Talented scriptwriters create a draft for an African crime series

Over the first week, the participants, assisted by the French scriptwriter and director Philippe Niang, discussed the financial aspect of writing and producing television series, so as to gain an insight into what it is like to be a show-runner, a key role in the production of this kind of programme. They studied the concepts of narrative arcs and characterization for the protagonists following on from the two pilot episodes, with the aim of then being able to write ten more episodes for a pan-African crime television series.

This work culminated in the writing of several pages worth of continuous dialogue making it possible to see how the themes discussed during the week fit together and to select the five writers who will continue writing the series. These are: Samantha Biffot and Olivier Messa Essono from Gabon, Raymond N'Goh from Côte d'Ivoire, Augustin N'Gom from Senegal and Guy Foumane from Cameroon.

The writers selected dedicated the second week of the workshop to writing the ten episodes, starting by drawing up a list of twenty themes and scenarios in which police investigations could be conducted. So as not to be confined solely to Senegal, each writer drew on the myths and traditions of their own country in order to give the project a pan-African dimension.

The participants then chose two themes from the list which will be developed into two episodes of the series. They also decided upon the details of how the police investigations would progress over the first season as a whole, whilst making sure to include a wide range of situations and using strong and effective narrative structures.

The five writers will meet again in early January 2016 to work on the definitive order of the various episodes of this series.

Samantha Biffot and Olivier Messa Essono (Gabon)

Guy Foumane (Cameroon ) and Raymond N'Goh (Côte d'Ivoire)

Augustin N'Gom (Senegal )