FESTIVALS AWARDS EVENTS NEWS

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Forerunners wins at UN San Francisco fest

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:40
Simon Wood and Felix Seuffert
with the UN award FOR NEWS

Screened at this year's Durban International Film Festival, Simon Wood's debut documentary feature about four black middle class South Africans, Forerunners, won the Best Cinematography award at the United Nation's Film Festival in San Francisco on 30 October.

This is cinematographer Felix Seuffert's first feature length documentary.
Says Wood: "Felix's background is in stills photography so I always felt he instinctively understood the aesthetic I was pursuing".

Seuffert adds: "We placed a big emphasis on the land and cityscapes surrounding the characters. In order to capture this I set out to explore the spaces just as I do in my stills photography; I focused on the details in the obvious, trying to find the beauty in the ordinary."

Wood, who was in the US on a tour to promote the film, attended the UN festival and was delighted to accept the award. "Forerunners was competing against some very high end European and American documentaries, including an Oscar nominee, so it's fantastic that our film - which was shot on a stills camera (the Canon 5d) - and on a relatively very small budget, won in this category."

As the UN festival featured 70 films from 70 countries it was a source of great pride for Wood and his team that Forerunners was chosen to represent South Africa.  Over 45 filmmakers attended the festival, making it a truly dynamic melting point of ideas and nationalities. Now in its 14th year, the festival is run by Stanford educator and film critic Jasmina Bojic, the theme for this years festival was 'Education is a Human Right'.

The award has capped a very successful six months for Forerunners, which was also awarded the Jury prize in Cannes at the Festival du Panafricain. It was recently selected for IDFA, the world's largest documentary festival which runs in Amsterdam from 16 to 27 November. Forerunners, a SaltPeter Production, will screen in the 'Best of the Fests' category, for 'Documentaries that have gone down a storm at international festivals in the past year'.



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