We're looking for 13 writers. Are you one of them?
are partnering to produce a feature-length shorts anthology, taking a experimental collaborative approach to development
The Structure
Jar of Hearts is a feature-length anthology told in 13 interlinked short stories.
Story 1: Character A with Character B
Story 2: Character B with Character C
Story 3: Character C with Character D
...and so on...
Same people, different rooms, different versions of themselves depending on who they're with. Thirteen stories that add up to one film, not a collection of shorts pretending to be one.
Across 13 stories we’ll explore…
- traditional relationships
- queer relationships
- toxic relationships
- polyamory
- young love
- old love
- self love
- parental love
- relationships with age gaps
- affairs
- open relationships
- technology’s impact on connection
- divorce
- loneliness
- grief & loss
- religion’s impact on relationships
….and eventually — connection that isn't romantic at all
Jar of Hearts will be grounded, real, funny and devastating in the same breath
Experimental Development
To bring unique and authentic voices to our diverse and dynamic cast of characters, we’re looking for 13 screenwriters to work collaboratively.
Each writer
…will be responsible for writing ONE character across TWO short screenplays
…will work collaboratively with TWO co-writers for each of the scripts
To give audiences the experience of watching a singular feature film, one director and one cinematographer will bring continuity across all stories.
Here's How it Works
After reviewing your submitted writing sample, our director and producing team play matchmaker — pairing writers whose voices complement each other, then handing each team the boundaries of their creative sandbox: who the characters are, where the story starts, where it ends, and how many pages you've got to get there.
What We're Looking For on the Page
We want realism. We want authenticity. We want you to make us laugh and then, three lines later, quietly take the wind out of us.
Humour has to come from real, recognisable behaviour — not a wacky misunderstanding or a contrived setup. The kind of funny that happens because people are people.
Keep the tragedy personal and specific. One relationship. One loss. Not a global catastrophe — the ache that fits in a room.
Small and true beats big and loud.
who is already attached
Dustin Curtis Murphy
Dustin Curtis Murphy
Dustin Curtis Murphy
Director
Dustin is a multi-disciplined short and feature narrative filmmaker. His debut micro-budget feature Coyote (2023) starring Therica Wilson-Read (Netflix’s The Witcher) and & BIFA winner Ruhtxjiaïh Bèllènéa (The Last Tree) won Best Sci-Fi Feature at Vortex (Flickers Rhode Island’s genre sidebar) and was nominated for Best Feature Fi
Director
Dustin is a multi-disciplined short and feature narrative filmmaker. His debut micro-budget feature Coyote (2023) starring Therica Wilson-Read (Netflix’s The Witcher) and & BIFA winner Ruhtxjiaïh Bèllènéa (The Last Tree) won Best Sci-Fi Feature at Vortex (Flickers Rhode Island’s genre sidebar) and was nominated for Best Feature Film at the National Film Awards. It also won the Audience Award at the Romford Film Festival, and Best Director at the BIFA qualifying Unrestricted View Film Festival. Short film highlights include the BIFA qualified Everything Is Out To Get Me (2023), Samaritan (2020) Winner: Best International Short at Sedona Film Festival, Winner: Grand Prize at The Weather Channel’s #EarthFilmChallenge, and Filthy Animals (2021) Shortlisted at Raindance.
Felicity Wren
Dustin Curtis Murphy
Dustin Curtis Murphy
Producer / Development
Felicity is a development executive, producer, and award-winning actor with a passion for bold, emotionally rich storytelling. She co-founded Unrestricted View with James Wren, a Production hub, theatre space and Publishing Company, now in its 28th year, and is the Executive Producer on all three annual UVFF film fes
Producer / Development
Felicity is a development executive, producer, and award-winning actor with a passion for bold, emotionally rich storytelling. She co-founded Unrestricted View with James Wren, a Production hub, theatre space and Publishing Company, now in its 28th year, and is the Executive Producer on all three annual UVFF film festivals, now in their 11th year. Based in London and Los Angeles, Felicity has produced nineteen films, won five performance awards, and serves as VP of Development at Creative Screenwriter Productions and the International Screenwriters’ Association, championing top screenwriting talent worldwide.
