Production News South Africa

Applications invited for fully funded screenwriting workshop

Creative Industry, supported by the Embassy of Ireland, is offering six screenwriters the opportunity to attend a fully funded Advanced Screenwriting Workshop with a highly qualified Irish screenwriting tutor. The workshop will take place at Sasani Studios in Johannesburg over two long weekends, 8 – 11 and 15 – 19 November 2007, and writers are invited to apply with an idea for a feature-length screenplay.

Preference will be given to applicants from a previously disadvantaged background.

Collaborators working with the individual screenwriters or with an interest in their project, such as directors, producers and script editors, are also invited to participate. There is no cost attached to attending the workshop.

The weekends will consist of a mixture of screenings, lectures, writing exercises and workshops focusing on the writers' projects with visiting script consultant and screenwriting tutor Mary Kate O'Flanagan. These sessions will offer a mixture of theory and craft, designed to develop six projects which are at outline or draft stage. The workshop offers an invaluable opportunity for committed writers who need professional input and clarification as they undertake a screenplay or work to polish a first draft.

O'Flanagan was trained to teach screenwriting by, amongst others, David Howard, author of The Tools of Screenwriting and How to Write a Great Screenplay and professor of screenwriting at the University of Southern California. She works as a script consultant across Europe, lectures on the undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Ireland's National Film School and is the course director for an advanced project development course for FAS/Screen Training Ireland, the government body responsible for the development of film professionals. She holds an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film School and has won awards for her own screenwriting.

The Advanced Screenwriting workshop is supported by the Embassy of Ireland.

For further details, email or phone her on +27 (0)72 298 7736.

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