ABOUT QUEER WRITERS INCUBATOR
Co-Founders & Producers
Loren Loubser
Francis Chouler
Creative Collaborators
Qondiswa James
Jenna Cato Bass
Loren Loubser
Francis Chouler
Creative Collaborators
Qondiswa James
Jenna Cato Bass
The Queer Writers Incubator is a unique training and mentorship program for queer writers of colour. The programme pairs participants with Teachers/Mentors who are both experienced and accessible while providing crucial training to emergent writers. Through queer-led skills training and mentorship this project seeks to empower emerging and marginalised voices and enrich the film and television industry with a more diverse and representative base of skilled writers to draw from.
The programme welcomed its first 15 participants in August 2021 and ran for 3 months. Our vision is to make Queer Writers Incubator an annual programme, and to expand this model into other aspects of the creative industries.
The programme welcomed its first 15 participants in August 2021 and ran for 3 months. Our vision is to make Queer Writers Incubator an annual programme, and to expand this model into other aspects of the creative industries.
Our experience hosting the inaugural Queer Writers Incubator in 2021 showed us the deep need for queer mentorship and queer black and brown spaces that are a nourishing habour for queer writers.
The inaugural Queer Writers Incubator was a collaboration between Free Film school and Femme Projects, and was funded by the National Film and Video Foundation.
The inaugural Queer Writers Incubator was a collaboration between Free Film school and Femme Projects, and was funded by the National Film and Video Foundation.
QUEER WRITERS INCUBATOR MENTORSHIP 2022
Supported by the National Arts Council
Queer Writers Incubator, in partnership with Free Film School, and supported by the National Arts Council has opened its applications for its 2022 mentorship programme. 4 writers will be chosen and assigned a mentor with whom they will work closely to develop their short film idea from concept to script over a 6 week process. Writers will also attend in person workshops with Free Film School.
Mentorship starts mid April 2022 and Runs for 6 weeks. Mentees will meet regularly with their mentor either in person or online and be expected to attend once weekly saturday workshops from 9am - 4pm from 30 April until 28 May in Mowbray, Cape Town. All other work can be arranged based on mentees other professional commitments.
Travel to Cape Town and accommodation not provided.
Mentorship starts mid April 2022 and Runs for 6 weeks. Mentees will meet regularly with their mentor either in person or online and be expected to attend once weekly saturday workshops from 9am - 4pm from 30 April until 28 May in Mowbray, Cape Town. All other work can be arranged based on mentees other professional commitments.
Travel to Cape Town and accommodation not provided.
Mentees will be given a stipend to allow them to meet the milestones required and engage at a professional level in the programme. Data and transport stipends will also be available on a needs basis.
The Producers of QWI agree not to use any of your original work in any form without your written consent. These submissions will not be shared beyond the selection panel without your written consent.
The Producers of QWI agree not to use any of your original work in any form without your written consent. These submissions will not be shared beyond the selection panel without your written consent.
Applicant should be:
- a person of colour
- identify as queer (LGBTQIA+) and or gender non conforming.
- be under 35 years of age
Submission requirements:
-CV
-Bio
-Story Idea in the form of:
-Log Line
-Character/s
-World of the Story
-Answer the questions: Why this story now?/ Why me to tell it?
-A short scene (optional)
Deadline for submission is 28 February 2022
- a person of colour
- identify as queer (LGBTQIA+) and or gender non conforming.
- be under 35 years of age
Submission requirements:
-CV
-Bio
-Story Idea in the form of:
-Log Line
-Character/s
-World of the Story
-Answer the questions: Why this story now?/ Why me to tell it?
-A short scene (optional)
Deadline for submission is 28 February 2022
Collaborating Organisations
Femmeprojects is a registered NPC that seeks to apply an intersectional and interactive approach to educating and empowering youth with mentorship, upskilling, education and access.
We focus on Comprehensive Sexual Education, Sexual Health, Career Choices, Consent, Mentorship and creating an inclusive holistic way of learning in an interactive age appropriate safe space. An all queer and of colour led organisation that is determined to teach, uplift, help empower and continue to create change.
︎ @femmeprojects
︎ @femmeprojects
︎ femmeprojects
︎ femmeprojects(at)gmail.com
︎ femmeprojects.org.za
Free Film School is a Film and Arts education co-operative founded in 2019 by Jenna Cato Bass, Chantell Lungiswa Joe and Qondiswa James.
Free Film School’s objective is a film education programme, to take place at various venues across the Cape Town and Cape Flats area. The programme aims to supplement the existing film education available in South Africa, as well as to offer an alternative source of film education to aspiring filmmakers without access to existing mainstream institutions. In the long term, Free Film School aims to foster a new generation of filmmakers, empowered to make independent, sustainable and influential work that reaches its audience, enabling new storytelling voices to be heard.
︎ Free Film School
︎ free film school
︎ freefilmschool.za(at)gmail.com
TEAM
Co-Founders & Producers
Loren Loubser | They/Them
︎ @lekkerlollas
Loren is a QIPOC, actor, filmmaker, documentarian, creative & facilitator. Loren specialises in social justice work and is one of the Co-Directors and Co-founders of FEMMEPROJECTS, a queer-owned NPC & a Mail & Guardian Top 200 South African's 2019 winner in Education.
