Finish the Script

It’s Year 2 of the Dolby Institute x Ghetto Film School Filmmaker Challenge and we've selected our winners. Now it’s time for them to finish the script.

Meet the filmmakers
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How the challenge works

Award-winning director Carlos López Estrada writes an opening scene that is sent out to the GFS network. Emerging filmmakers from all over finish the script with their unique stories. 



Four winners are awarded a $25,000 grant to make their film and provided with access to Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos to use in post. Throughout the entire filmmaking process, they’re mentored along the way by Carlos, Dolby, and GFS. We’ve now chosen our winning filmmakers and they’re headed into preproduction.

… did we mention the final films get the red-carpet treatment and premiere in LA?

The journey starts here

We brought our winning filmmakers together in sunny Los Angeles for a three-day creative workshop. They got to meet each other and team Dolby, exchange ideas in the writers’ room, bond over dinner in Hollywood, and oh yeah, workshop their scripts with award-winning director, writer, and producer Carlos López Estrada (Summertime, Raya and the Last Dragon). Get to know this year’s filmmakers.

Kaitlyn Ali

“I pushed myself this year to be more creative and challenge myself. I feel like I’m ready to make something that the world can see and put it on stage for everybody and share my ideas and thoughts as a creative person. And it means the world to me, and that Dolby is ready to give me access to the tools really big filmmakers use.”

Britney Bautista

“I feel like film spreads awareness about certain social and political issues. It has such great power to impact people's thoughts and perceptions of things. You can walk out of a movie theater and just have a completely changed perspective on life, on people. And I just loved that element of film creating shock, creating love, creating anything, and maybe even educating some people about certain things.”

Miguel Ramirez

“I think that's kind of what I wanted to focus on: the hidden gems that are in LA that sometimes folks who have not grown up here don't see. At the core of every story I like to tell is friendship, but also aspects of family, film, illness — in parts of the city that are typically not showcased.”

Thomas Sawyer

“I wanted to make a film about a story that was close to my heart, but also so other people would feel less isolated. I think we all can get in these moments where we really put ourselves down and we hide some of our truths. And I wanted to make a story about a character who is doing that and who summons the courage to stop and to just be themselves and be free of that, because that's when we start living too.”

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Ghetto Film School

Ghetto Film School

With locations in New York City, Los Angeles, and London, Ghetto Film School (GFS) is an award-winning nonprofit founded in 2000 to educate, develop, and celebrate the next generation of great storytellers. For complete Finish the Script 2021 entry information and guidelines click here.

The Dolby Institute

The Dolby Institute

The Dolby Institute was created to educate, inspire, and empower the next generation of content creators. Through events, instruction, and awareness, we help creatives think critically and creatively about sound and image, unlocking the power of technology to help tell their stories.