Motheo Seleke, founder of South Africa’s premier township cinema initiative, the Aluta Film Project, has recently been offered a scholarship to study wildlife filmmaking at the Wildlife Film Academy. He has managed to raise the course fees but still requires assistance with the following:
?One-month accommodation in Cape Town as from Monday 12 September till Monday 12 October 2006.
?General groceries in Cape Town as from Monday 12 September till Monday 12 October 2006
?One month allowance for the duration of his stay in Cape Town
If you are able to offer to assist financially with one and/or more of the above, you can contact Motheo Seleke on cellphone 076 853 1214 or email: motheoseleke@yahoo.com
Here is a personal motivation from Seleke in his own words:
Born 1979, May 25th in the dusty streets of Kimberley’s township of Galeshewe to a spiritual family of love, I have always been fascinated by the power of cinema as a tool to bring to life the beauty of Mother Africa and its wildlife.
Such was my devotion to wildlife cinema that I started to rent BBC and National Geographic wildlife documentaries from a local library and religiously watched wildlife documentaries on SABC 3 every Sunday at 18h00. My fascination in cinema made me more curios and I started to make amateur inroads in a film industry that is still to this day relatively lilly white not withstanding the costs associated with studying filmmaking for a previously disadvantaged youth being ridiculously high. I later learned that most of wildlife documentaries and features shot in Africa are shot by filmmakers from outside the continent, with the exception of one legendary John Varty from Londolozi.
This have not dampen my spirit however as I became involved with the Film Resource Unit (FRU), who introduced me to African Cinema and its history. I started to host community screenings around communities in Kimberley in association with the Film Resource Unit in 2000 and launched the Aluta! Film Festival in 2003, the film festival is now in its fourth successful year and its aim is to position itself as a repository for the stories of people of African ancestry.”
