CENTRAL AFRICA SCRIPTWRITING COMPETITION
RULES
Preamble:
A- An increasing number of films are being produced in Central Africa, but on a lesser scale in terms of quality.
B- National production does not guarantee these works to be widely promoted and distributed.
C-Intra-regional international co-production is a possible solution to the problem, through the pooling of resources, the involvement of various sub-regional and governmental institutions, castings and cooperation with professionals from various countries in the sub-region.
To this end:
- ECRANS NOIRS ASSOCIATION, based in Yaoundé (Cameroon), a Public Utility Association as provided by Decree No. 2016/ 219 of 28.04.16 of the President of the Republic of Cameroon, launches a feature film script-writing competition.
- This contest is sponsored by TV5monde.
- The competition is open to authors from the Central Africa sub-region ( ECCAS zone), having at least a short-film script to their name. The project is submit by an author or a legal production company in activity for at least two years.
- Scripts shall be written or presented in French or English language.
- Each Author is allowed to submit various projects.
- Both the theme and the genre are open-ended.
- Candidates shall provide sworn statement to ensure they are the authors of the scripts submitted or any lawful document in case of adaptation.
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Files for the central Africa competition shall comprise of the following documents :
– Curriculum Vitae
– Summary of a maximum of 100 words
– A synopsis of a maximum of 1000 words
– A description of the main characters (15 words per character and 6 characters at most)
– Dialogued continuity or an extensive workflow with two dialogue scenes.
- A first selection phase shall be carried out by a technical panel of 3 members chosen by Ecrans Noirs. Each rejection or pre-selection must be justified. The pre-selection committee will select a maximum of 5 projects for the final selection phase.
No member of the reading committee may be part of the jury for the Central Africa competition.
- A jury of 3 members shall decide on the winner. Ecrans Noirs assist the jury without voting. Members of the Jury shall be of different nationalities: two members from inside, and one from outside the sub-region.
- Projects will be assessed on the basis of following criteria: originality, construction quality, dialogs quality, and project feasibility.
- The competition is granted €3,000 allocated to the winner for the project to be completed.
- The winner shall choose a production company which shall be validated by Ecrans Noirs and in charge of the grant in an account to this effect as prescribed by Ecrans Noirs.
- A sum has to be provided for a renown screenwriter or a script doctor approved by Ecrans Noirs ; the script author’s share shall not exceed €1,000.
- Authors and rightful stakeholders of the winning script gives Ecrans Noirs Association free of charges, the exploitation rights of the film from its release and reserve the right to Ecrans Noirs Association for the film world premiere unless Ecrans Noirs consent. They also give rights to use parts of the script, not exceeding 3,000 words, for promotional and communication purposes to the public and media if required.
- The opening and closing credits of the movie shall comprise a reference to the hereby ‘‘Ecrans Noirs and TV5monde Central Africa scriptwriting’’ grant.
- Completed files shall only be submitted online to all the following addresses no later than 2021, October 15th at midnight: concours@ecransnoirs.org, deleguegeneral@ecransnoirs.org, concoursecransnoirs@gmail.com and arletteanaba96@gmail.com
- A receipt acknowledgment mail shall be sent within 48 hours after the submission. Please refer any problem to concours@ecransnoirs.org copied to arletteanaba96@gmail.com, or through +237 242 897 601 for it to be solved.
- Modifying this regulation either for technical or any other reason shall be under the rightful competence of Ecrans Noirs with the consent of TV5monde.