James Wren
Dustin Curtis Murphy
James Wren
Producer
James has worked extensively as an actor in TV and the live theatre in the West End. He was part of the critically acclaimed sketch show GREEDY, which had three Edinburgh festival runs and an Off Off Broadway run in New York. James also created and co-hosted the smash hit late night comedy show SPANK!
James has written and produced
Producer
James has worked extensively as an actor in TV and the live theatre in the West End. He was part of the critically acclaimed sketch show GREEDY, which had three Edinburgh festival runs and an Off Off Broadway run in New York. James also created and co-hosted the smash hit late night comedy show SPANK!
James has written and produced the features films Peacock Season (2009), The Trap (2015), The Man You’re Not (2017) and the short films The Day They Came To Suck Out Our Brains (2013), The Monster (2015), Silent Country (2016), Godless (2017), Final Curtain (2019), Bully (2023) and Hedged (2023).
James is joint CEO of Unrestricted View and has been the Festival Director for BIFA qualifying Unrestricted View Film Festival for the past twelve years and the Artistic Director at Hen & Chickens Theatre since 1999.
Send us five pages ✍🏼 one - four characters
We'll give you the emotional context — you bring the voice, the specificity, the thing only you would write. Here are some emotional beats to spark you — pick one, and let it feed both the laugh and the ache in your pages.
💊 the ache of love
- Loving someone you can't have — or can't have yet.
- Loving someone you can no longer reach: distance, death, estrangement.
- The almost — the confession that doesn't quite get said.
- Being seen completely, and not knowing what to do with it.
- Wanting to be chosen; the fear that you won't be.
- Loving someone more than they love you — or the reverse, and the guilt of it.
- Love expressed through a mundane act of caretaking.
- Realising you love someone at the exact moment you're losing them.
🫨 loss and its aftershocks
- Grief that ambushes you in an ordinary moment.
- Missing a former version of yourself, not just another person.
- The delayed goodbye — said too late, or endlessly rehearsed.
- Homesickness for a time, not a house.
- The relief of moving on, and the guilt that follows it.
- Carrying someone's absence like a physical object.
🙊 the comedy of being human
This is where the laugh lives — keep it sourced from recognisable real behaviour.
- Humiliation and embarrassment — our richest tragicomic fuel.
- Deflecting real feeling with a joke, until the voice cracks.
- Trying to stay dignified while quietly falling apart.
- Over-preparing for a moment that goes nothing like planned.
- The wrong reaction at the wrong time — laughing at a funeral, crying at a wedding.
- Pettiness that's actually love in disguise — arguing over the lamp.
- Performing “fine” for an audience of one.
🤞🏻 hope, fear, & the in-between
- Hope against all the evidence.
- Dread that dissolves into relief.
- Jealousy that accidentally reveals how much you care.
- Forgiveness — of another, and the harder one, of yourself.
- The vulnerability of asking for something and risking a no.
- Nostalgia curdling into regret, then softening back into gratitude.
- Reconciliation you didn't think you wanted.
- Loneliness in a crowd — the ache of being unseen among people.
🤐 the quiet, resonant ones
- Tenderness in an unglamorous setting — a laundrette, a car park, a hospital corridor.
- A small kindness from a stranger landing harder than it should.
- Choosing your real life over the fantasy, on purpose, with love.
- The comfort of routine after chaos.
- Being gently let down — and it being okay.
- Two people not saying the thing, and both knowing.
Apply to join our collaborative community development project by November 8th, 2026
Timeline
- January 10th, 2027 - Longlist Announced
- January 24th, 2027 - Shortlist Announced
- February 21st, 2027 - Writers Announced
- February to August 2027 - Phase 1
- February to March | Character & Story Development with Selected Screenwriters
- April | Co-writing Sessions
- April 30 | First Drafts Due
- May to June | Feedback & Rewriting Period
- July | Script Editor to Assemble Finished Script Ready for Market
- August 2027 - Start of Phase 2
- Finance & Pre-Production
- At KLSFF 2027 we’ll have another “Invitation to Collaborate” event geared toward crewing up.