South African contemporary romantic comedy, Fanie Fourie’s Lobola, has won the Audience Choice Award for Best Comedy at the 19th Annual Sedona International Film Festival in the US. This nine-day event in Sedona, situated close to Arizona’s Grand Canyon, attracts many tourists.
The Sedona festival screens the best in independent film from around the world, including features, shorts, documentaries, animation and foreign films. It has been recognised by filmmakers and audiences as one of the top festivals in the world. This year, the festival screened 145 films.
“To win the Audience Award for Best Comedy at the level of competition at Sedona is a huge accolade for Fanie Fourie’s Lobola,’ says the film’s producers, Lance Samuels and Kweku Mandela of Out of Africa Entertainment. “This is the second audience award that the film has won, following the 2013 Jozi Film Festival Audience Award in February,’ they add.
“Audience awards are among the best harbingers of a film’s success, because they are decided on by regular cinemagoers and are an accurate reflection of the mood of the time and what people are enjoying and are interested in seeing on screen,’ says Henk Pretorius, director of Fanie Fourie’s Lobola.
The movie is about what happens when Fanie, an Afrikaans guy (Eduan van Jaarsveldt) and a Zulu girl Dinky (Zethu Dlomo) fall in love and have to navigate their way through the complicated process of lobola. “But it’s also about two people who need each other to realise their dreams,’ says co-producer Mandela.
The film currently screens nationwide in cinemas in South Africa.
Visit the website at www.faniefouriemovie.com and watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKxbP3lSjU&feature=youtu.be.
