The Fort, South African integrated media and content agency, with a focus on creative conception and content production, was founded by Managing Director, Shukri Toefy and Creative Director Amr Singh in 2006.
Singh, who was nominated for Young Director of the Year at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2013, gave a presentation entitled “One Year, 12 Countries through 12 Instagram Photographs’ at a back to work event The Fort hosted at its headquarters in Rivonia in Johannesburg. He discussed some of the practical challenges and lessons he learnt while filming and rolling his camera in 12 countries in one year.
Singh said, “Filmmaking is an international language, and the encouraging thing about working with teams around the world is how seamless it can be.’
Sharing some highlights from his travels that took him to destinations such as Mali, Burkino Faso, New York, Dubai and Holland, Singh remarked that, “Timbuktu will forever remind me of trying to keep a steady handheld shot while about a thousand mosquitos feasted on our legs.’
Toefy spoke about the vision for The Fort in 2014. He reminisced about The Fort’s entrepreneurial spirit – it had its humble beginnings in a small warehouse in Woodstock in Cape Town – which was initially started to pay back student loans and make ends meet.
He continued by detailing the way in which The Fort had established itself as an African content production agency in 2013 and the need to build on its success in 2014, encouraging greater collaboration and synergy between agencies and people in the media and communication industries.
