For the third consecutive year, the French Embassy in Nigeria, in partnership with StoryMi Academy, have trained a new cohort of young Nigerian documentary filmmakers.
The mentorship was initiated by Storymi Academy, led by award-winning French journalist, Sophie Bouillon and backed by the French Embassy in Nigeria.
According to Bouillon, the objective of the training and mentoring program is to encourage quality documentary production in Nigeria, help young Nigerian directors and journalists make a worthy living from their profession as well as promote cultural and creative exchange between French and Nigerian directors and producers.
The five fellows selected for the StoryMi Academy Documentary program screened their short films at Ebony Life Ebony Life on Saturday 10th of January. Filmmakers, producers and lovers of Nigerian storytelling, joined the fellows for the Minidocs Premiere screening and
celebrated new voices in Nigerian documentary filmmaking.
After months of research, filming, rewriting, doubt, clarity and starting again, the films were finally ready to meet an audience. The stories were selected from over 150 submissions,
and the fellows worked on their projects over the last six months.
Each film reflects the questions, contradictions, and quiet truths its filmmaker chose to sit with and more especially a window into Nigeria.
The five young filmmakers were trained and mentored in the art and science of documentary filmmaking for six months by Nigerian and French professionals. As part of the curriculum, their instructors, Ike Nnaebue, Chika Oduah, Marjolaine Grappe and Joel Kachi Benson (the first Nigerian to win An Emmy Award in the Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary category), actively coached the fellows in the production of their short films.
As part of the mentorship program, the five selected filmmakers will pitch their projects to an international audience at the BtoB event FIPADOC, a prestigious international documentary festival taking place in Biarritz, France from 26 to 29 January; in hopes of securing co-producers, creative collaborators, and distribution opportunities.
