Netflix and Film Independent got a jump on the deluge of independent filmmaking news that will be coming soon via Sundance by announcing a new independent film contest today that will be chaired by Josh Brolin and judged by Brolin, Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen, and Dustin Lance Black.

The Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition is meant to foster new indie filmmakers, and it’s not open to anyone who has created and publicly screened a film more than 70 minutes long. The prize package, worth $350,000 consists of a $150,000 cash grant from Netflix, a camera package donated by Panavision, 25,000 feet of Kodak Color Negative Film or 10,000 feet of Kodak Color Intermediate Film, along with prints, dailies, and a digitial intermediate package from Deluxe, and EFILM.

It’s an extremely fast-track competition, and entrants only have until February 9th to submit a script, budget, sample work, bio, and synopsis, which give filmmakers one month to get everything together. They’ll only be accepting 2,000 submissions, and those will be whittled down to 10 semi-finalists who will be asked to submit a two to three minute short film, and of those ten films, five will be chosen by the public via the web to move on. From the five finalists, the judging panel will select one winner.

The upshot? Even if you’re lucky enough to have a script ready to go, you’re going to have to scramble to put all of this together and meet the February 9th deadline. It’s not for people who have a work in progress, or who need a few months to direct a short film for consideration, but rather for filmmakers who are ready to go tomorrow. Maybe you have a project you’ve been kicking around, but lack the funds to get it into production. This is your shot. While the final product will be available on Netflix both on DVD and via digital streaming, filmmakers will retain all rights to their finished work.

Josh Brolin, who was on hand to introduce the project with Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Film Independent’s Dawn Hudson, remarked that working in independent film has changed dramatically over the past decade, because it now “means working with directors like the Coens, Gus Van Sant, Robert Rodriguez, and Oliver Stone. I mean, no studio wanted to touch W., and when it was announced that I was going to be in that and in No Country, people [reacted] like ‘You mean… the guy from The Goonies?’”

Thankfully, Brolin realizes that “I guess I’ll always be ‘That guy from The Goonies.’ Martha Plimpton was recently in a production of The Three Sisters, or something really classic like that on stage in New York, and at the end of the performance they come out and get a standing ovation, and everyone is cheering and everything. Then, from the back of the room, someone shouts out GOONIE! So, there you go.” At least he knows where his roots are. Sadly, I didn’t get to ask him about the possibility for a Goonies II. Maybe I should have pitched him my idea.

He went on to explain that Robert Rodriguez constantly encouraged him to go out and make his own short film and not focus on how much money he needed to make it, so last year Brolin directed X for $17,000 starring his own daughter, “Because we were able to get her to work cheap.” He pointed out that although reaction to the film was very polarized, “People either thought it was the worst film they’d ever seen, or they thought it was a great directorial debut” it got him even more excited about independent film, and led him to donate his time to this project.

Also on hand was writer/director Scott Prendergast of Kabluey fame, who was a protege of the Film Independent program. He wrote and directed Kabluey with a shoestring budget, and was able to get Lisa Kudrow, Teri Garr, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Christine Taylor involved in the project. “Basically, I’m here as proof that the program actually does work.” Kabluey ended up premiering at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, and Prendergast now has a couple of films lined up to direct.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to matter how good of a film you make unless people see it, which is what this program hopes to achieve through its more than eight million subscribers. “When I was working on No Country, and we were between takes, Joel Coen walks by me and whispers ‘Nobody’s going to see this movie.’ I was like, why would he say that? Luckily, it was able to get some attention, whether peoople liked the ending or not.” Netflix and Film Independent probably hope that the same thing happens with whatever film comes out of this competition.