Application for Manchester Film Festival • Stowe Story Labs Development Workshop for Screenwriters

Thank you for your interest in the 2026 Manchester Film Festival • Stowe Story Labs Inaugural Development Workshop for Screenwriters. We are excited to offer this program. 

This inaugural program offers an exceptional opportunity for selected participants to learn new skills and generate ideas to help develop a narrative feature film. To learn more about Stowe Story Labs, please visit stowestorylabs.org. To learn more about the Manchester Film Festival, please visit manchesterfilmfestival.com. This program is open to applicants globally.

If selected to participate, the cost of the half day workshop is £50 and participants will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. The program will run Saturday, March 28, 2026. If admitted as a team (no more than two people), teams will share meetings. You can learn more about the program here.

The application to the program is below. It asks about you and your project. Please take your time completing the application, and know we make the same effort in reviewing your submission as you put into building it. Applications close February 16 at 11:59pm GMT. The application fee is £10.00

We would prefer not to need to charge an application fee (or participation fee) at all, but as a non-profit with limited funding we need to cover the cost of reviewing and responding to applications and running programs. We have set the application fee as low as practicable to allow us to meaningfully process the applications without discouraging serious applicants. 

We are honored to be working with the Manchester Film Festival to offer this program, and wish you the best of luck in the review process.

For queries please email: info@stowestorylabs.org. 

Thank you, 

Team Story Labs