Sahara Group – a leading African energy conglomerate with operations across 4 continents, in celebration of it’s 20 years anniversary has launched an entrepreneurship competition “Grooming Film Extraneurs…”, which seeks to connect budding film makers with stakeholders that can help hone their skills. This initiative is the maiden project under Sahara Group’s Extrapreneurship Framework which is being driven by Sahara Foundation, the Group’s corporate responsibility vehicle.

To participate in the competition, young film makers in Nigeria not older than 35 years are expected to shoot a 15-minute documentary celebrating entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The theme of the documentary should focus on: “My Nigeria, My Platform…Nigeria through an entrepreneur’s eyes.” The 15-minute documentary is expected to highlight the story of Nigerian entrepreneurs, with a focus on how their activities are providing sustainable solutions, creating employment and promoting socio-economic development across the nation.

All submitted entries will be screened by the multiple award-winning film maker Kunle Afolayan and whittled down to 20, a number commemorative of Sahara’s 20th anniversary. These 20 entries will then go on to the final stage from where a winner will be selected to undergo a 6 month mentorship programme with the ace film maker.

Award-winning Nigerian actor and filmmaker Kunle Afolayan

Talking about his expectations in terms of the quality of entries and impact the competition will have, Kunle said: “I believe in this project and working together with Sahara Group is a partnership that will boost the movie industry in future. I will be looking out for creativity and inspiring stories. We do not expect participants to commit a huge budget to their documentaries, all you need is a story that commands attention.”

Asides from improving on various aspects of film making such as style of storytelling, subject matter interpretation, audio and visual quality, aesthetics as well as understanding of the perspective of a story, the award winning producer and director mentioned that “the winner will also learn the commercial side of film making so that he or she is not just a good film maker, but also a wealthy film maker.”

Application process is as follows:
Apply for the extrapreneurship initiative here
Complete the form
Click here to agree to the terms and conditions
Upload your video
Log in to twitter and tweet “See Nigeria through entrepreneurs’ eyes” with the hashtag – #Saharapreneurs, #Extrapreneurship and cc: @iamsaharagroup and @kunleafolayan
Submission of video documentaries for the competition closes on the 28^th of August, 2016.

Sahara’s Extrapreneurship platform will help the company drive integrated economic empowerment programmes through strategic partnerships and support for innovative as well as scalable business ventures. Over the next four years, Sahara Foundation plans to directly impact 12,000,000 beneficiaries and also create value through the identification, development and maintenance of relevant stakeholders through which beneficiaries can grow and sustain businesses. This will be achieved through skills acquisition training, mentoring and access to a network of committed stakeholders.