Realness Institute Series Mania

Source: Realness Institute

Angela Wamai, Jessica Hagan, Chantel Clark, Tony Sebastian Ukpo

Realness Institute, the African non-profit filmmaking organisation, has unveiled the four participants in AuthenticA Series Lab, a training programme for African episodic screenwriters.

The programme is run in partnership with Geneva-based philanthropic organisation The StoryBoard Collective and French TV industry and festival event Series Mania.

The four participants are Kenya’s Angela Wamai, South Africa’s Chantel Clark, Ghana’s Jessica Hagan and Nigeria’s Tony Sebastian Ukpo.

The six-month lab will start at the end of September, and will consist of online and in-person sessions for the writers. It will kick off with an eight-day residency in South Africa and culminate with a 10-week residency in Switzerland in 2023, under the mentorship of UK script consultant Selina Ukwuoma and American-Ethiopian producer Mehret Mandefro. The programme has been designed by Realness Institute executive director, Elias Ribeiro.

The programme provides the chance to deliver a pilot script to pitch at Series Mania Forum 2023.

Wamai studied film in Havana, Cuba, and works as a film editor in Nairobi. She has written several short films and recently completed her debut feature film Shimoni (The Pit) which she wrote, directed, and edited.

Clark’s script for her directorial feature debut, Wit Gesigte (Pale Faces), was selected for the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab. She is currently an ambassador for Girls in Film South Africa, a network for female and non-binary filmmakers in South Africa.

Ghanaian-British writer Hagan is based in the Ghanian capital of Accra, and cut her teeth as a playwright, with her debut play Queens Of Sheba playing at Edinburgh Festival in 2018, and is set for The Public Theatre, New York City, in 2023.

France-based Nigerian filmmaker and photographer, Tony Sebastian Ukpo, has written and directed features including 2012 documentary-drama hybrid Paris 60, 2014 British Nollywood romantic comedy Mum, Dad, Meet Sam and 2016 immigration drama Simana.