The Nation Newspaper

Tag: DIFF

  • HOW AFRIFF BOOSTS NIGERIA’S PARTICIPATION AT 36TH DIFF

    HOW AFRIFF BOOSTS NIGERIA’S PARTICIPATION AT 36TH DIFF

    FOLLOWING Nigeria’s outing at the just concluded Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) in South Africa, there are strong indications of a collaboration fast making Nollywood the beau of Africa’s biggest film fest.

    Pundits say the partnership can only be next to DIFF’s romance with the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), going by the talent exchange programmes between the two.

    Two Nigerian institutions; Afrinolly, a film developmental initiative run by Chike and Jane Maduegbuna, and Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF); the fastest-growing Nigerian domiciled continental film festival, founded by Chioma Ude, have both given Nollywood a participation that brought men and material to bear, a feat never before achieved at the KwaZulu-Natal film event.

    First, Afrinolly made a pragmatic visibility with four Short Films, by artistes it groomed through the Ford Foundation grant. The four films; Timothy by Ejiro Onobrakpor, Henna by Ishaya Bako, Once by Jay-Franklyn Jituboh andThe Dutiful Wife by Soji Ogunaike festered a sense of belonging that can only get better, despite the fact that critics see their screening as sidekicks.

    AFRIFF on the other hand had brought one of its A-games to bear, by injecting some of the flame that relax and excite festival rats, through the notable AFRIFF party.  AFRIFF, it is obvious, is  not willing to change a formula that works despite pretence, and insinuations that such gigs are a distraction from the serious business of a film festival. Indeed, the AFRIFF/TRACE TV show could be regarded as the real closing party of DIFF, providing the enthralling ending that filmmakers love. It was a strategic show, which in the coming years aims to give clout, and power to DIFF’s closing ceremonies.

    But AFRIFF will not only be remembered for its party; a glamorous evening at the Velvet Lounge, Florida Road, which gave filmmakers the most relaxed networking atmosphere; it will be remembered for facilitating an exchange programme between the Nigerian motion picture industry and the iThekwini Filmmakers Association (AFA), and South African actors and filmmakers in general; it will be remembered for training young filmmakers at the Montana State University’s film school, and the Relativity film school in the U.S., some of whom were part of the Durban delegation.

    Ahead of the Nigerian Day which held on Friday July 24, AFRIFF’s Advisor, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, and its Creative Director, Keith Shiri had prepared ground for the event, and the other contingent which arrived on July 23.

  • Necktie Youth wins big at DIFF

    Necktie Youth wins big at DIFF

    Following the path of film directors like Jahmil X.T. Qubeka (Of Good Report), Zee Ntuli (Hard To Get) and others whose debut movies held sway at previous editions of the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), Sibs Shongwe-La Mer got two nods for his film, Necktie Youth, clinching two diadems at the closing ceremony of Durban International Film Festival which held penultimate Saturday.

    The film won the Best South African Feature Film award, while the International Jury Award for Best Director went to Shongwe-La Mer.

    The jury described the movie as “a film desperate to reconcile the seemingly disparate realities of its country, and whose urgent questions about South African life are posed with such mischievous energy that they cannot but help provoke debate, itself one of the most important responsibilities of cinema.”

    The international jury commented that newcomer Shongwe-La Mer (who has recently been signed by top international agents LBI and Casroto) was awarded the best director accolade “for displaying a unique, contemporary voice weaving together poetic images and a striking view of South African youth with a boldness seldom seen in South African cinema.”

    Necktie Youth, which follows the hedonistic antics of Johannesburg’s affluent new-born generation, had a successful career before it’s South African debut, selling out all festival screenings at its world premiere at Berlinale International Film Festival as well as Tribeca and Sydney International Film Festivals. Cineuropa named it best in show at Berlinale and the film went on to gather rave reviews in Variety, IndieWire, Elle, The New York Times, Le Monde and Dazed & Confused who called it the “South African Kids”, a comparison to Larry Clark’s 1995 cult classic.

    SterKinekor has confirmed the South African release of Necktie Youth on the 18th of September and Urucu, the film’s production company is in advanced negotiations with M-Net for the TV broadcast.

    The week has been a busy one for producers Elias Ribeiro and John Trengove from Urucu Media who also announced REALNESS, a pan-African screenwriter’s residency that will launch in 2016. “We are very excited to have the backing of the French Institute and Durban FilmMart for this initiative. The aim of REALNESS is to nurture a new crop of talented African film writers by offering them a 3 month incubation to develop their feature scripts”. These projects will be presented to a jury and independent producers at Durban FilmMart 2016.

    As part of their commitment to bringing more quality art-house films from across the world to South African screens, Urucu has started a partnership with Cannes’ La Semaine de la Critique competition (Critics Week). This year, five diverse films from the competition had screenings in Durban, with one of the directors, Boris Lojkine (Hope) travelling to Durban to conduct a Masterclass with local filmmakers. The five films will go on to have limited runs this weekend (31st August – 2nd September) in Johannesburg’s Rosebank Cinema Nouveau and in Cape Town’s W&A Waterfront Cinema Nouveau. La Semaine de La Critique are responsible for launching the careers of such giants in the art film world as Ken Loach, Won Kar Wai and Alejandro Gonzales Iñaritu (Birdman).

  • DIFF: Anti-apartheid film to screen on Mandela Day

    DIFF: Anti-apartheid film to screen on Mandela Day

    As part of this year’s Durban International Film Festival which started on Thursday, award-winning and world-renowned French filmmaker Euzhan Palcy, will showcase her most celebrated work, A Dry White Season (1989), in honour of the late South African freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela.

    The screening is also in commemoration of the film’s 25th anniversary, which was adapted from a book by the acclaimed South African writer Andre Brink who died earlier this year. Palcy will be honouring Brink on July 18; Mandela Day.

