Realness Institute Names First All-Female Cohort for AuthenticA Series Lab
Four writers from Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Cameroon are a week into a six-month program turning original series ideas into pilot scripts, with a pitch at Series Mania waiting at the finish line.
The Realness Institute has named the four screenwriters selected for the 2026 AuthenticA Series Lab, and for the first time since the program launched in 2022, every writer in the room is a woman. As first reported by Screen International, the cohort is Lagos-based writer, director and cinematographer Lateefah Mayaki (Fluid Lagos), Ghanaian-Canadian writer-director Lindsey Addawoo (Coroner, Robyn Hood), South African filmmaker Phumi Morare (Lakutshon' Ilanga, Why the Cattle Wait), and Cameroonian writer, actress and creative entrepreneur Sahndra Fon Dufe (Madam Secretary, Black Movement, Refugees, Yefon: The Red Necklace).
They were chosen from 144 applications across 27 countries.
A Cohort That Breaks the Lab's Own Pattern
AuthenticA opened its first call in 2022 as a partnership between Realness and The StoryBoard Collective, a Geneva-based philanthropic organization, with submissions welcome from all 54 African countries. Its inaugural class included Angela Wamai (Kenya), Chantel Clark (South Africa), Jessica Hagan (Ghana) and Tony Sebastian Ukpo (Nigeria). Five editions in, the lab has seated its first all-women group.
Director of writing programs, Selina Ukwuoma described the cohort as unprecedented, saying it opens a window onto "four more fascinating worlds we have not yet encountered on screen."
Four Writers, Four Very Different Roads In
Morare came to filmmaking from investment banking and management consulting. Her short Lakutshon' Ilanga (When the Sun Sets), about a young nurse searching for her activist brother in 1985 Soweto, won a Student Academy Award gold medal and an NAACP Image Award and was shortlisted for the Oscar.
Addawoo, based in Toronto, has built her career in the writers' room, with credits on Street Legal, Coroner and Robyn Hood, and drama and genre work that has screened at ABFF and Reelworld.
Mayaki works across writing, directing and cinematography out of Lagos. She is among the co-directors of Fluid Lagos, a 2024 documentary short that explores the city's relationship with water through a boatman, a vessel and a passenger.
Fon Dufe joins the lab as its first Cameroonian participant. She is a writer, actress and creative entrepreneur whose screen credits include Madam Secretary, Black Movement and Refugees, and her novel Yefon: The Red Necklace is an Amazon bestseller taught in some schools. She also leads Black Film Wire as founder and editor-in-chief.
Ethiopia, Geneva, Lille: How the Six Months Unfold
The writers are currently in Ethiopia for the program's opening eight-day residency, which wraps September 25. Online sessions follow through January 14, 2027, then a second residency in Geneva, Switzerland, from January 19 to March 21.
The lab closes in Lille, France, from March 22 to 26, where the four will pitch their projects in the African Series Pitch at Series Mania Forum.
Mentorship comes from Mehret Mandefro (Difret), Realness director of producing and showrunning, and Ukwuoma. Each writer leaves with a pilot script and pitch materials, and the rights to their work stay with them.
Mandefro framed the program's purpose in terms bigger than any single script, arguing that giving writers time, mentorship and market access matters even more given the state of the world. "We need to write a new world," she said.
AuthenticA is run with The StoryBoard Collective and supported by the Canada Media Fund and Series Mania Forum.
Our Take
We have watched African series development grow from a handful of streamer commissions into a real pipeline, and labs like AuthenticA are a big part of why. What stands out this year is not just who was chosen but what the cohort maps: West, Central and Southern Africa, plus the diaspora, in one room. Central Africa in particular has been underrepresented in continental development programs, so a Cameroonian seat at a Series Mania pitch is worth marking.
We'll follow all four writers to Lille in March.
Editor's note: Sahndra Fon Dufe is the founder and editor-in-chief of Black Film Wire. This article was reported and written by the BFW editorial team.
Know of an opportunity we should be featuring? Reach us at info@blackfilmwire.com.
Suggested Reading
Comments