DramaLabs is Storyline Media’s five-week intensive upskilling project for the Cast, Directors and Crew of our 26-episode family drama series, LETTA & CO.
DramaLabs is about telling stories in a particular way — through drama; it’s about meeting or exceeding international creative and production standards in digital filmmaking within the constraints of micro- to low- budgets; and we’re doing this in a very special place — Botswana.
Please visit the site: DramaLabs
Letta & Co. is the:
*So far, in order of broadcast in Botswana, there have been four television dramas. Three of them, “Flat 101″ (GBC), “Re Bina Mmogo” (Btv , edutainment) and “Morwalela” (PSI , edutainment) adhere to the soap opera format. The exception is “Thokolosi” (Btv), a fun and highly imaginative serial melodrama written, produced and directed by Norman Moloi.
Museum of Broadcast Communications: Soap Opera; Wikipedia: edutainment.
For Letta, the struggle to establish a small business — her pragmatic decisions, thoughtful management, and determination to keep on trying despite bruising and embarrassing mistakes — becomes a touchstone for her private and more fundamental struggles.
Despite her own self-doubts and against the advice of her late husband’s family, almost-forty Letta takes her life savings, leaves city life in Gaborone, and partners with childhood friend and wildlife guide, Peter, to set up a small tourist camp in her home village of Lefagare…
As Letta and company lay the foundation for their new enterprise Mma Mmutla, the primary hospital’s recently appointed matron, launches a proactive (and highly personal) campaign to get certain citizens of Lefagare to smarten up when it comes to, among other things, HIV/AIDS; nurse Gaone says she’s absolutely not in love; and young nurse Thabo tries to make things right with an elderly patient…
…life is getting complicated: The ten hectares on which Letta’s built Marothodi Camp is, according to Peter, an “ecosystem!”; Barati, the cleaner, is bent on making her own dreams a reality; Keaogile, Letta’s oldest son, may not be so keen on taking over the “family” business; Neo, her teenage daughter, is, well, a teenage daughter; and then there’s little Bone…
Images are digitally painted frame captures from our copyrighted work. Site visitors are licensed to re-use images under Creative Commons: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Storyline Media is the corporate identity of the creative and production partnership of writer/producer Renée Gilbey and producer/director John Clement, based out of Gaborone, Botswana since 1994.
See our Portfolio.
We work in social issues, health and development media communications and the design and delivery of media development and training projects.
Across genres and formats, for Botswana and international audiences, we develop and produce well-crafted programmes rich in content.
We have a solid track record in:
Expertise and experience are in-house, hands-on. First, we think—then, we do. And we rarely work alone.
Download our Corporate Profile 
These days Storyline Media is all about Letta & Co., a 26-episode family drama series we’ve been commissioned to develop and produce for Botswana Television (Btv), for broadcast in 2011.
Sign up for a Blog Subscription (see side panel) to keep up-to-date on the project.
Comments, questions and feedback are always welcome.
Talent Campus Durban Calls for Filmmakers and Film Critics
Superimposing an African imagination on filmmaking processes, the 5th Talent Campus Durban will ignite the creativity of 40 selected filmmakers from Africa in a series of masterclasses, workshops and industry networking opportunities during the Durban International Film Festival. Talent Campus Durban entices filmmakers to enhance skills, develop collaborations and interface with the dynamic future of the film industry in Africa, and the world.
The five-day programme also includes the 2nd edition of Doc Station, where selected documentary projects submitted by accepted talents will be finessed and packaged for presentation within the DOC Circle at the 3rd Durban FilmMart. Two Doc Station projects won PUMA.Mobility and PUMA.Creative prizes adjudicated by Channel 4 BRITDOC at last year’s Durban FilmMarket.
Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2012
LINK: TALENT CAMPUS DURBAN LINK: PARTICIPATION CONDITIONS LINK: APPLY ONLINE
Download here: Storyline 1-sheet 2012
Storyline 1-sheet 2012
Filmmakers like Ousmane (dockworker, bricklayer and mechanic before he became a filmmaker) and Cissé (who started as an assistant projectionist, then as a cinematographer for the Malian Ministry of Information) set social and political agendas as well as craft and artistic standards for African film of which most Batswana “filmmakers” seem blissfully unaware.
Comments welcome.
This year’s tvebiomovies competition is now open and we are inviting proposals for short films from amateur film-makers around the globe.
Shortlisted entrants receive a US$ 300 budget to produce a finished film. The overall winners of each category will each receive US$ 1,500 in prize money and will have the chance to have their work screened at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban in December 2011.
There are five categories in the competition each examining different aspects of the environment: oceans, energy, water, forests and people living with nature.
This is the second year that tve is running the film competition and we want it to be even better than last year so we need you to help by sending us your proposals and spreading the word.
Enter the competition.
Visit www.tvebiomovies.org to find out more and submit an entry. The competition closes on 21 October 2011.
