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Exclusive: The Queer Muslim Project has revealed the six Fellows selected as part of its second cohort of the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab, a one-of-its-kind creative incubator for emerging and early-career queer storytellers in South Asia.

This year’s Fellows come from a variety of backgrounds and creative perspectives including Anureet Watta, Ashutosh Shankar, Shubham Negi, Tejas Shende, Abdul Rehman Shah, and Samah Meghjee.

The Queer Muslim Project is Asia’s leading digital and cultural platform for queer, Muslim, and diverse voices, with a growing community of 70k+. They use art, culture, and media to challenge stereotypes, expand access for underrepresented Lgbtqia+ storytellers, and help them shape their narratives. One of its initiatives is the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab which helps create behind-the-camera opportunities for underrepresented communities in the entertainment industry.

As part of the cohort, the Fellows will be part of an immersive program combining creative workshops, technical training, and personalized mentorship.

Writers, directors and producers will take part in a series of masterclasses, screenings and networking opportunities from October 6-9.

The 15 participants in this year’s BFI Network@Lff professional development programme will include writer-director Abraham Adeyemi, whose directorial debut No More Wings won best narrative short at Tribeca Film Festival, writer Kamal Kaan, who was story, location and cultural consultant on Clio Barnard’s Cannes premiere Ali & Ava, writer-director Lowri Roberts who co-founded production company Rapt with actor Maisie Williams, and writer-director Dan Thorburn whose debut feature Barfly recently won best project at the Galway Film Fleadh marketplace.

Adeyemi is co-developing TV series South London,...

Rocks writer Theresa Ikoko is creating a Channel 4 coming-of-age drama with A Discovery of Witches scribe Lisa Holdsworth about an eclectic group of dance students.

Dance School (working title) will provide 10 industry training placements to individuals with no previous TV experience.

Produce by Channel 4 Growth Fund-backed indie Duck Soup Films and inspired by true stories from inner-city Leeds, the eight-part show will follow the students as they navigate the intense highs and lows of coming-of-age in today’s complex world. Teacher Jackie heads up the Saturday class and brings together the core friendship gang and dance ensemble: Puppy, Kobby, Liam, Tim, Francesca, Tash and Nohail.

Street casting and recruitment starts in the summer and the production will shoot in the Autumn in and around Leeds.

The show has shades of Ikoko and director Sarah Gavron’s approach to BAFTA-winning Rocks, which cast young non-actors in inner-city London in what was an extensive process.

Maybe she was kidding, but director Clio Barnard recently described “Ali & Ava” as her shot at making a “social-realist musical.” The phrase, which slipped out during an interview from the BFI London Film Festival, struck me as some kind of oxymoron at first: How could a rugged, true-to-life depiction of a struggling working-class English couple possibly coexist with that most surreal of cinematic genres? But in light of the end result, Barnard’s ambition makes perfect sense. The film’s two title characters don’t burst into song out of the blue but rather, listen to music as an escape from their everyday stresses. It’s the force that brings them together.

Embodied with equal parts weariness and good cheer by British Bengali actor Kamal Kaan (“Four Lions”), Ali is a Yorkshire-based ex-radio DJ who gravitates to dance and electronic music. An Irish transplant to the region, Ava (Claire Rushbrook...

Celebrated British filmmaker Clio Barnard, a previous Cannes winner for “The Selfish Giant” (2013), is back on the Croisette with Directors’ Fortnight selection “Ali & Ava.”

The film is a love story based on people Barnard got to know through making her previous films. While making “The Arbor,” Barnard met and worked with Bradford actor, DJ and landlord Moey Hassan and later, when making “The Selfish Giant,” she met Rio, a mother and teaching assistant at a Bradford school.

Collaborating with Bradford-based writer Kamal Kaan as script consultant, Barnard started to shape a story influenced by Hassan, Kaan and Rio.

In the film, both lonely for different reasons, Ali and Ava meet through their shared affection for six-year-old Sofia, the child of Ali’s Slovakian tenants, whom Ava teaches. Ali finds comfort in Ava’s warmth and kindness and Ava finds Ali’s complexity and humor irresistible. Over time, sparks fly and...