Filmmaker and producer Usama Mukwaya has been selected as a Budgeting Mentor for the Script to Market Residency, a 14-week programme designed to support Ugandan filmmakers in developing their projects and preparing them for the professional film market.

The residency is part of CREATE: Enhancing Skills and Enabling Financial Inclusion for Young Women in the Creative Economy, an initiative of the International Trade Centre (ITC), in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and Bayimba Foundation.

Script to Market brings together a cohort of 30 Ugandan filmmakers for an intensive development process combining training, mentorship and opportunities for market engagement. In addition to developing their projects across creative and business areas, participants have access to an Access Market, creating an opportunity to connect their projects with industry professionals and potential partners.

The programme’s mentorship component brings together practitioners from Uganda and the wider African film industry. Mukwaya joins Tanzanian filmmaker and producer Amil Shivji and Ugandan filmmaker and producer Nicole Magabo, among other mentors contributing to the programme.

As a Budgeting Mentor, Mukwaya will work with participating filmmakers on the financial development of their projects, including production budgeting and the relationship between a project’s creative ambitions, financial requirements and potential routes to financing.

The residency’s wider programme covers areas including project development, packaging, budgeting, fundraising, pitching and market positioning, culminating in opportunities for participants to take their projects into a professional market environment.

Script to Market is intended to help filmmakers move beyond developing a film concept to understanding what is required to develop, finance and position a project for the wider industry.