By Shaibu Husseini

Four African Writers Head To France For Series Mania Forum
Four African screenwriters will showcase their original television series projects to international industry leaders at the Series Mania Forum in Lille, France, later this month, following six months of intensive development through the Realness Institute’s AuthenticA Series Lab.

The AuthenticA Series Lab is an episodic screenwriting programme run in partnership with The StoryBoard Collective, and with support from the Canada Media Fund and industry partners Series Mania Forum, the major international gathering for the development, financing and distribution of scripted television series. Now in its fourth edition, AuthenticA Series Lab supports and mentors African writers to develop globally competitive television series enabling them to pitch and connect with international partners, financiers and producers.

The writers from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria are expected to present their projects at the AuthenticA African Series Pitch during the Series Mania Forum.  The four participating writers are Reem Morsi (Egypt/Canada), Gamel Apalayine (Ghana), Mona Ombogo (Kenya) and Joladé Olusanya (Nigeria/UK). Reem Morsi will pitch Humanitarians!, a dark comedy at the forum. Reem is an award-winning writer and director, and multi-genre filmmaker, with a background in professional scuba diving, and human rights advocacy. Gamel Apalayine will pitch his Mystery Drama, The Gospel According to Charlotte Nelson. Apalayine is a storyteller working across film, television, theatre, and music.

Mona Ombogo (Kenya) is an award-winning scriptwriter and best-selling author, who received the 2024 Best Writing in a Series award at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards for Netflix’s Volume. She will pitch a romantic thriller series called Kanaan at the forum. Joladé Olusanya, who is a poet, filmmaker, and photographer, and who tells intimate stories blending lyrical writing with cinematic visuals, will pitch his project KID: The Hogan Bassey Story, a sports epic. “At Series Mania Forum, we are excited to showcase these four extraordinary talents from Africa on a global stage, where their rich and diverse stories can captivate the international industry,” says Francesco Capurro, Director, Series Mania Forum. For Selina Ukwuoma, script consultant and director of writing programmes, Realness Institute “each year the AuthenticA writers are encouraged to tell the stories they have kept quietly hidden — the audacious, difficult, complex ones.

With the support the lab provides, the writers consistently push the boundaries. They find a way to tell these groundbreaking stories and in so doing they redefine the narrative about Africa.” For more information on the AuthenticA Series Lab: https://www.realness.institute/authentica-series-lab

An Extra Day Of Berlinale 2027:
Festival To Open On Wednesday
PREPARATIONS are now underway for the 77th Berlin International Film Festival, which will take place from February 10–21, 2027. The festival will therefore begin on Wednesday, February 10, 2027 – one day earlier than in previous years, with the Official Awards Ceremony held on the second Friday (February 19, 2027). The EFM will now have a full official day on Wednesday, February 10 and will celebrate its opening reception on the evening of Tuesday, February 9 and run through Tuesday, February 16. The days of operation for Berlinale Talents (February 12–17) and the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 13–16) follow the patterns set in 2026. The changed start date opens up additional space to introduce the first ever two Audience Days (“Berlinale Publikumstage”) taking place on February 20 and 21, 2027.

Festival Director Tricia Tuttle comments: “Berlinale’s not-so-secret weapon is our wonderful audience; this change allows us to better serve them, while also responding to increasing demand from attendees at our highly successful European Film Market. We are already planning for the 77th Berlinale with much excitement.” Meanwhile the 76th Berlinale, which concluded on February 22, saw record audience admissions and growth in industry attendance. The diverse festival programme, featuring 278 films from 80 countries, received highly positive feedback and was enthusiastically embraced: with 343,200 tickets sold (2025: 340,000). Approximately 19,500 industry professionals from 135 countries – including 2,288 accredited press representatives – attended the festival.

Strong attendance at the European Film Market (EFM) and other Berlinale Pro programmes (Berlinale Co-Production Market, Berlinale Talents and the World Cinema Fund) further underscore the continued importance of the Berlinale to the market and industry.

Festival De Cannes Welcomes Six
Filmmakers To Cannes Residency
THE residence of the Festival de Cannes welcomes each year, in the heart of Paris, 12 young filmmakers selected to take part in two sessions lasting four and a half months, with the aim of helping them develop and write the screenplay for their first or second feature film. Since its creation, the residence has supported more than 250 filmmakers from around 60 countries.

It has helped reveal many artists who are now regularly present at major international film festivals. Among them are Lucrecia Martel (Argentina), Corneliu Porumboiu (Romania), Amat Escalante and Michel Franco (Mexico), Nadine Labaki (Lebanon), Nadav Lapid (Israel), Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (Croatia), Karim Aïnouz (Brazil), and Rungano Nyoni (Zambia). For the 51st session, the residence of the Festival de Cannes admits three women and three men directors. The six new directors welcomed to the 51th session of La Résidence du Festival de Cannes are Harry Lighton, Emma Branderhorst, Joecar Hanna, Saulé Bliuvaité, Mansi Maheshwari and Oliver McGoldrick. From March July 16 to 31, 2026, they will reside in Paris where they will benefit from a personalised screenwriting residency programme and a collective programme of meetings with film professionals.