The Ladima Foundation

The Ladima Foundation will be awarding its Adiaha Prize for Best Documentary by an African woman filmmaker at the 22^nd Encounters Documentary Film Festival taking place in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa from 4 – 14 June 2020.

The Adiaha Award has, in the past, been awarded twice at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2017 and 2018. The 2018 winner, Phillipa Ndisi-Herrmann’s New Moon went on to win Best Documentary at the Durban International Film Festival.

The Adiaha Award includes a $2000 cash component to be used on the director’s next film, as well as an invitation to attend the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund/ Colgone (Internationales Frauenfilmfestival Dortmund | Köln) in February 2021.

The Award is just one of the initiatives of the Ladima Foundation in its work to promote and support African women filmmakers.

Women documentary filmmakers from across Africa are encouraged to submit their films to Encounters, which is one of Africa’s longest running and most respected documentary film festivals. The Adiaha Award will be added to the existing award categories at the festival and will be announced on the closing night of the event.

Encounters has always had a strong Pan-African mandate, and ahead of the 2020 festival is further reaching out across the continent to encourage filmmakers, especially women, to submit their films.

Encounters festival director Mandisa Zitha has this to say of hosting the Adiaha Award in 2020: “Its very special for Encounters to host the Adiaha Award at the 22nd edition. To be able to welcome African filmmakers to the Festival over the years has been a privilege, and the Award is a wonderful partnership to strengthen collaboration amongst African documentary filmmakers. “

Film submissions are NOW open and can be done via the following links:

SA/African Entries: https://www.encounters.co.za/submit-african-documentary/

African film submissions are exempt from the submission fee.

International submissions: https://www.encounters.co.za/submit-international-documentary/

A nominal submission fee of USD15 is charged for International entries

The Ladima Foundation welcomes The Dortmund I Cologne International Women’s Film Festival as a Mentor Festival member in the recently established Ladima Women’s Film Festival Network.

The inclusion of this well-established and respected Germany-based international women’s film festival within the Ladima Film Festival Network, will lead to increased training and networking opportunities for the African festivals, as well as for women filmmakers on the continent.

This partnership with the Ladima Foundation will lead to collaboration between the festival in regards to programming and even possibly the sending of volunteers to assist with the smooth implementation of the festivals in the network.

The Dortmund I Cologne International Women’s Film Festival has also committed, as part of the relationship, to focus on securing more films from African women filmmakers and the Ladima Foundation will assist in this outreach.

Festival director Maxa Zoller has this to say of the partnership, “Becoming a Mentor Festival for Ladima Foundation means a lot to us. For over thirty years the Dortmund I Cologne  International Women’s Film Festival has been making space for women directors and their fantastic films, but it is now time to establish long-term international ties. In a world that seems to spin in the wrong direction female (and feminist) filmmakers, producer and cinephiles across the globe are again coming together to make images that move all of us, and not just a selected few. We are excited about this unique opportunity to be part of the Ladima network, to get to know new film festivals and to share with them our passion for cinema.”

“All African women filmmakers are encouraged to submit films in the competition categories of Debut Fiction Film and Children and Young Adult Film. We also look for formally innovative Experimental and Documentary Film and Queer Film (out of competition).”

The Ladima Film Festival Network of women-focused, and managed, film and cultural festivals from across Africa – that includes the Udada International Film Festival in Nairobi Kenya, The Celebrating Womanhood Festival and Conference in Uganda, and Festival International des Films de Femmes de Cotonou (Cotonou International Women’s Film Festival Benin) – was announced earlier this year and has seen a number of milestones and successes to date.

An initial training and mentoring session took place in March in Kampala Uganda at the Celebrating Womanhood Festival, part of the Native Voices International event. Edima Otuokon, co-founder of the Ladima Foundation hosted a workshop for female filmmakers invited to the festival on the power of film to empower and uplift women across Africa.

An intensive follow up residency training programme for these festivals was held in August in Kigali, Rwanda that focused on strategic planning, curation, and the promotion and marketing of these up-and-coming festivals.

Soon after the training, the highly successful inaugural edition of the FIFF Cotonou took place to rave reviews in Benin. The Ladima Foundation is proud to have been part of the planning of this event and congratulates Festival director Cornelia Glele for the major success of the event.

SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:

The recent news regarding many film festivals in Africa could leave one despairing at the current state of affairs. Apart from some of the good news emanating from the recent Durban International Film Festival, there has been very little to celebrate within this space.

