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

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