Born at the end of the 1980s, brainchild of a few idealistic Public Television directors and the Geneva authorities, the Prix Genève-Europe is today as healthy as can be! In the last few years it has made its home at the prestigious Prix Europa, and has become a prize category in its own right.

To discover new talent in the field of European television fiction writing, to treasure the singularity and originality of the fiction works while at the same time affirming a strong identity within all our European cultural diversity, to nurture the development of skills, to train without standardising, these are some of the aims of the European Alliance for Television and Culture, which, each year, through the European Broadcasting Union, awards writing bursaries and the Prix Genève-Europe for the best TV fiction script written by a newcomer.

Over the decades, the writers that won the award, received the financial support or worked on their scripts in the writing workshops, have in their great majority continued their careers in film and television, some with great success. Besides the joy of receiving an award alongside other television professionals, or experiencing the intensity of the workshops and the continuing communication with the tutors, one of the extra advantages they experience is for once to be able to meet fellow writers from other countries.

At present the financial backers and organisers of these awards are public broadcasters from Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as the Geneva authorities and the EBU.  However national broadcasters from other countries can also submit their submissions or candidates to the workshops. They can also join the Alliance to support new talent in television fiction scriptwriting.

In 2010, various national broadcasters throughout Europe submitted 14 films written by new writers. Three of these films had already been supported from the beginning of their development by the EATC writing bursaries and so their authors had participated in the two writing workshops organised in Berlin and Geneva by the EATC. And a past Prix Genève-Europe winner, who had then been able to participate in the writing workshops of the following year, wrote a fourth 2010 submission. Several EATC-supported productions are submitted each year to the Prix Europa fiction category.

The next call for submissions and eligibility conditions will be posted on the PRIX EUROPA website as well as the EBU website in early May.

Click on the link for more information.