The Babylon International Workshop Initiative on Film which is being organised in collaboration with the Nigerian Film Corporation, Jos got underway in Berlin last week with enthusiastic participants and film enthusiasts commending the initiative.

Sampled opinion at the Berlin (European) workshop held from November 26 – 29, 2009 at the Kurt Villa, confirmed that more than ever before there are concrete efforts at linking Filmmakers across the continents come next year using the Babylon Initiative.

So far over forty-five (45) entries have been received from various film makers from around the world including Nigeria. And in a bid to allow more participants submit their entries; the closing date has been extended.

The new closing date is now December 18, 2009

The 2010 programme scheduled to hold in Jos, Abuja, Berlin and Rotterdam includes, a five –day interactive development workshop for 14 selected projects (7 European, 7 African) during one of the international film festivals in either Berlin or Rotterdam with script consultancy, one-on-one production and marketing analysis, screenings, case studies and network forums. Similarly, individual mentoring from Babylon experts during the script re-write and preparation phase is scheduled for February and March, 2010. This will be followed with a 5 day production lab at the National Film Institute, Jos(27th April-2nd May, 2010) intended to consolidate the script development of each project and provide filmmaking teams the opportunity to watch scenes from their films, or produce promotional short films based on their feature film materials.

The highpoint of the 2010 programme will be the presentation of projects and review promotional materials at the Zuma Film Festival taking place in Abuja, the nation's capital from May 02-06, 2010, to be followed by onward mentoring and promoting all Babylon projects. The Babylon project is funded by the European Union's Media International, Scenario films, Scripthouse, Playfilm and the Nigerian Film Corporation in partnership with others. African filmmakers will have the opportunity to work with European colleagues on script and story development, production technique and access to international material placed through Babylon's network of industry consultants, Funder, international sales agents and Distributors.

The objective of this initiative is to expose producers/writers/directors and production teams the opportunity to broaden access to the international film market.