3 Concordia MFA alumni embark on paid screenwriting internships at Zone3
Left to right: William Pagé, Nicole Doummar and Siham Medjahed.
Three recent graduates from Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema will embark on a paid screenwriting internship at Zone3, a leading Quebec-based production company. The month-long internship, which officially begins mid-May, will provide these graduates with the opportunity to refine their screenwriting projects while receiving professional mentorship and feedback.
The participants — Nicole Doummar, Film Prod Major 23, Siham Medjahed, Film Prod Major 23, and William Pagé, Film Prod Major 22 — were selected for their innovative and diverse screenwriting projects, ranging from personal dramas to dark comedies. Through their 100-hour paid internship, they will continue to develop their projects and deepen their screenwriting skills in a real-world environment with professional support.
For Doummar, this opportunity is a chance to dive deep into her project and connect with others in the field. "It represents time to focus on my project, alongside meaningful exchanges with colleagues. Developing a project on your own, without a budget, time or feedback, is exactly what’s missing when creating something independently," she shares.
Her project, inspired by childhood memories, follows a young girl living in a dysfunctional family. "The story explores her daily life and her persistent quest for connection and love despite emotional distance, carrying that weight," Doummar adds.
‘A great opportunity’
Medjahed, who is working on a fiction series, is looking forward to stepping out of the solitary nature of writing to get into the collaborative aspect with professionals. “As emerging artists, writing is a constant part of our daily lives. But it’s usually confined to the safe, pyjama-clad privacy of our bedrooms,” Medjahed points out.
"Developing a screenplay among Zone3 professionals represents a great opportunity, and I am looking forward to learning from experienced mentors, gaining practical insights and refining my skills in a collaborative, real-world environment.”
Medjahed’s project is an absurd comedy about a disillusioned office worker, Ben Brown, who, after being wrongly kidnapped, embarks on a wild mission to recover his missing thumbnail. “It’s a journey of resilience, identity confusion and nail-related drama. The character is so focused on this bizarre goal that he loses sight of everything else. It's funny, yet absurd and poignant."
For Pagé, the internship is a gamechanger. "The Zone3 internship is an immense opportunity in my career as a filmmaker. It’s a chance to deeply develop my project L’amour genre?, a short fiction series exploring themes of positive masculinity, gender questions and love in modern society,” he says. “With professional mentoring from Zone3 and support from my peers at Concordia, I know I’ll emerge from this experience with the tools necessary to continue writing and approaching production.”
Pagé adds, "My time in Montreal and interactions with diverse communities allowed me to revisit my own masculinity and sexuality. The series is inspired by my own friendships and is about the importance of dialogue, introspection and empathy.”
The partnership between Concordia and Zone3 is a valuable opportunity for these recent graduates to bridge the gap between academia and the professional world. The internship program will give participants the chance to work on their scripts, with the goal of refining character descriptions, narrative arcs and conducting research.
Find out more about experiential learning opportunities at Concordia and the Microprogram in Screenwriting and Film Producing.