Biography:

Ian Masters is an international scriptwriter and producer who has worked across Africa and Asia for the past 17 years. In 1999 he established, ScriptNet, a script training NGO which conducted workshops and script labs in Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Through ScriptNet he has Exec'd over 35 short films from new and emerging writers and directors.

Awarded a MA in Screenwriting from the UK's Bournemouth University and winner of the Alan Plater Prize, his first feature as writer and producer, The Last Reel premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival 2014 where it won The Spirit of Asia Award. It has been screened in over 20 film festivals winning the Black Dragon Audience Award in Udine Far East Film Festival, as well as being Cambodia's official submission to the Academy Awards. It opens theatrically in Japan in 2016. Ian lived in Cambodia and Sri Lanka for over 7 years and during that time worked as the Lead Writer for BBC Media Action in Cambodia on 6 TV series including the ground-breaking Loy9 and Love9 series, as well as writing three made for TV feature length dramas for Cambodian networks. For BBC Media Action he has also written and developed the third TV series of the successful Ujan Ganga Naiya series in Bangladesh, and a radio drama series in South Sudan, Life in Lulu.

Beyond the Bridge, written with Jon Smith, premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival in 2016. Ian continues to run training labs and provide mentoring services for new writers in many different countries, including a lab run through Rithy Panh's Bophana Centre in Cambodia and in Uganda where he now lives and teaches at the Kampala Film School. Short films he has developed or written have been shown in Cannes, Tokyo, Busan and many other international film festivals.

His next feature project, High Life, set in Ghana is slated for production in Jan 2017. In 2014 he established Balkon Films with long term collaborator, Jon Smith which currently has three feature films and three TV drama series in development.