Proposed movie ‘Nigerian Prince’ wins $1million grant in the US

‘Nigerian Prince’, a proposed film project by Faraday Okoro has won a $1 million grant from AT&T.

Apart from the production funding, the proposed flick is guaranteed a slot at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

‘Nigerian Prince’ which is about Nigerian email scammers was conceived by Okoro while Bandele and Oscar Hernandez-Topete will serve as producers.

‘Nigerian Prince’ was on Wednesday, April 19 announced winner of the grant.

The announcement came after a hard-fought pitching session featuring scripts from four other filmmakers.

The pitching session was tagged ‘AT&T Presents: Untold Stories’.

‘Nigerian Prince’ follows two characters; Eze, a stubborn, first generation Nigerian-American teenager and his cousin, Pius, who is a desperate Nigerian prince scammer.

After Eze’s mother sends him to Nigeria against his will, he retaliates by teaming up with Pius to scam unsuspecting foreigners in order to earn money for a return ticket back to America.

A committee of Hollywood filmmakers and actors selected the winning script after listening to pitches from five contenders.

Fiona Carter, AT&T chief brand officer, Hollywood actors Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Mackie; Josh Deutsch, chairman and CEO, Downtown Records; film producers Lee Daniels and Frida Torresblanco as well as HBO Films president Len Amato were the members of the committee.

AT&T will provide funding for Faraday Okoro and Bandele to make the film while Tribeca will provide mentorship from seasoned industry professionals.

AT&T will also distribute the film on its video platforms.

Okoro is a New York University film school graduate.

The other four filmmakers received $10,000 for their projects.