The 5th annual South African Screenwriters Lab – SCRAWL - took place in Cape Town from 25-30 April, funded by ourselves and South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation. The workshop brought together 18 South African novelists, playwrights, scriptwriters and directors to explore how to adapt work for the big screen. This year’s tutors, led by Colin Vaines (Head of European Production and Development at Miramax), were writer/directors Anthony Minghella and Oliver Parker, actor/director Alan Rickman and the London-based South African scriptwriter Shawn Slovo.

Some of the participants included:

• Ntshaveni Wa Luruli, director of the award-winning feature Chikin Biznis and The Wooden Camera
• Barry Berk, currently writing a 13-part drama series called The Lab
• Paul Christelis, who is adapting his novel Rabbit Season for the cinema
• Ross Devenish, BAFTA-winning director
• Sello Duiker, winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for The Quiet Violence of Dreams
• Carig Freimond, playwright and director
• Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, theatre and TV writer and founder of a youth drama group
• Ashraf Jamal, university lecturer, novelist, playwright and director
• David Kramer, songwriter, author, playwright and winner of the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Musical – Kat And The Kings
• Greg Latter, actor and screenwriter
• Xoli Norman, musician, playwright and biographer
• Helena Nougeira, the first woman to write and direct a feature film in South Africa (Quest For Love, 1986)
• Colin Oliphant, who has written over 200 episodes of the daily drama Isidingo and has just completed a year in Los Angeles writing for NBC’s primetime series