Africa News

Africa First Programme winners

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:55

The 2011 winners of Focus Features’ Africa First Program for Short Films are Oshosheni Hiveluah (Namibia); Cedric Ido (Burkina Faso); Mark Middlewick (South Africa); Akosua Adoma Owusu (Ghana); and Zelalem Woldemariam (from Ethiopia).

They will each receive $10,000 in financing for their short film projects. This is the fourth consecutive year that Focus Features has run its Africa First Programme for short films for emerging filmmakers of African nationality and residence.

Says Focus CEO James Schamus: “I’m continually impressed by the range of great young artists we meet through Africa First – each filmmaker has a distinctive vision and voice, and I look forward to learning from them at our summit.”

Producer Kisha Cameron-Dingle, who serves as program director of Africa First, added, “We are particularly proud of the diversity and ambition in this year’s solid group, with new storytellers coming from several countries contributing to the program for the first time.”

The $10,000 awarded to each winner is for pre-production, production, and / or post-production on their narrative short film made in continental Africa and tapping into the resources of the film industry there.

Of equal importance, the program brings the filmmakers together with each other and with a renowned group of advisors, major figures in the African film world, for support and mentorship.

The short films coming out of the program have been showcased at the Sundance, Toronto, and Berlin Film Festivals; the Film Society of Lincoln Center; and the Museum of the Moving Image, among other venues worldwide. Africa First, Volume I, a two-hour compilation of short films made by previous filmmakers in the program, is now available on DVD and across VOD and EST platforms. Details on the program are accessible year-round through www.focusfeatures.com/africafirst.

The short films that the winners will be directing are: Hiveluah’s 100 Bucks, an immersion into the Namibian capital of Windhoek through the progress of a piece of currency; Ido’s Twaaga [Invincible], blending live action and animation in the tale of a young boy’s quest to be a superhero; Middlewick’s Late Night Security, in which the night guard at a shopping center finds solace and friendship from an unlikely source; Owusu’a Kwaku Anase, adapting into live action and animation a traditional West African story about a student’s family secret; and Woldemariam’s Adamet [Listen], powered by the music of Ethiopian culture in its story of a talented drummer who encounters a deaf woman.

Africa First is supervised by Cameron-Dingle (Sometimes in April), whose Completion Films company has a first-look and consulting deal with Focus, and who coordinates the program’s submissions and evaluations with Focus creative executive Christopher Kopp.

In addition to on-site work in Africa, this year’s winning filmmakers of Africa First will visit New York City in November for a weekend of one-on-one workshop discussions with each other; members of the advisory board of experts in African cinema; Focus executives such as Schamus and president of production Jeb Brody, covering topics like international distribution and the economics of studio financing.

The submissions period ran from 16 May to 22 August. The five filmmakers retain the copyrights and the distribution rights to their completed shorts, with the exception of North American rights; Focus retains those, as well as the right of first negotiation to productions derived from the shorts, such as a feature-length expansion.

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