Loren has directed a short film documentary on forced removals in Cape Town which is currently in the works to become a feature and was recently one of the most watched short films at Durban International Film Festival. You can see Loren on Showmax starring in No Hiding Here & in High Fantasy. Loren has also recently been published as a writer in the book Touch (Sex, Sexuality & Sensuality) on a piece titled ‘Reparations Make Me Wet’. Open Wide Say Ah is a sex talk podcast that Loren hosts and is soon to be releasing it’s season 2! Find Open Wide Say Ah on all podcast platforms and get ready for season 2!
Stay tuned to your screens as Loren features in a Showmax film releasing later this year and a TV series set to release early 2022 on Mnet. Loren is also currently developing a very queer and sex positive feature film funded by the NFVF.
Francis Chouler | He/Him
︎ @francischouler
Francis is an actor, educator, and creative producer. He received his honours degree in Theatre and Performance, cum laude from the University of Cape Town in 2010.
In 2021 with support from the NFVF, Francis co-founded the Queer Writers Incubator together with Loren Loubser, pairing emergent writers of colour with mentors in the industry.
Producing Credits include Together Apart, a hybrid film/theatre work which premiered at the National Arts Festival Main Festival 2020 and Nocturne, which earned a Fleur Du Cap nomination for best director for Emily Child (2019).
Francis is a founding member and served on the executive committee of South African Guild of Actors from 2014-2016 where he headed the workshop and further education portfolio in Cape Town.
Francis teaches Business of being a Freelancer to final year students at LAMTA in Cape Town and Oakfields College in Pretoria. He has guest lectured on the subject at University of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies.
Recent acting credits include The Mauritanian (2021), opposite Jodi Foster, Dam (2021) for Showmax, and Nêrens Noord Kaap (2021) for Kyknet.
Creative Collaborators
Qondiswa James| She/They
︎ @blqgrl.radikl
Qondiswa James is a cultural worker living in Cape Town, South Africa. She is an award-winning theatre-maker, performance artist, film and theatre performer, instillation artist, writer, arts facilitator and activist. She is currently studying her Masters in Live Art, Interdisciplinary and Public Art at the Institute of Creative Arts. Her work engages the socio-political imagination towards mobilising transgression.
She has directed theatre works including Emhlab’Obomvu (National Arts Festival, 2016), Silindile (Theatre Arts Admin, 2018) and A Faint Patch of Light (nominated for Best New Director and Best Actor, Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards 2019 and winner of a 2019 Standard Bank Ovation Award) which she created under the Theatre Arts Admin Collective Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary 2018.
In September 2019 she co-created a theatrical musical exploration, Tia Maji, with percussionist Bronwen Clacherty performed as part of the supranational project Re-Centering Afro Asia. In November 2019 she curated an intervention at Infecting the City Public Art Festival in Cape Town, Jailbed, directed by Thembela Madliki. In 2020 she staged her new original play A Howl in Makhanda at Cape Town School’s Festival at Artscape, and Virtual National Arts Festival. She, along with Mandla Mbothwe, co-curated the Malibongwe Women in Theatre Festival (Magnet Theatre 2020). Her onscreen appearances include the The Foxy Five (Shnitt 2017), Umva (MOMA New York 2017), Into Us and Ours (Cannes 2016), High Fantasy (DIFF 2018 Best South African Film Award, Artistic Bravery Award), and Letters from the Continent (Holland Festival 2021). Her debut instillation work with collaborator Themba Stewart was part of Spier Light Art Festival 2019/2020. Also in 2020 for Theatre Arts Admin’s 2m apart season, she co-wrote and directed two new plays, cwaka and uBumbano, as well as a third, Uhlazo, which she wrote, directed and performed in. She is currently working as a curator on the online stop-GBV+F campaign, Body of Evidence.
Jenna Cato Bass | She/They
︎ Jenna Cato Bass
Jenna Cato Bass is a South African writer, filmmaker and former magician. Her award-winning films include the short, The Tunnel (2010), and the collaboratively-created features Love The One You Love (2014) and High Fantasy (2017), which have screened around the world, including at the Sundance, Berlinale and Toronto Film Festivals.
Together with Wanuri Kahiu, Jenna co-wrote the coming-of-age romance, Rafiki, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2018. Her third feature as director and writer, Flatland, was the opening film of the 2019 Berlinale Panorama.In 2019, Jenna directed the short film Sizohlala which was Executive Produced by acclaimed filmmaker Jia Zhangke. Her fourth feature film, horror-satire, Mlungu Wam, co-written with Babalwa Baartman, premiered in the Platform section of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
Jenna also teaches Directing and Screenwriting and is a founding member of the Free Film School collective.
RESOURCES
Free Screenwriting Resources
Pixar Art of Storytelling (course)
University of East Anglia, An Introduction to Screenwriting via Future Learn (course)
NoFilmSchool, How to Write Screenplay during Quarantine (ebook)
The Blacklist Blog, Into the Story (blog)
Behind The Curtain, “How I Wrote…” (series)
University of East Anglia, An Introduction to Screenwriting via Future Learn (course)
NoFilmSchool, How to Write Screenplay during Quarantine (ebook)
The Blacklist Blog, Into the Story (blog)
Behind The Curtain, “How I Wrote…” (series)
Free Screenwriting Software
Screenplays and further resources
(with a big thanks to Gabe Gabriel)
(with a big thanks to Gabe Gabriel)