The Hyphen has announced the ‘Ciné Impact Fellowship’ program to nurture new talent from the next generation of filmmakers for independent storytelling on social issues.
A cohort of 10 filmmakers with a fixed one-time financial assistance worth INR 1,00,000 in addition to cash prizes worth INR 1,00,000 through a national short film competition.
While the participants will be vetted by an eminent jury of critics and filmmakers like Saibal Chatterjee, Utpal Borpujari, Arnab Banerjee and Faizal Khan, a week-long mentorship and handholding of the selected participants will be done under the mentorship of noted national award-winning filmmaker Brahmanand S Singh and National Award-winning Docu-Filmmaker Amitabh Parashar.
The Fellowship program is open to any Indian under the age of 25 who aspires to become a filmmaker. The selected teams would be mentored by renowned Filmmakers and Critics in a week-long Filmmaking Bootcamp.
The fellows will work on making short films that highlight the NGOs and Corporates run initiatives and their socio-economic impact on society. The program would offer wide-ranging support to these young talents with mentorship and grants for making documentaries.
Launching the fellowship program, Apresh Mishra, Founder, The Hyphen said, “The Ciné Impact Fellowship program is a part of our resolve to articulate filmmakers’ tryst with socio-economic issues either directly or tangentially. The fellowship will explore different elements – whether social, economic or cultural through short films.
Rusen Kumar, Co-Founder of the The Hyphen and Founder of India CSR Network said, “ Young Generation offers tremendous potential for independent visual storytelling. The Fellowship is a great platform to unleash it.”
As part of our mission of youth led social transformation, this fellowship aims to nurture new talent of emerging filmmakers for storytelling on issues that the society is grappling with today.”
Talking about the fellowship program, Saibal Chatterjee, a national award-winning film critic said, “There is a wide range of issues that has to be tackled in the current situation. It would be exciting to watch the young ones making films on these issues as the youth are the ones who are full of creative ideas.”
Brahmanand S Singh, a national award-winning filmmaker and one of the mentors at the fellowship program said, “Filmmaking is changing the way people are approaching things. Number of times young people have great ideas but these are somewhere lost in terms of how it should be put together and how it should to be shaped and that is where such mentorship can help. I am personally excited for the fact that I would be mentoring the finest young filmmakers. I am sure this initiative is going to make a great impact on youth and society.”
The Fellowship Applications will start from 15th September 2021 and the last date for applying is 15th October 2021. Winners of the short film competition will be announced on 1st November 2021 and Grand Finale on 20th February 2022.
