MUMBAI: Announcing its final selection of six projects for the 2013Screenwriters' Lab, from over 350 applications, NFDC (National Film Development Corporation - India) relocates the first stage of its Lab to Toronto in co-operation with TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). The Lab has previously been hosted by Locarno and Venice festivals, each having welcomed two editions of the Screenwriters' Lab.
TIFF Bailey Artistic director Cameron said, "Indian independent cinema is taking the world by storm and it all begins with its screenwriters. We're proud to welcome this workshop to the Toronto International Film Festival, and support the NFDC's important work."
NFDC MD Nina Lath Gupta said, "NFDC is delighted to be expanding it's long relationship with the festival by bringing the now renowned Film Bazaar Screenwriters' Lab to Toronto for the first time, allowing our 6 writers' creative process to be imbedded within TIFF, especially as Ritesh Batra's acclaimed The Lunchbox, developed in our 2011 edition of this same lab is honoured with a Gala screening on 8 September"
The six projects selected are to be work-shopped first in Toronto and further in Goa in November, before being presented in the annual Film Bazaar Co Pro Market:Nikhil Mahajan's first feature Pune 52 was released in 2013 and was a follow up to his feature Doc Half a Billion Dreams (2011)
Bela Negi wrote and directed the 2010 comedy Daayen Ya Baayen (Right or Left) and revisits the quirkiness of Indian rural life in this project which will be her second feature
Varun Grover is perhaps best known for his collaboration with Anurag Kashyap as lyricist for That Girl in the Yellow Boots and Gangs of Wasseypur, and Vasan Bala's Peddlers, Varun also has emerged through TV stand-up comedy writing.
Shanker Raman is an award winning Cinematographer and (co) writer known for Frozen (TIFF 2007) and Harud (Autumn- TIFF 2010)
Ashish Aryan is transitioning from a successful commercials career, taking on his first feature film with his project T for Taj Mahal, which he'll be co-writing with Sachin Ladia, one of the writers of Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur
Rajesh Jalla is a renowned documentary director best known for Children of the Pyre (Best Doc Montreal 2013) who turns his lyrical style towards his first fiction feature project.
