The Virginia Film Office announced the three winners of the 2025 Virginia Screenwriting Competition. The annual event, founded in 1989, was created by the Virginia Film Office to celebrate the accomplishments of Virginia writers, as well as to promote the future of filmmaking in Virginia.  It provides screenwriters with a forum for their work and an opportunity to present their scripts to experienced members of the film industry.  The competition accepts both feature length screenplays and hour-long episodic pilot submissions.

The Virginia Film Office acknowledged the winners on stage at the Paramount Theater at the 2025 Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville on Saturday, October 25th.

2025 VIRGINIA SCREENWRITING COMPETITION WINNERS:

Tom Basham | Love Detector
A heartbroken woman creates a phone app that can tell if someone loves you, and tests it on an unsuspecting man, then it’s tested on her.

 Kathy Li | Nguyen or Lose
After a naive kid accidentally crosses the wrong gang boss, he must deliver $250k to clear his debt and seeks the help of his comically absurd Vietnamese refugee family. Can the family overcome their differences, dysfunction, and trauma and work together, or will they lose their home and family for the second time in their lives?

Mia Tyler | Don’t Dwell
A young mother must confront the spirit that haunted her childhood when it begins tormenting her son after she is forced to return home almost ten years later to care for her ailing mother.