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No game: Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing (Image: Rex Features)

Send us an elevator pitch and you could find yourself developing your best screenplay idea in the company of a hand-picked crew of writing professionals

SCIENCE has been swallowing the film world of late. No sooner did Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 thriller strip space flight back to its heroic basics, than the British Film Institute launched a major national celebration of science fiction, , reminding us of the genre’s manifold possibilities and styles. And 2014 ends with the release of two films, that each take a wildly different approach to scientific storytelling. Interstellar‘s myth of the near future puts our current climate challenges into cosmic context, while is an intimate and gripping portrait, based in truth, of a remarkable mathematical mind.

Now it’s your turn. Whether you want to explore the world through fantastical thought experiments or delve into the day-to-day business of real science, we’re offering you the chance to develop your best screenplay idea in the company of a hand-picked crew of writing professionals.

Send us an “elevator pitch” – describing your film idea in no more than 250 words. Multi-award-winning science fiction writer will pick the six best entries we receive by Wednesday 14 January 2015.

Five runners-up will win , an insightful new book in which psychologist Jeffrey Zacks describes what happens in your brain when the lights go out in the cinema and the movie begins.

Our first prize is an invitation (by Skype or in person) into Â鶹´«Ã½‘s first ever “writing room”, to discuss, develop and hone your winning idea into a film pitch.

Visit for further details, instructions on how to submit your competition entry, and our full terms and conditions.

We will announce our competition winners on 31 January 2015.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Pitch us a movie”