‘West Meets East Screenplay Lab’ announces winners

The ‘West Meets East Screenplay Lab’ concluded at Alliance Française de Dhaka on January 18, as a part of the Dhaka International Film Festival 2023.

Song of Jhinuk (Bangladesh), Afroza Hossain won the first place, Messenger of the Gods (Nepal), Nigam Bhandari won the second place and Swarnapuchhri (India), Ritvik Goswami won the third place.

The WME Screenplay Lab started on January 15. 62 projects were submitted for the upcoming Screenplay Lab from South Asia. From those projects, ten projects from four countries were selected by a five-member jury board. Among the top 10 projects, 3 were from Bangladesh, 4 from India, 2 from Sri Lanka and 1 from Nepal chosen.

The selected projects were– Song of Jhinuk(Bangladesh), Afroza Hossain ; Fables of Forgotten Dreams (Bangladesh) Laboni Ashrafi; Necrophile(Bangladesh), Zayed Siddiki; Dhund Saleti - The Whispering Fog (India), Jasmine Kaur Roy, AbhinashRoy; Swarnapuchhri (India), Ritvik Goswami; Tale of a Yellow Bird - Halud Pakhir Kissya (India), SibasishRoy; Hug Me If You Against War (India), UpasanaBanerjee; 46 Mondays (Srilanka) BavaneedhaLoganathan; Samosa (Srilanka), Nipunika Fernandos ; Messenger of the Gods (Nepal), Nigam Bhandari. Today these 10 participants from four countries participated in the Screenplay Lab and finalizing their projects at Film Hut, the South Asian film market. They get a chance to meet producers and mentors. All participants got 5 minutes to pitch their projects and 10 minutes for a Q&A session.

The event was attended by members of the jury board, Norwegian film producer, program director Gyda Velvin Miklebust, 47th Student Academy Award finalist and Croatian film producer Dalia Alic, Bulgarian film director, screenwriter, journalist Yana Lekarska, Bangladeshi film activist and producer N Rashed Chowdhury and film Producer and editor Sameer Ahmed.

Nina Lath Gupta, former MD of NFDC, also joined as a mentor. The other mentors were Mostofa Sarwar, Bangladeshi Film director, screenwriter ; Pierre Filmon, French screenwriter, director and producer, Pouran Derakh Shandeh, Iranian film director, screenwriter.