MUMBAI: In order to give impetus to people who have a story to relate and want to use cinema as a medium to do the same, the Asia Society India Centre, a part of Time Warner‘s philanthropic activities, has launched a ‘New Voices Fellowship‘.

The Fellowship will give six selected screenwriters a chance to be trained and mentored by a panel of screenwriters that consists of names like Anjum
Rajabali, Jaideep Sahni, Sreeram Raghavan, Saket Chaudhary, Dev Benegal, Ashwini Malik and Vinay Shukla.

After the interested mail of their registered scripts to the Society’s website between 11 July and 31 August, a filtration process would follow by which the best six would be chosen.

 
The selected screenwriters will be paid a stipend of Rs 100,000 and made to attend two five-day long workshops along with various other members of the industry.

Though the criteria to pick the best stories in a system such as this is obviously hard to pin point, the panel did reveal that they were looking for stories based around interior India. "We have to accept that in the recent past, our films deal with the urban life, love and youth. Where have the villages gone?" asked Rajabali.

Though there is no clause that the mentors will help sell the script to Bollywood as well, the writers have promised that if they find it worthy, they will personally ensure it gets noticed