The contest called The Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition will award more than $350,000 in cash and production assistance toward making and distributing the winner's film.   Actor/director Josh Brolin will serve as honorary chair and panel judge for the contest and the winning film will receive distribution on Netflix. 

Here are some more details gleaned from the official press release:

Submissions are for full-length, NARRATIVE films only.  No docs – sorry.

The winner will retain all rights to their film – a key difference from Fox's ill-fated "On The Lot" reality show which gave the winner a year's worth of servitude under DreamWorks.

The application process runs from January 8th through February 9th only, so if you feel YOU are the next great independent filmmaker, get on it!!

Here's how the application process will work:

1.      Got to www.Netflix.com/findyourvoice.  to apply – you'll need to create a new Member ID and password – your old Netflix ID won't work – I tried!!

2.      After review, Netflix/FIND will select 10 semifinalists who will be asked to create a three minute video related to their proposal.  The videos will be available for public voting on the competition website for one month beginning on June 5th.

3.      Five finalists will be selected through online votes – out of the five, one winner will be selected by the panel, headed by Josh Brolin.

As a long-time fan of these filmmaker competitions I can tell you that it has never really worked out that great for the winning filmmakers – the most notable name to come out of HBO's "Project Greenlight", for example, was Shia LeBeouf from Season 2.  Still, indie filmmakers need all the support and publicity they can get - and the money never hurts either!!