The Women of the Sun Film Festival (WoS Film Festival) will make history as the first African film festival to beheld in South Africa dedicated to women filmmakers. It will feature 25 films by 23 talented women filmmakers from 15 African countries with 15 of the filmmakers present at the screenings.
The seven day festival to celebrate women filmmakers in Africa will be screened at The Bioscope, Johannesburg, from 2 – 9 September and is staged in conjunction with the Goethe Institute, the Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) and the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC).
The WoS organissers say the festival offers a unique opportunity to see great films and to meet the exceptional women behind them. The selection will showcase some of the best examples of the filmmaking craft, crossing a diverse range of genres and styles, from family drama to social justice documentaries to experimental films.
Guests include Jyoti Mistry with her film The Bull on the Roof (South Africa), from the Sudan Tagreed Elsanhouri with Mother Unknown and All About Darfur, from Kenya Hawa Essuman’s latest film festival sensation Soul Boy, produced by acclaimed German director Tom Tywker (Run Lola Run/Perfume). Other guests are Burkino Faso’s Fanta Nacro (Night of Truth), highly acclaimed Algerian director Djamila Sahraoui (Baraka!t), Zimbabwe’s award winning novelist and film director, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and the first Angolan woman to ever make a feature film, Maria Joao Ganga (Hollow City).
“The time is ripe to change the widely held belief that filmmaking is a male domain,’ says Eve Rantseli, Director of Women of the Sun. “Women in film have much to say and are saying it with unique vision and flair. The launch of this annual women’s film festival will be the start of getting women filmmakers and their works part of the mainstream.’
The Women of the Sun Film Festival is running alongside the African Women Filmmaker’s Forum which takes place from 1 – 4 September. Hosted by the Goethe Institute, the forum gathers a delegation of 25 women filmmakers of all levels of experience from sub-Saharan Africa, the USA and Germany to network with and gain inspiration from colleagues. The Forum is a platform for Africa women filmmakers to assess the situation and develop strategies to strengthen their presence in the industry. It’s all about creating inspiration and supporting women in the industry to make more films, and once films are made, getting work widely distributed to audiences. Invited participants include world-renowned women filmmakers and festival programmers, distributors and local and international directors, producers and academics.
Among the well known filmmakers who will attend will be professor of media, culture and gender theory, Dr. Christina von Braun (Germany), Berlinale programme director, filmmaker and journalist Dorothee Wenner and director of New York based distribution company, Women Make Movies, Debra Zimmerman.
For a full catalogue and screening schedule visit – www.wos.org.za
