The QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab is a one-of-its-kind creative incubator for emerging and early career queer storytellers in South Asia.

Launched by The Queer Muslim Project in 2023 with support from the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, the Lab celebrates and nurtures underrepresented queer talent behind the camera and provides them with the tools, resources, and networks to tell stories that can drive positive social change. 

Applications are now closed for QueerFrames 2024

In its second year, the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab will foster community, collaboration and world-building to advance greater representation in the film and TV industry. The Lab will develop intersectional South Asian queer narratives that centre joy and offer to audiences the complexities, nuance, and splendour of queer life – positioning queer characters outside the tired and tested tropes of victimhood and villainy. QueerFrames 2024 will amplify voices and perspectives that are fresh, compelling and have the potential to reach wider audiences.

What the Lab offers

The Lab will bring together 6 diverse queer writers and writer-directors from South Asia developing their first or second fiction feature film. Between November 2024 to February 2025, Fellows will receive creative and technical support to develop their projects virtually through a tailored screenwriting curriculum, peer-to-peer group work, and one-on-one project development consultations with leading industry mentors. The lab will also include hands-on workshops and masterclasses on pitching, producing, and visualisation techniques, among other topics. The Lab will culminate with career development and networking opportunities at Berlinale 2025.

2024 Mentors

Guest Speakers

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FAQ

The Lab will run between November 2024 to February 2025 with mandatory attendance needed for weekly online instructional sessions, 1-0-1 script consultations with industry mentors, masterclasses, writing assignments, and potential in person engagements at Berlinale 2025. Please apply to the lab only if you have the time and capacity to take on the required workload both for yourself and your peers.

The Lab will support six emerging queer and trans writers and writer-directors from communities underrepresented in the film and TV industry in South Asia.

Writers must currently be developing their first or second fiction feature film, and have a completed screenplay draft. Adaptations as well as documentary, short film or television projects are not eligible for this iteration of QueerFrames.

Applicants must be 18 years of age or older at the time of application, and be a citizen of a South Asian country with a valid passport.

Due to the nature of the Lab, applicants need to be able to communicate in English. Regardless of the final language of the film, the logline, synopsis and script must be translated into English before you submit it.

All submissions will be reviewed by the QueerFrames team and a panel of external advisors, following which shortlisted candidates will be invited to video interviews with the selection committee in October 2024. Applications will be assessed for their fit in three areas: robust and engaging storytelling, a strong creative vision, and technical skills.

The Lab is a fully funded opportunity for selected Fellows. Fellows whose screenplays are subsequently produced upon the completion of the Lab are required to include the The Queer Muslim Project, Goethe-Institut and the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab in a credit line and logo placement in the film’s end credits.

Application Requirements

Applicants will be required to submit the following: 

  • Basic contact and demographic information
  • Artist statement, including motivation, relevant bio and experience (400 words max)
  • A note of intention (200 words max)
  • Logline (75 words max)
  • Synopsis (750 words max) 
  • Full draft of a narrative feature screenplay
  • Samples of previous work