Black Sunshine, a film directed by Akosua Adoma Owusu, the Ghanaian born filmmaker whose short film Kwaku Ananse won the 2013 African Movie Academy Award for short film has been awarded the ARTE France's ‘ARTE International Award' to the value of €6000. Black Sunshine is produced by Obibini Pictures (Ghana) and Executive Produced by Angèle Diabang (Senegal).
Also Solidarity, a film directed by Rungano Nyoni, the Zambian filmmaker - whose film Mwanza The Great was in nomination for the 2011 edition of the AMAA's - was awarded The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) award for a producer to attend 2013's ‘No Borders International Co-Production Market' in New York, USA. Solidarity was produced by Juliette Grandmont (Clandestine Films, France).
The awards were announced at the Finance Forum Awards of the 4th Durban Filmmart held as part of the 34th Durban Filmfest, which closed today in Durban, South Africa. However the 4th Durban FilmMart 2013, the co-production programme between the Durban Film Office (DFO) and the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), held between 19 to 22 July.
The award recipients were selected by official partners and sponsors of the awards and the other award recipients that were announced include, the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) award to attend IDFA 2013 for ‘Most Promising Documentary Project' to Blindness (Kom Haal My) directed by Sarah Ping Nie Jones and produced Jean Meeran (South Africa).
The ‘Paris Project Award' to attend Paris Project at the Paris Cinema International Film Festival, went also to Blindness (Kom Haal My), directed by Sarah Ping Nie Jones.
Two development grants of €2,500 each from WorldView went to Unearthed, directed by Jolynn Minnaar and produced by Dylan Voogt (South Africa) and Parole Camp directed by Maanda Ntfandeni (South Africa), a Talent Campus Durban/Doc Station project.
The Your WorldView Online Short Film Challenge prize of £1,000 pounds was awarded to Free The Town (Freetown Home) from Sierra Leone, while Videovision Entertainment's award for ‘Best South African Film Project' valued at R75 000 went to Five Fingers for Marseilles, directed and produced by Michael Matthews and written and co-produced by Sean Drummond (South Africa).
"It has been a robust market this year, with over 200 meetings taking place with official DFM projects." says Toni Monty of the Durban Film Office. "We are really grateful to our partners and sponsors for the valuable contributions they have made to engaging with the film-makers''. Details of the award can be sourced at. www.durbanfilmmart.com
by Shaibu Husseini (Durban, South Africa)
Article updated on July 18th, 2015.
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