However, any negativity I may have been feeling has been replaced after I recently returned from Kigali, Rwanda, where I was part of the Ladima Foundation team conducting a three-day training session. In my role as CEO of The Ladima Foundation, along with co-founder Edima Otuokon and board member Lydia Idakula-Sobogon, we hosted in-depth strategic training for some of the senior management from the Ladima’s Women’s Film Festival Network.

Attending the training were some of the amazing women at the helm of these diverse festivals, including Matrid Nyagah from the Udada International Women’s Film Festival in Kenya, Sarah Kizza Nsigaye of Celebrating Womanhood Festival in Uganda and Cornelia Glele from the International Women’s Film Festival Cotonou (FIFF Cotonou) in Benin.

These relatively small and mostly newly-established festivals, with their passionate founders and dedicated teams, reflect hope for a new generation of film festivals, led by women and focused on women’s content, stories and successes.

These festivals, over time, and with proper support, training, and partnerships, can become models for best practice for film festivals in Africa and their unique challenges. The training started with a strategic overview of the current state of the film festival space, and then went on to work specifically with each festival to ensure that they strongly position themselves through a relevant and authentic vision that drives forward their specific objectives.

Throughout the intense training, all of the Festival Directors openly shared their challenges, many of which are similar to all African festivals, and some unique to women-focused events. This spirit of sharing and honesty has led to a strong foundation for the collaboration that will drive these festivals forward.

All of these festival teams realise the amazing potential for their events, especially with the recent and rapidly-intensifying spotlight being shined on women in the film industry.

During the training sessions, the Festival Directors worked towards creating specific and relevant strategies and identities to ensure that they can each become impactful and important festivals, not just within their regions, but also on a Pan-African scale.

By working with each festival to stake a claim within the space of women’s filmmaking in Africa, and by acknowledging that by working together as collaborators we become supporters within the larger network, the Ladima Foundation believes that these three festivals can be catalysts for their regional film industries, and for the overall African film festival space.

The FIFF Cotonou, in its first edition this year and taking place from 13-17 September, led by the incredibly dynamic 22-year-old, Cornelia Glele, is a beacon of hope on the festival landscape. Their small yet passionate team has managed to secure the necessary funding to run a short, compact, focused and thematic festival that includes 13 films and a workshop programme built around cinema that addresses violence against women. With sponsors that include Canal+, the festival has quickly established itself within the region, and with the strong support of the Film Festival Network partners and others is sure to become a major festival event in the next few years.

The Celebrating Womanhood Festival, part of the Native Voices project in Uganda, has been around for a number of years and Festival Director, Sarah Kizza Nsigaye, has been working closely with the Ladima Foundation in order to sharpen the festival programme’s focus, and identity. As an immensely respected journalist and filmmaker, Kizza has a renewed vision for the 2020 vision of the festival, and the support and input from other network members will prove invaluable in increasing the profile and reputation of this important event.

Kenya’s Matrid Nyagah is a young, dynamic and celebrated filmmaker who was, most recently, recognised as the producer of Watu Wote (nominated for an Oscar in 2018 for Best Short). Nyagah has been the Festival Director of the Udada International Women’s Film Festival for its five previous editions, and is excitedly planning the relaunch of the festival for 2020 with a specific focus and mission that will be announced in October this year. Working closely with the Ladima team and her fellow women festival directors, Nyagah’s vision for the future of the festival will ensure its sustainability and relevance within the rapidly-growing Kenyan film industry space.

All three festivals are poised for significant growth and development in 2020. Seen as a holistic network that will work towards sustainable regional collaboration, they will also provide the foundations of a women’s festival infrastructure that will not only support each other, but also work to promote other festivals and filmmakers with a similar vision and strategic approach.

In my role as CEO of the Ladima Foundation, the formation of this Women’s Film Festival Network is the most rewarding project that I have been involved in. The amazing passion and dedication from the various festival teams is inspiring, and their willingness to be self-critical, open to learning and development and enthusiastically collaborative bodes well for the future of these events.

It will be through collaboration, continued learning and a shared vision that these festivals, with support from their local film communities and from The Ladima Foundation, can become the models of the next generation of successful film festivals.

These festivals can learn from their own mistakes, as well as from the mistakes of others and rather than strive to be the biggest, boldest or loudest, they can rather focus on being relevant, inclusive, and authentic.

I believe that it is festivals like these that will drive the future of the festival space on the continent and I am both proud and excited to be on the journey with them.

Watch this space.

The Ladima Foundation has announced the appointment of a high-profile Advisory Board made up of a host of well-respected film and TV industry professionals from across the globe.

