Miami’s Zackary Hill earns semifinalist placement at the 2025 Austin Film Festival
Hill and longtime collaborator Matthew Riffle reach semifinalist status for two projects at prestigious screenwriting contest
Miami’s Zackary Hill earns semifinalist placement at the 2025 Austin Film Festival
Zackary Hill, coordinator and advisor of the Western Program, and longtime writing collaborator Matthew Riffle landed semifinalist placement at the 2025 Austin Film Festival, one of the most competitive and prestigious screenwriting contests in the country.
The Austin Film Festival receives nearly 12,000 submissions each year, with only about 250 scripts reaching the semifinal round. Hill and Riffle earned two semifinalist placements this year for their pilots, “Carrion Bird” and “(in) Fuse (an) Echo,” along with multiple second-round recognitions across a range of categories.
Their journey to this achievement is rooted in a friendship that spans over 15 years and has grown through a shared passion for screenwriting, drafting countless projects throughout their careers.
Hill and Riffle have since built a diverse catalog of scripts spanning horror, drama, comedy, and genre-blending pilots. This year, they submitted 32 scripts across every category the festival offers.
One script, “Carrion Bird,” began as an in-class collaborative exercise in Hill’s screenwriting workshop. The other, “(In) fuse (an) Echo,” has been rewritten and reimagined by Hill for over a decade. “It’s been multiple things in a 10-plus-year span,” Hill said. “We’ve just kept tinkering with it.”
Beyond the recognition, attending the festival offers rare access to successful industry voices. “Going to the Austin Film Festival is like being dropped into Disney World, but for writers,” Riffle said. “Every day, every hour, there's multiple things that people can choose to go and do”
For students interested in screenwriting, their advice is simple: write, read, finish things, and be open to criticism.
“The first thing you write won’t be good,” Riffle said. “And that’s OK. Keep going – because it will ultimately improve”
Their screenwriting careers, built on persistence and a shared interest in the process, highlight that creative paths here at Miami stretch beyond Oxford.
