Creatives from Uganda and Kenya are among the four African screenwriters selected from more than 160 applications for the 2024/2025 AuthenticA Series Lab presented by the South African-based Realness Institute in partnership with The StoryBoard Collective, (Switzerland), and with support of the Series Mania Forum (France) and the Canada Media Fund.
Submissions this year came from 27 countries, covering 23 genres of television series. The four selected African screenwriters have been named as Pius Talemwa (Uganda), Tony Koros (Kenya), Aden Abebe (Canada/Ethiopia), and Mlilo Mpondo (South Africa).
In a hotly contested space for the development of screenplays, the AuthenticA Series Lab will support the four writers to advance their series ideas into pilot scripts, and create “pitch Bibles” to take these confidently to highly competitive international content markets.
Laure de Peretti de la Rocca, the director of The StoryBoard Collective, a Swiss philanthropic organisation dedicated to supporting the development and impact outreach of authentic and transformative stories, said: “TV series have the capacity to transcend geographies and cultures, creating connections that bridge diverse audiences. This year marks the third edition of AuthenticA, and we look forward to exploring the authentic stories of these four talented writers.”
The AuthenticA Series Lab is designed by Programme Director Elias Ribeiro, in collaboration with Story Expert Selina Ukwuoma. The Lab takes place over six months, beginning with an in-person residency at the exquisite Coot Club in Stanford (Western Cape) from September 8 to 17.
