The time has come to revive the art & the craft of story telling

Company Brief

New Delhi, May 23, 2008

Why SANKALAN?

The time has come to revive the art & the craft of story telling.

There are few writers, and even fewer story tellers.

Its time, we feel, for a Script Lab in India.

An opportunity which will help nurture ideas and concepts for films into full blown scripts that eventually will see the light of the day. Scripts which will be made into films.

Hence - India’s first ever ‘Ideas to Screen’ Workshop SANKALAN.

Contestants are invited to send in their concepts for feature films (live action or animation).

24 best entries will be selected for one to one pitching sessions with our panel comprising Mahindra, Baiscope Entertainment, writers and directors.

Sankalan brings together 3 of the best talent in the industry - Anurag Kashyap, Anjum Rajaballi and Sriram Raghavan – to select and mentor these oven fresh ideas into feature scripts over a period of 9 months.

‘Supporting Sankalan is our way of saying that the script comes first, second, third. And we, at Mahindra, intend to give scripts and script-writers the importance they deserve in order to create really good, entertaining and meaningful cinema - Andrey Purushottam, CEO, Mahindra media and entertainment business.

This is the first time that a Script Lab structure is being set up in India. Baiscope Entertainment has also factored in stipends for the finalists so that they can concentrate only on developing their scripts and their expenses are taken care of - Anurag Kashyap, Writer & Filmmaker.

Sankalan is a very highly needed relationship between producers on one hand expecting good scripts and raw talent on the other hand wanting to develop their ideas into scripts which can be turned into films. All they need is a little push and mentoring. This will provide them that - Anjum Rajaballi, Writer.

"We keep saying that there is a tremendous lack of good scripts in our industry. Hopefully, this initiative will help attract new ideas and writers. There must be so many people all over the country who have stories to tell but perhaps dont know how exactly to go about it. Thelma and Louise, Rocky, Blood Simple Salaam Bombay and Juno were scripts written by first time writers. So i'm very optimistic." - Sriram Raghavan , Writer & Filmmaker

These scripts will then be further developed / produced by Mahindra media and entertainment business.

The last date for submission of concepts is 19th July, 2008.

For more information on Sankalan and its rules and regulations and eligibility criteria, please log onto www.baiscopeent.com/sankalan or send us an email on sanakalan08@gmail.com

About Baiscope Entertainment

Baiscope Entertainment is a NGO and the first of its kind of organisation in the Indian entertainment space.

Conceived 2 years back with a vision of providing a ‘Window of Opportunities into the World of Cinema’, the objective behind the organization is to create a platform whereby knowledge can be shared on all aspects of cinema and a way can be paved for a defined indie filmmaking culture and movement in the country.

Baiscope has been working towards setting up a knowledge sharing platform in the Indian film industry by conducting knowledge sharing workshop sessions with experts from the different areas of the film fraternity. These workshops are attended by film buffs, film school students, people who are looking at making a career in film and people who have nothing to do with the film space.

Guest speakers have included Anurag Kashyap (writing and filmmaking), Sudhir Misra (world film festivals itinerary), Christina Marouda (setting up and running film festivals), Amitabh Shukla with Real Image (editing, VFX and Digital projection), Gitanjali Rao (animation), Mehool Parikh (film completion bonding), Ashutosh Kane (IPR), Sriram Raghavan (Film Noir) etc.

Baiscope has conceptualized and is now organizing SANKALAN India's first Ideas to Screen initiative - a comprehensive script writing initiative to find and develop new talent in the film writing space.

Our core team consists of people from various fields within the media and entertainment space, all with a passion for cinema.

For further information, please contact:

Baiscope Entertainment

Rabia Chopra

Mob: +91 9820962559

e-mail: sankalan08@gmail.com