Film Bazaar, the South Asian film market organised by India’s National Film Development Corp (NFDC), has selected the six finalists of Screenwriters’ Lab 2014.

Now in its eighth edition, the first stage of the Lab will be held at the Sarajevo Film Festival (August 15-23), with the second stage held prior and during Film Bazaar (November 20-24). Previous Screenwriters’ Lab partners have included the Venice, Toronto and Locarno film festivals.

Film Bazaar is held alongside the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in the south Indian state of Goa.

The selected scripts include The Boyfriend, from Vidur Nauriyal and Ashim Ahluwalia; Aamir Bashir’s Winter; Hitesh Bhatia’s Char Log Kya Kahenge; Vandana Kohli’s Flow; All About Her, from Ruchi Joshi; and The Sunset Club from Karan Tejpal.

Ahluwalia previously directed Miss Lovely, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2013. The Boyfriend recently received the Hubert Bals Fund for script and project development. Miss Lovely was selected for Film Bazaar’s Co-production Market in 2008 and Work-In-Progress Lab in 2011.

Winter is Bashir’s second film following Autumn, which premiered at Toronto in 2010. Bhatia is a well-known commercials and TV director, who is making his debut in features, while Kohli has previously scripted and directed projects for the National Geographic Channel, History Channel and India’s Doordarshan.

Following film studies in Melbourne, Joshi has worked in music videos, commercials and independent features in Mumbai. Tejpal has worked as assistant director on films including 3 Idiots, Lage Raho Munnabhai and Ferrari Ki Sawari. His first feature, The Sunset Club, is adapted from Khushwant Singh’s novel.

Lab mentors include NFDC Labs’ Senior Consultant - Training and Development Marten Rabarts, writers Olivia Stewart and Urmi Juvekar and international industry advisor Bianca Taal.

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