshop competition are now working under contract at Walt Disney Studios.

The next workshop begins in September.