The Silwerskerm Filmfees at The Bay Hotel in Camps Bay will close on Wednesday 5 September with the premiere of the new Katinka Heyns film Die Wonderwerker, followed by the Silwerskerm awards.
Other anticipated Afrikaans films to premiere at the festival include Verraaiers, Lien se Lankstaanskoene and Wolwedans in die Skemer.
According to kykNET’s Nico Nel the festival started out as an initiative from pay-TV broadcaster kykNET to support and empower the local film industry, specifically with reference to Afrikaans filmmakers and producers. “The growth in this community is already evident when you look at all the new Afrikaans film titles that will be featured at this year’s festival,’ says Nel.
As part of this year’s festival 10 short films specifically commissioned for the festival were showcased. Nel explains: “We received over 450 entries, each unique and impressive in their own way, which made deciding on the final 10 an extremely difficult task. The top six short films will be featured in selected Nu Metro cinemas towards the end of September.’
The festival also, for the first time, screened unpublished films. “There are so many unpublished films that are currently sitting on producers’ shelves. We decided to include this in our offering in order to give these producers and filmmakers the opportunity to breathe life into their creations and re-ignite the passion for creating original content,’ says Nel.
One of the unpublished films, screened on Monday 3 September, was 2009 Afrikaans romantic period suspense thriller Wolf-Wolf, a Tshwane University of Technology student project.
The festival also included workshops by industry insiders such as Jans Rautenbach, Deon Opperman, Willie Esterhuizen and Regardt van den Bergh on topics including editing, producing, marketing and distribution and copyright.
The festival is funded by sponsors kykNET, Nu Metro, Toyota, ATKV, M-Net Movies and The Bay Hotel in Camps Bay.
