A proposed new movie on Nigerian email scammers, Nigerian Prince, written and directed by Faraday Okoro and produced by Biyi Bandele and Oscar Hernandez-Topete, has won a $1 million AT&T grant at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
Nigerian Prince was announced winner at the film fiesta after a hard-fought pitching session tagged ‘AT&T Presents: Untold Stories’ featuring scripts from four other talented filmmakers.
Nigerian Prince swayed a Greenlight committee led by Fiona Carter, AT&T Chief Brand Officer, after listening to a pitch on its story idea, budget and film script. Also listed in the committee were Hollywood actors, Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Mackie, Josh Deutsch (Chairman/CEO, Downtown Records), Lee Daniels (film producer), Len Amato (President, HBO Films) and Frida Torresblanco (film producer).
The session was the first edition of the AT&T and Tribeca new film initiative. AT&T will provide funding of up to $1 million for Okoro and Bandele to produce the film, and Tribeca will provide mentorship from seasoned industry professionals. In addition, AT&T plans to distribute the winning film across several of its video platforms, including DirecTV Now, AT&T’s streaming over-the-top service.