Applications are invited for the “Story Development, Pitching and Packaging Workshop”, to be held in Lagos from 5 to 9 March as part of the Sithengi Film & Television Market’s African Co-production Forum initiative. The deadline for applications, to be submitted to info@sithengi.co.za is Monday, 26 February.
Last year, Sithengi, with its funding partners at the Hubert Bals Fund and the Goteborg Film Fund and with its country partners, the Nigerian Film Corporation, ITPAN (Lagos), MAPTV (Nairobi), the Zanzibar Film Festival and the Zimbabwe International Film Festival, hosted the first African Co-production Forum (ACF) workshop series.
The ACF consists of a single workshop in Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe to train producers in story development and pitching. This is followed by a pitching session in each region. The best projects and producers win flights and accommodation to attend the Sithengi Film and Television Market in Cape Town, and the best projects and producers from that Market are flown to Cinemart at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and to the Goteborg Film Festival.
Last year, six projects were chosen from Zimbabwe and Nigeria and the producers were brought to Sithengi in November. From these projects, producers, Samuriwo Musekiwa (Zimbabwe) and Jide Bello (Nigeria), were selected to take their projects to Cinemart at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and to the Goteborg Film Festival.
This year the ACF programme kicks off with the Lagos workshop at the Sheraton, Ikeja, from 5 to 9 March. The workshop forms part of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) programme for this year. It is hoped that a film developed through the ACF will one day take its place among the winners at AMAA.
Producers wishing to participate in the workshop should send a summary/synopsis of their film to info@sithengi.co.za. The contact in Lagos is Ladi Gombe on ladigombe@yahoo.com.
For more information telephone Sithengi on 27 21 430 8160.