    Additionally, in a tribute to her contribution to the South African film industry, Palcy will be honoured at the Simon Sabela Awards on July 19. Karina Brink, Dame Janet Suzman and Thoko Ntshinga will attend both the screening and the awards.

    At the time the film was produced, Ms. Palcy was distinguished for being the first black female director to be hired by a major Hollywood studio (MGM) and to direct an anti-apartheid film during Nelson Mandela’s prison sentence. She is also the only woman to have directed Marlon Brando and the first black person to win a French Oscar.

    Andre Brink’s book, a narrative about the social movements of South Africa and the 1976 Soweto riots inspired Palcy’s impassioned response to illustrate an accurate account of the reality of apartheid. Palcy made the film in 1989 after doing extensive research undercover in Soweto. The film stars Donald Sutherland, Janet Suzman, Marlon Brando, Zakes Mokae, Susan Sarandon, John Kani, Winston Ntshona and Jürgen Prochnow amongst others.

    “We are pleased to be able to present an important work created by a black woman, which highlights and even represents the lost voices of the people of this continent; the unspoken narratives and the untold stories,” says Pedro Pimenta, Director of DIFF. “Her courage to create a work which could stand out and give three dimensional life to Brink’s book, and by association the voiceless at the time, required an enormous amount of bravery. We are proud to be able to salute her at the DIFF this year.”

    A Dry White Season will be screened at Suncoast at 20:00. This will be followed by a question and answer session with Ms. Palcy. Her first classic award winning film, Sugar Cane Alley, which Brink apparently screened in secret to his students, celebrates its 30th anniversary and will be screened as a South African premiere at Suncoast on Monday, 20 July at 19:30, in which she will also be in attendance.

    According to Patrick Aglae, director of communications for Euzhan Palcy and producer of A Dry White Season, “It has been a long journey since we decided to officially screen A Dry White Season in South Africa on the big stage. Euzhan Palcy had made the promise to Nelson Mandela to comeback one day to officially screen the film. In March at the Andre Brink’s Memorial at the University of Cape Town she said “Let’s make it happen”. So to do it on the Mandela Day is magnificent. I’d like to thank DIFF’s new leadership to make this dream a reality alongside MGM and Park Circus, its worldwide distribution partner which played a key role to restore this film and make the DCP on time. To make it so fast speaks volume about their respect for the film.”

  • DIFF announces partnership with Berlin

    The industry development programme for young filmmakers, Talents Durban, in cooperation with Berlinale Talents, will take place from 17 to 21 July as part of the 36th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) which runs from 16 to 26 July. The DIFF reminds participants to apply for the programme before April 13, 2015.

    Forty selected participants from all over Africa will be given a chance to forge relationships with their global counterparts in an intensive programme of seminars, hands-on training, workshops and industry networking activities, as well as having access to hundreds of film screenings at the festival.

    “The theme of the programme this year is Start-Motion,” says Tiny Mungwe, Project Manager at the DIFF. “At the turn of the 20th century, early filmmakers used stop-motion techniques to bring a sequence of still images to life on screen, astonishing audiences with the fantastical new medium. Throughout the history of film, new technologies have continued to revolutionize the way we make and watch films.”

    “The 8th edition of Talents Durban aims to identify the compelling new voices of emerging African filmmakers and invites them to re-invent the approach to making films on the continent.” explains Mungwe. “With this, the idea of Start-Motion is born. It is how we bring together the knowledge of traditional practices, combined with the latest techniques, to create momentum for emerging African filmmakers to harness and use to fuel progress in our global society. Furthermore, the approach highlights changes in the current mode of storytelling in Africa, encouraging filmmakers on the continent to share their stories through their own cultural, economic and political lenses.”

    With access to screenings throughout the festival and through participating in conversations with experts from around the world, Talents Durban seeks to boost the already rising flow of current filmmaking in Africa.  The 8th Talents Durban programme will consist of master classes lead by leading experts in filmmaking, panel discussions by the key industry players, networking opportunities with fellow Talents Durban participants and over 600 delegates of the Durban International Film Festival and Durban FilmMart as well numerous project orientated skills development programmes. Combined these elements will set off a chain reaction of perpetual motion in the contemporary African film industry that will continue to expand and thrive.

  • July date for Durban International Film Festival

    July date for Durban International Film Festival

    The organisers of the South Africa’s largest and longest-running film festival, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), have announced that the 35th edition of the festival will hold between July 17 and 27. Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, as special project of the Deputy Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Humanities, Prof. Cheryl Potgieter, the festival, which parades the best of African films, made headlines last year when the movie, Of Good Report, was purportedly banned. The Film and Publications Board (FPB) of South Africa had outlawed the flick on the grounds that a sex scene between a school teacher and a pupil amounted to child pornography. Although the ban was later overturned by the Board’s appeal tribunal as well as a 28 million Rand damage suit against the FPB, the profile of the movie has been on the rise, with its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September of the same year; and later, at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) in Nigeria, where it opened a debate on artistic expression and won the Best Film laurel.

    This year, the 10-day celebration will involve screening of new films from South Africa, the continent and the world. This festival, according to the organisers, will reflect on South Africa’s 20 years of democracy with a focus on films that explore the diverse facets of the nation’s history over the past decades. Other themes and events of interest include focus on African cinema and British cinema, the Wildtalk Africa Film Festival, Wavescape Surf Film Festival and a programme of cinema centered on architecture, in anticipation of the International Union of Architects Congress taking place in Durban later in the year. Industry initiatives include seminars and workshops with notable industry figures, the 7th Talents Durban (in cooperation with the Berlin Talents) and the 5th Durban FilmMart co-production market (in partnership with the Durban Film Office).