The Ashtray Named Second Rounder at the 2026 Austin Film Festival Script Competition

The short screenplay The Ashtray, written by Robert Pierosh, has been named a Second Rounder in the Short Screenplay category of the 2026 Austin Film Festival Script Competition, placing it among the top 25% of this year’s entries. More than 12,500 scripts were submitted to the competition this year, one of the largest submission pools in the festival’s history.

Widely regarded as one of the country’s leading festivals for screenwriters and storytelling, the Austin Film Festival has built an international reputation around recognizing and developing writers. Second Rounder recognition is awarded to scripts that distinguish themselves through strong storytelling and craft in the festival’s highly competitive selection process.

The Ashtray is a queer comedy-drama about an anxious shut-in whose fixation on a rare Marilyn Monroe ashtray unexpectedly disrupts the carefully contained life he has built around himself. The story explores anxiety, adult relationships, chosen family, and the complicated meanings we attach to people, possessions, and what gets left behind.

Robert Pierosh is a writer and artist whose work blends dark humor, queerness, and emotional truth. His plays, essays, and screenwriting explore identity and memory through offbeat characters and quietly defiant moments, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times. He finds comedy in the uncomfortable and meaning in the mess — usually while trying to sleep.