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Angelique Wins Standard Bank Young Artist Award
Mon, 23 Nov 2009
Durban-based Claire Angelique, writer/director of My Black Little Heart (produced by Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainment) has won the 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Film.
“To be assaulted by a South African film made by a young Durban girl which is totally original and unique and which is made with a total respect and understanding of film language is very rare,” said Trevor Steele Taylor, National Arts Festival committee member for film. “She is one the best that we have in South Africa, and her talent should not be ignored.”
My Black Little Heart, a dark and deeply personal narrative exposing Durban’s sinister side, was produced by Zentropa Entertainment with cinematography by Slumdog Millionaire’s Anthony Dod Mantle. It featured on the 2009 National Arts Festival’s Film programme in Grahamstown, after premièring at the Durban International Film Festival in 2008.
“This award has put me on the best natural high I've had since being green-lighted into the production with My Black Little Heart, which was my first feature film,” said 30-year old Angelique. “First of all, it’s a vindication of one’s potential ability. I think any artist at some point, or more realistically at many intervals, is gripped by the icy hand of insecurity. Questions that seep into your creative consciousness are no longer conducive to new ideas or astounding revelations that can be transported into your chosen medium, but irritating stabs of self-doubt. Awards won are like glimpses into your audiences psyche, they're a gift that qualifies your endeavours,” she added.
Angelique studied at both UKZN and then the Cape Town International Film School in 2004, where she was presented with the Most Outstanding Student and Student Most Likely to Succeed awards before her studies were interrupted by her international debut into the film world.
In 2004 she was the first South African filmmaker to be selected, from 3 600 applicants, to attend the Berlin International Film Festival’s Berlinale Talent Campus, and was also a scholarship recipient for the New York University’s Cannes Film intensive course, run by Robert Nickson.
In 2007, she was a winner of the SA Script Institute award for the script of the feature film White Mountain, and in the same year she also bagged a Levis award for SA Music Video Directing, as well as a Mondi Shanduka Creative Journalism award. Her short films, documentaries, music videos and video-art pieces have been screened at galleries and festivals across South Africa and abroad.
“Claire is unique, a true individual,” said acclaimed South African film director Darrell James Roodt. “She sees the world in a way that no one else does.”
“There is no artist more deserving of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award than Claire Angelique,” said filmmaker, writer, poet and fine artist Aryan Kaganof. “If she never makes another film after My Black Little Heart she will go down in history as the author of the most powerful South African film made to date.”
Angelique will be focusing her creative efforts on two major projects in the following year, White Mountain and Upper Cuts, both full-length feature films.
The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards were started in 1981 by the National Arts Festival to acknowledge emerging, relatively young South African artists who have displayed an outstanding talent in their artistic endeavours. These prestigious awards are presented annually to deserving artists in different disciplines, affording them national exposure and acclaim. Standard Bank took over the sponsorship of the awards in 1984 and presented Young Artist Awards in all the major arts disciplines over their 26-year sponsorship, as well as posthumous and special recognition awards. The winners feature on the main programme of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown and receive financial support for their Festival participation, as well as a cash prize.
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