Twenty-three year old Cape Town filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass of Fox Fire Films has won the Hubert Bals Fund Award in the "Specialist Projects" category of the inaugural Durban FilmMart (DFM).
Bass was presented with an award of 5,000 on 26 July for script and development for her project Tok Tokkie, which was deemed by the three judges to be the most promising African project presented at DFM. Tok Tokkie was one of 12 projects specially selected for the market.
Says Bass: "The Hubert Bals Fund has supported so many major and innovative filmmakers that it is an honour to be included among them. Of course the financial support will kick start the funding process we are about to embark on, but more than that it is an affirmation for our crazy film, and I don’t think a price tag can be attached to that."
Tok Tokkie takes place in Cape Town and follows a night in the life of The Black Cross – a team of misfits and dropouts who act as the city’s only ghost welfare unit. Bass describes the film as "a lo-fi, sci-fi noir set in the backstreets of the Mother City. The film is concerned with death and the end of life, a matter which affects all South Africans, not to mention human beings. So, while death may destroy us, the idea of death saves us and ultimately helps us to live our lives.
Read more in the August 2010 issue of Screen Africa
