Bisina Somto, PBA Journalism Mentee
Filmmakers in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya have been offered opportunity to develop their fiction film story ideas and work-in-progress scripts in a three-month training organised by the Realness Institute.
Realness Institute in partnership with Netflix, the world’s leading entertainment streaming service, has called for submission of applications to its 2023 Episodic Lab and Development Executive Traineeship (DET) programmes which will take place from 30 April to 30 July 2023.
The Lab and Traineeship aim to support screenwriters and mid-career industry professionals from Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya who are seeking opportunities to develop their original story ideas in any genre and are looking to enhance their skills as story consultants respectively.
Mehret Mandefro, Director of Development and Partnerships, Realness Institute, says “As filmmakers we understand how difficult it is to find time and space to focus on our creative processes: to unpack stories, mull over and bounce ideas off others, benchmark ourselves against our peers as we hustle to make films, and pitch and search for funding and finance.
“In understanding this landscape, we are delighted that Netflix has once again partnered with us, to bring these two symbiotic programmes for African filmmakers in our joint quest to grow African stories and content on the continent.”
Realness Institute offers the Episodic Lab participants the opportunity to pitch their incubated stories to Netflix executives at the end of the programme. It also offers DET participants a deeper understanding of the story development process, exposure to a more nuanced approach in the support of writers whilst simultaneously holding writers accountable for their creative work.
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The institute would provide a monthly stipend of 33,000 (Thirty-Three Thousand South African Rands) for the duration of the Lab and traineeship to help cover their living expenses.
“While there is no guarantee that any proposal will be developed further by Netflix, it is a unique opportunity to interface at key milestones with Netflix executives and be afforded the opportunity to pitch. The 2022 Episodic Lab alumnus, Voline Ogutu from Kenya pitched an idea for a romance crime thriller Dilemma that has received a greenlight from Netflix for further development.”
The Lab and Traineeship will take place online and then for a week in-person in July 2023 at the Coot Club in Stanford, Western Cape.
Interested participants are encouraged to visit here for Episodic Lab programme application and here for Development Executive Traineeship programme application and wait to be shortlisted.
Application submissions open October 26th and close on 22nd December 2022.
To know more about the Realness Institute and its programmes, also visit www.realness.institute.
