The push has prompted broadcasters, streaming platforms and trade our bodies to launch new programmes and broaden present ones aimed toward increasing the pool of writers past established artistic hubs and supporting the event of contemporary mental property and numerous storytelling.
Netflix has launched its first NextGen India Writers’ Program within the nation, whereas the Nationwide Movie Growth Company (NFDC) is ready to ask purposes for its 2026 Screenwriters’ Lab. The initiatives add to current programmes by Zee Leisure and impartial platform Cininfo, reflecting an industrywide effort to find and develop the following technology of storytellers from throughout the nation.
Netflix’s NextGen India Writers’ Program is open to writers with as much as three years {of professional} writing expertise. The 2-month hybrid programme will provide mentorship, workshops, and steerage from trade consultants. Individuals will develop unique collection ideas into professionally structured collection bibles, gaining perception into the method of taking an thought from idea to display screen.
Purposes are open from July 1 to September 1, 2026, with India changing into the third nation, after France and the Netherlands, to host the worldwide initiative.
“Streaming has basically expanded the chance for artistic expertise, however immediately, discovering and championing new voices is not simply a possibility, it’s a necessity,” stated Monika Shergill, vp, content material, Netflix India.
She stated the programme goals to find and nurture rising artistic voices that may form the following technology of storytelling from India. Trade leaders have more and more voiced issues concerning the trade’s reliance on a comparatively small pool of artistic expertise concentrated within the metros. As content material consumption grows throughout the nation, they’ve underscored the necessity to widen the expertise pipeline and nurture storytellers able to creating genuine, domestically rooted narratives that resonate with audiences throughout each city and rural India.
Zee Leisure launched the Zee Writers Room final yr in 9 languages, together with English, Hindi, and several other regional languages, providing chosen writers the chance to develop tales for the corporate’s tv, digital, and movie platforms.
“Writers want three issues — respect, recognition and remuneration,” Zee Leisure Chief Content material Officer Raghavendra Hunsur advised ET beforehand. “We intention to supply all three by means of Zee Writers Room.”
Zee additionally runs initiatives akin to a short-film contest and a Pan-India outreach programme to higher perceive viewers preferences. In line with Hunsur, these programmes may finally rank among the many firm’s most useful belongings, because the artistic trade is pushed by expertise.
The Nationwide Movie Growth Company (NFDC) additionally conducts its annual Screenwriters’ Lab, which helps rising writers strengthen their scripts by means of mentorship from internationally recognised script consultants and movie trade consultants.
Held in affiliation with Movie Bazaar, the programme exposes members to international approaches to screenwriting and filmmaking whereas equipping them with the abilities to current their tasks to producers and buyers in India and worldwide markets. Purposes for the 2026 version are anticipated to open quickly.
India is rising as a serious content material funding hub within the Asia-Pacific area, accounting for 12% of the area’s projected $22.1 billion content material spend in 2026, in response to Ampere Evaluation. The expansion is being pushed by broadcasters and international streaming platforms ramping up investments in domestically produced content material, rising the necessity for a stronger pipeline of expert writers to create unique mental property.
