Accepting submissions now through October 18, Yale in Hollywood Fest is back for a third year after winning a Board of Governors Excellence Award from Yale Alumni last year.
Yale in Hollywood Fest is a global virtual film festival that will be held December 1 to December 3, featuring a three-day lineup of feature and short films. Films will be judged by an esteemed alumni jury of actress Robinne Lee, Obie winning playwright David Henry Hwang, actor and writer Jeff Locker (2021 festival honoree), and actress and current student Sophia Mitri Schloss (2021 festival honoree).
For films to qualify for submission, they must include at least one Yale student, alum, or current staff in the starring, producing, writing, or directing chair.
“In the blink of an eye, we’re running the third Yale in Hollywood Fest. We started Yale in Hollywood Fest as a platform to showcase feature and short films made with a significant Yalie’s participation and cinematically uplift the Yale spirit,” said festival director Quentin Lee, one of the event’s co-founders. “We have also decided that it is important for the festival to be virtual so that Yale alums, students and friends can access the content worldwide.”
The decision was made for the festival to be virtual again this year to make it accessible to the worldwide Yale community, providing a larger platform to surface great and important stories.
In addition to the roles held by Lee, alumnae Melissa Johnson and Hannah Ruth Earl will serve as the programmer for short films and features respectively. Alumnus Kevin Winston is the founder and head of Yale in Hollywood, a volunteer-run shared interest group based in Los Angeles that connects Yale students and alumni to the entertainment industry.
All events associated with Yale in Hollywood Fest, including screenings and live streams, will be available directly from Yale in Hollywood Fest’s official website.
Submissions are now open on Filmfreeway.com. To submit today or for more information, please visit yihfest.com.
Yale in Hollywood Fest Alumni Jury
Robinne Lee
Lee, a Jamaican-American writer, actor, and producer, heads the features jury at Yale in Hollywood Fest. A graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, Robinne has accrued numerous acting credits in both film and television over the past two decades, most notably in “Hitch,” “Seven Pounds,” “Hotel for Dogs,” “13 Going on 30,” “Being Mary Jane,” and the “Fifty Shades” franchise. Her debut novel, The Idea of You, originally published by St. Martin's Press in 2017, is now an international bestseller, with over a dozen foreign translations. Dubbed “the sleeper hit of the pandemic,” by Vogue Magazine, The Idea Of You film is currently being produced by Amazon Prime Studios with Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway in the lead role. Robinne is attached as a producer. An inactive member of the New York Bar, Robinne has also produced various independent films. She regularly speaks on panels and writes for trade magazines regarding the roles of women and actors of color in the industry. Robinne can next be seen in Netflix’s limited series “Jigsaw,” opposite Giancarlo Esposito.
David Henry Hwang
Hwang heads shorts jury and is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays FOB, Golden Child, and Yellow Face. Three of his works—M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power—have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Sophia Mitri Schloss
Schloss is an actress and current student at Yale University. Last year, Sophia received the Best Actress honor for her role in SJ Chiro’s feature Lane 1974.
Jeff Locker
Locker is an actor, writer, and alum of Yale University. Jeff currently serves as Vice President of Yale in Hollywood. His short film “The Forgotten Place” won Best Narrative Short Film in Yale in Hollywood Fest 2021.
Photo above, clockwise from top left to bottom left: Robinne Lee, David Henry Hwang, Sophia Mitri Schloss, Jeff Locker, Kevin Winston, Hannah Ruth Earl, Melissa Johnson and Quentin Lee.
