The Asian Wildlife & Environmental Film Lab and Pitching Forum, known as greenstories, returns to the Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts in Panjim from 11 to 17 November. Its third edition follows two runs in 2024 and 2025 that incubated 32 film projects and around 70 filmmakers in Asia and gave them a pitching platform.
This year’s call drew more than 150 submissions from across the continent. The call selected 16 feature-length documentaries and 6 short documentaries for an intensive, five-day, in-person incubation lab, with mentors including Emmy and Academy Award winners, as well as Peabody Award winners. The lab ends with a pitch event before a panel of more than 25 national and international industry representatives, among them broadcasters, distributors, foundations and festival organisers.
Funding includes co-production funds of 110,000 USD with ALT EFF and other industry partners, plus grants worth 40,000 USD. The Sunaparanta Residency offers one filmmaker a four-week residency and a grant, and DMZ Docs will present an award to one selected project, with full accreditation, travel, and accommodation covered. Further festival and industry accreditations are available in the United States, Korea, Europe and South Africa.
The programme now reaches well past the annual lab. This year, the Wild Stories Tri-Continental Lab brought teams from Africa, Asia, and Latin America together across all three locations to create three short film stories, intended as proofs of concept that could grow into longer films. Regular online expert sessions address gaps that regional filmmakers face, such as how co-productions work, what distribution looks like, and how to take a developing idea to a producer. The newly launched Impact Lab offers selected projects from earlier cohorts personalised one-on-one online sessions with experienced mentors, built to support the impact work of those projects.
Founder Mike Pandey said he wants greenstories to evolve into a safe mentorship space for filmmakers while expanding access to markets and resources, which he calls «something we all stumble around for».
The National Geographic Society backs the forum, as do Royal Enfield Social Mission and the Rainmatter Foundation, and Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts acts as host. Its partners are SONY India, NEWF South Africa, ALT EFF, DMZ Docs Korea and Jackson Wild. Kaitlin Yarnall, Chief Storytelling Officer at the National Geographic Society, says the society is «honoured to work with greenstories to further support storytellers in India, South Asia, and Southeast Asia».
Launched in April 2024, greenstories is a not-for-profit initiative of Earth Matters Foundation, Docedge, Documentary Resource Initiative (DRI), Dusty Foot Foundation, Green Hub and Riverbank Studios. Further information is available at green-stories.in.
