Cannes: Among the five winners in the 2008 Trailblazers Tribute honoured at MIPDOC was South Africa’s Karin Slater of Durga Shakti Films. Slater who had a baby at the weekend was represented in Cannes by her colleague Bridget Pickering.
Trailblazers highlights pioneering documentary work from Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and Africa. The event is designed to promote talents and trends as well as recognise the very best in creativity and innovations.
This year’s five Trailblazer winners received their trophies on Sunday 6 April from documentary-maker Alex Gibney, the writer-producer-director whose film Taxi to the Dark Side won an Oscar this year. (Co-producer on the documentary was Cape Town-based producer Don Edkins.)
Slater was selected by Encounters South African International Documentary Festival for Trailblazers for her pioneering and innovative work. Her interest in the environment has been expressed in her films Prenessa and the Dolphins (2006) and Our Dear Water (2006). In 1994 for a six-part series for Disney, she lived with a lioness in the wild at Shingalana. Her company Durga Shakti Films has produced Scars, The Hidden Landscape and numerous films for NGO’s across Africa.
The other Trailblazer winners are Yufuko Kuroda of Japan’s TV Man Union, Rea Apostolides of Greece’s Anemon Productions, Bo Hwan Ku of South Korea’s New Starfilm and Daniel Cross of Canada’s EyesteelFilm.
