A screenwriters’ residency programme, launching in Queenstown this spring, is the first stage of a plan which will hopefully result in a "creative college" being established in the Wakatipu.

Great Southern Television (GSTV) chief executive Philip Smith has been working with the Queenstown Lakes District Council on "Tahuna", a new programme under which five of New Zealand’s best screenwriters will be selected to take part in a four-week residency programme this October, where they will create television project ideas either inspired by, or set within, the district.

GSTV will have first option to acquire the rights to the resulting projects — if commercial returns are made on any project, GSTV will use them to fully fund the venture in its third year.

For the first two years the total cost of the workshops, $44,000, will be shared equally by GSTV and the council.

Mr Smith said the residency would ensure intellectual property was created in the district, about the district, and then in time be produced in a locally-based film studio but broadcast to international audiences.

It would also help develop a new creative sector in the region — potentially turning Queenstown into New Zealand’s "creative hub" — and ensure those working in the film and television industries in the Queenstown Lakes, for example, had the opportunity to work for 12 months of the year.

"We’re seeing initiatives in the tech sector ... They’ve all got synergy; they’re all interrelated, Mr Smith said.

"It is innovative by the council, This isn’t just about drains and roads — this is about the council saying, ‘how can we get involved at the grassroots and stimulate intellectual property that then becomes worth quite a lot of money and stimulates the local economy and creates another industry that is sustainable?"’

In time, he hoped to establish a year-long "creative college" under the Tahuna umbrella.

The residency programme would continue annually, but he hoped to run annual six-month writers’ courses and, separately, a six-month directors’ course, with about 15 people per intake.

"There’s such a demand globally [for writers and directors], and yet there’s no training in NZ — there’s no directors’ course or writers’ course specific to NZ.

"We’re having high-level talks with NZ Film Commission, NZ on Air, with the [NZ] Writers Guild, and saying, ‘how can we create this?’

"It could be a project that in the future both of us [GSTV and the council] have a lot less to do with. We’re really just the people that are going to stimulate the idea and the direction and then we’re going to see how much we can grow it.

"If it grows in the direction there could be government funding, or something else — then we all win," Mr Smith said.

Applications for the first intake of writers interested in the residency would open in about 10 days and he expected a high calibre of applicants.