(Right: Peter
Machen)
As the Durban International Film Festival
(DIFF) gears up for its 40th edition, eight programmers have been working
tirelessly for four months to consolidate a strong programme for this major
milestone in the history of film on the continent.
DIFF, organised by the University of
KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, takes place this year from July 18 to
28, 2019, in venues around Durban, South Africa.
It takes the record of being
one of the oldest and largest festivals in Africa, presenting over 150 films,
while also offering workshops, industry seminars, discussion forums and
outreach activities that include screenings in townships areas, where cinemas
are non-existent.
(Left: Theresa
Hill)
“In celebration of 40 years of DIFF, we are
proud to reveal our strong line-up of programmers,” says DIFF Manager Chipo
Zhou. “Our features panel includes Tsitsi Dangaremba (Zimbabwe), Gabrielle
Kelly (USA), and Peter Machen (SA/Germany), the documentaries panel is made up
of Theresa Hill (South Africa) and Nataleah Hunter-Young (Canada); while the shorts panel
comprises Lisa Ogdie (USA), Fibby Kioria
(Uganda) and Chioma Onyenwe (Nigeria).”
“The role of the programmers is vital in
the shaping of a festival, and we are very excited to be working with such
internationally-acclaimed and recognised individuals, representing a diverse
range of expertise and interests. Their task, to select 150 films from an
incredible 12300 entries to this year’s festival, was a formidable challenge,
and we are most grateful to them. We had, as part of the DIFF extended family,
60 reviewers from around the globe to support them, and we look forward to
locking down the programme over the next few weeks, and delivering a festival
befitting its “fabulously fortieth” year.”
(Right: Tsitsi
Dangaremba)
Zimbabwean playwright, poet, activist and
award-winning novelist and filmmaker, Tsitsi Dangaremba, has produced several
documentaries and short short films, and has credits on most of Zimbabwe’s
feature film classics. Her award-winning short film Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s
Day, 2005) was screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Theresa Hill, with 20 years of experience
working in the documentary industry, is responsible for acquisitions,
programming, marketing and planning for the online platform AfriDocs, and is
also board member of the Ladima Foundation, a Pan-African non-profit
organisation which aims to contribute to correcting the major imbalances within
the industry.
Well-known writer and critic, former
manager of the Durban International Film Festival, and long-time programmer of
the fest, Peter Machen, who is currently based in Berlin, makes a welcome
return to the programming fold. Machen heads the media cooperative The
Communication Factory and works for a plant-based advocacy organisation, and continues
to write and reviews films on a number of platforms.
(Right: Nataleah
Hunter-Young)
Nataleah Hunter-Young is a film programmer,
media artist, and doctoral student in Communication and Culture at Ryerson
University in Toronto, Canada.
She has experience in supporting the programming
for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and the Toronto
International Film Festival, as well as the Durban International Film Festival.
(Left: Lisa
Ogdie)
Lisa Ogdie is a shorts programmer for the
Sundance Film Festival and also Membership and Talent Development Manager for
BAFTA Los Angeles. She has been part of the Sundance shorts programming team
since 2009, selecting the Sundance short film slate from over 9,000
submissions, and has moderated Q&A discussions and panels for BAFTA Los
Angeles, Sundance, Toronto Film Festival and the American Pavilion at Cannes.
(Right: Gabrielle Kelly)
Screenwriter/Producer Gabrielle Kelly is on
the Faculty of the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles, with
expertise and a passion for global storytelling, particularly in Asia. She has
mentored labs and screenwriting masterclasses around the world, programmed,
judged and created film festivals from Guam to Azerbaijan and is an expert on
Media Labs and international story development for screens and pages. She
worked with New York director Sidney Lumet and in Hollywood with numerous
directors, writers and producers. As well as running producer Robert Evan’s
company at Paramount for several years, she has also worked at HBO, CBS Films,
Eddie Murphy Productions and Warner Bros. 
(Left: Fibby
Kioria)
Fibby Kioria is a Programme Director of
Maisha Film Lab, a leadership development organisation founded by Mira Nair to
empower visionary filmmakers in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda by giving
them the tools to tell their own stories through film.
She was the Line Producer on the Mira Nair
and Zippy Kimundu short documentary portrait of Robert Katende, A Fork, a Spoon & a Knight. She went
on to produce the music video for the song ‘#
1 Spice’ from Disney’s Queen of Katwe soundtrack. She is also an Associate
Producer at Afro Films International.
(Chioma
Onyenwe)
Nigerian filmmaker, Chioma Onyenwe has a
background in economics and management from University of Lagos and Imperial
College London. She plunged into fulltime film-making in 2014.
She is the Programme Director for the Africa
International Film Festival. Her first feature 8 Bars and a Clef, was nominated
for the 2016 AMAA Award for Best First Feature Film.
For more information, visit
www.durbanfilmfest.co.za or any of DIFF’s social media pages.
Posts
