Netflix and Ghetto Film School announce Fellowships

Ghetto Film School (GFS) is a nonprofit organisation that, in collaboration with Netflix, has announced the list of ten finalists for its year-long fellowship on nonfiction and directing, reports Variety. The fellows shall be working for the unscripted and documentary series production team in Netflix while partaking in various networking opportunities offered by the module. 

The ten fellows are Eloise King, Ashley O’Shay, Eric Seals, Mohamed Siam, Maya Cueva, Neha Shastry, Pia Borg, Omar Aldakheel, Xin Li and Tedra Wilson. 

The unscripted and documentary series team at Netflix has done outstanding work in the past with popular shows such as Chef’s Table, High on the Hog, Love Is Blind and more. The fellows will get the golden opportunity to work with directors, showrunners and more on new as well as established content. They will get access to exclusive mentorship and the practical experience will help build their resume. 

Additionally, the fellows will also get the chance to attend various meet-and-greets and masterclasses held by high-profile executives who have immense experience after years of work in the industry. 

Sharese Bullock, an executive at GFS Scope expressed how “grateful” they were to have had the incredible opportunity of partnering with Netflix. 

“Providing young, diverse creatives with a fellowship of this stature is beyond rewarding and we know they’ll find nothing but success,” she said. “It is an impressive accomplishment to be accepted into this program, and each fellow should be proud. We look forward to watching as the many projects they work on come to life.” 

The director of the Netflix documentary series, Jamila Farwell expressed her excitement at being able to work with “this cohort of incredibly talented filmmakers” and expressed how they could not wait to see “how they’ll contribute to the space of nonfiction filmmaking.”

Farwell further expressed the importance of reflecting diversity on “both sides of the camera” and hoped that “this program will go a long way to fostering some of that talent and GFS was the perfect partner for this initiative”.

The director of creative talent development, Tiffany Birrell-Lewis said that this programme is a part of Netflix Fund for Creative Equality where Netflix was investing nearly $100 million over a period of five years, collaborating with other organisations to help “underrepresented communities” taste “success in the TV and film industries” and to “identify, train and provide job placement for upland-coming talent globally”.

 To gain further information on the fellowship, click here.