Turning point: Looking for the perfect climax

Qalambaaz inducts new batch of aspiring screenwriters as the previous round comes to an end

KARACHI:

Screenwriting is not everyone’s ball game but you can be a pro at any thing you like, if you’re passionate about it and are steered into the right direction.  Iram Parveen Bilal, director of the Pakistani film Josh, did the same for aspiring screenwriters by initiating Qalambaaz: a remote screenwriting lab which lets young writers hone their skills while working alongside mentors.

Initiated in 2014, the project paired mentors and mentees to form a complete screenplay out of an initial idea. Recently, the first batch of mentees finalised their screenplays and five new ones were inducted in a pitching session held in Karachi. Iram believes this screenwriting lab “has been fruitful”.

Now in its second year, “The first round received fifty screenplay ideas which were narrowed down to six mentees after an extensive round of interview sessions and scoring by a panel of six judges,” Iram told The Express Tribune.



Panelists for this year are Nadeem Mandviwalla, Wajahat Rauf of Karachi se Lahore fame, Iram Perveen Bilal and Faisal Kapadia (not the musician).

In this six-month long screenwriting lab, five participants are selected who get paired up with internationally employed mentors working in Hollywood, Bollywood and Pakistan.

“Each mentor-mentee pair works for a period of six months, from January to June, with regular chat-sessions and meetings to hone the script, from outline to acts to a complete screenplay with one polish,” Iram added.

When the six-month period ends, Qalambaaz arranges a mock pitch session for the budding screenwriters with distributors, producers, directors and marketing experts, who help teach the writers how to pitch and sell their work.

The main aim of this venture is to help people write screenplays and to teach them the nuances and structure of storytelling. Iram feels that the screenplay is where we as an industry are lacking and this is a humble effort to help that cause.

She highly recommends young writers to spend some time and sincerely work on their application forms for Qalambaaz. When asked if this screenwriting lab will be continued year on year, Iram says, “It is already an annual feature already as we are in our second round of Qalambaaz. Let’s see, one year at a time!”

The previous mentors of Qalamabaaz include Zak Sheikh, a staff writer on the Warner Bros series Sullivan & So, Amit Kumar, who had his debut feature Monsoon Shootout premiere in the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Sameer Asad Gardezi, an award winning comedy writer who has written for networks such as The CW, FOX, ABC and Comedy Central, Sumit Roy a fiction writer for Indian Television and Afia Nathaniel a multiple award winning screenwriter.

Application forms for Qalambaaz are available on their facebook page of the same name.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th,  2015.

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