TALENT CAMPUS PARTICIPANTS AT DIFF

The Durban International Film Festival has finalized selection of participants for the fifth edition of the Talent Campus Durban programme.

For five days (July 20 to 24, 2012), 50 African filmmakers will come together in the city of Durban to be inspired and enlightened in the medium and industry of cinema. The programme facilitates opportunities for skills development through workshops and master classes with industry leaders, and the establishing of relationships with other participants and film professionals also present at the festival.

This year’s candidates, chosen from over 250 submissions, hail from 18 different African countries, including Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda. Participants will also be able to attend the 33rd Durban International Film Festival (July 19 to 29).

For the first time, Talent Campus Durban will host Talent Press, a programme in association with the Goethe Institut and FIPRESCI – the International Association of Film Critics - which mentors four African journalists in the craft of film criticism. For a second year, Talent Campus Durban will include Doc Station, in which three selected Talents have the opportunity to refine and polish documentary projects for presentation within the 3rd Durban FilmMart’s DOC Circle.

Talent Campus Durban is a co-operation with the Berlinale Talent Campus, which recently celebrated its 10th edition with over 350 Talents attending during the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. Through the international programme, which extends to Talent Campuses in Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Sarajevo and Tokyo, as well as Durban, participants are initiated into a global community of filmmakers and connected via a wide social network operated through the Berlinale.

Talent Campus Durban taps into the rich resources of a diverse cross section of the next generation of African filmmakers. This year’s theme Africa Superimposed will focus this process in the profound innovation that African film has to offer the broader world, and the ways in which the richness of African culture and approaches are making a stronger impression on film across the globe.

Talent Campus Durban is presented in partnership with the Berlinale Talent Campus, with support from the German Embassy of South Africa, Goethe-Institut of South Africa, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism.