A Note From Our CEO, Oleg: Three Competitions. Three Films.
A Monumental Moment for Kinolime.
Monday, June 15th, marked a milestone that means more to us than any single winner, announcement, or competition result.
With the selection of "Due" by Kathryn Zizek from Australia, we completed the 3rd Kinolime Script-to-Screen Feature Competition.
When we started Kinolime, we had a simple belief: great stories can come from anywhere, and audiences deserve a voice in deciding which stories reach the screen. We wanted to challenge the traditional gatekeeper model and create a platform where writers are judged not by who they know, where they live, or which agency represents them, but by the quality of their work and the enthusiasm of the audience that supports it.
Yesterday's result was a powerful reminder of why we built Kinolime.
Out of 2,800 submissions, our community helped narrow the field until one script emerged as the winner. But what makes this outcome even more remarkable is where the finalists came from. Our winner, Kathryn Zizek, is from Australia. The other two finalists came from Uganda and the United Kingdom. During our live announcement, we had participants and viewers joining from four continents simultaneously, alongside our team in New York City.
That moment perfectly captured what Kinolime has become: a truly global community connected by storytelling.
What began as an idea has now grown into a family of more than 45,000 members around the world. Every competition proves that talent is not limited by geography, and every vote reinforces our belief that audiences deserve a meaningful role in discovering the next generation of filmmakers and screenwriters.
To Kathryn Zizek, congratulations on an incredible achievement. To our finalists from Uganda and the United Kingdom, thank you for inspiring us with your work. And to every writer, reader, voter, filmmaker, and supporter who has been part of this journey, thank you for helping us build something that continues to exceed our wildest expectations.
Three feature competitions. Three films moving toward production. Forty-five thousand community members. Thousands of scripts. Countless stories.
And we're only getting started.
- Oleg Saitskiy
Founder & CEO, Kinolime