The Advisory Board of the Ladima Foundation will provide critical guidance on the policy, direction, and priorities of the organisation and lend their reputational and network support in order to ensure the success of the organisation. The combined expertise, networks and passionate commitment to the development of women in the film industry across Africa of the members of the Ladima Foundation’s Advisory Board is truly awe-inspiring.

The Ladima Foundation co-founder Edima Otuokon had this to say of the newly appointed board: “We are overwhelmed with the enthusiastic and unanimously positive response from all of the professionals invited to be on the Ladima Foundation Advisory Board. We have only the utmost respect for all of the individuals on the Board and we are excited ahead of our first meeting with the new Board. We believe that with the support of this talented group of industry professionals, The Ladima Foundation will be able to achieve our goals of empowering and developing women in the industry.”

The Ladima Foundation Advisory Board is made up of the following professionals;

Biola Alabi (Nigeria): Biola Alabi is an award-winning filmmaker, entrepreneur, investor, public speaker, and television anchor. The media icon heads Biola Alabi Media, a fast growing media company dedicated to telling authentic African stories to the world.

Biola Alabi is the executive producer of the award-winning films: Lara and the Beat (2018), as well as 2017 Nollywood blockbuster, Banana Island Ghost (B.I.G). She is also the executive producer of Nigeria’s number one food travel documentary-series, Bukas and Joints, currently airing across Africa and in the UK. As part of her dream in evolving Biola Alabi Media into a 360-degree entertainment company, she delved into book publishing with the release of a young adult novella titled The Adventures of Lara and Dara.

She is also the founder of Grooming for Greatness a leadership development and mentorship programme for a new generation for African leaders and a Non-Executive Director of Unilever Nigeria. She was named one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa by Forbes Magazine, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and CNBC Africa’s AABLA West African Business Woman of the Year (2013). For over five highly successful years, Biola Alabi held the high-profile position of Managing Director for M-Net Africa, part of the globally renowned Naspers Group. Prior to this, she was based in the United States where she was part of the executive team at the influential children’s television brand Sesame Street.

Themba Bhebhe (South Africa/ Germany): After working for almost a decade in international film sales, Themba Bhebhe has been in charge of Diversity & Inclusion at the last two editions of the European Film Market (Berlinale). Bhebhe is also one of the founding members of the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2) that aims at creating a conversation around and working towards a more diverse and inclusive programming pool at international film festivals through research, awareness events, networking, profile raising, mentoring and shadowing. He has shown incredible support for the Ladima Foundation throughout his extensive work and travels to film events and festivals around the world.

Catherine Gitahi (Kenya): Catherine Gitahi is an integrated marketing communication specialist with a background in journalism & community work, and a bias towards implementing issue campaigns and advocacy with many years of experience in East Africa. She is currently the Corporate Affairs Manager at the Kenya Film Commission where she plays a pivotal role in supporting the Kenyan film industry. Progressively, she has executed advocacy and development work while establishing a background in grant management. Gitahi brings a wealth of experience and her strong East African network to her role on the Advisory Board.

Bikiya Graham-Douglas (Nigeria): Bikiya Graham-Douglas is an award-winning actress, singer and producer who is committed to telling stories through different art mediums, stage, film, and radio. Graham-Douglas is a winner of the Africa Magic Viewer’s Choice Awards, a nominee in the Nigeria Entertainment Awards, and a nominee at the Nollywood Movie Awards. She is also the founder and CEO of Beeta Productions and the Beeta Universal Arts Foundation, both of which work to produce and support quality Nigerian productions. Graham-Douglas has also served as International Jury member at FESPACO, as a trainer/ resource person at The Zanzibar International Film Festival, and is also a board member of Lagos Fringe Festival.

Graham-Douglas has taken part in a number of Ladima Foundation initiatives and will be a powerful ally in the important West African market.

Charlotte Giese (Denmark): Charlotte Giese is a Senior Advisor at Danish Film Institute and also works as Strategic Consultant for numerous organisations in Middle East and Africa. She is passionately committed to the development of the film industry across the world. As a leader, who is concerned about the synergy between growth and development, and between commercial and non-commercial areas, her vision is to strengthen the next generation through talent development, media literacy, cinema culture and production of high quality artistic and engaging content.

Nse Ikpe-Etim (Nigeria): Nse Ikpe-Etim is a multi-award-winning actress from Nigeria. A recipient of the IARA Awards in the UK, the AMVCAs as well as nominations for several other awards both local and international, she has served as a juror for international industry organisations such as the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) and the Cape Town International Film Market & Festival (CTIFMF). Ikpe-Etim, a veteran known for her humanitarian and mentoring efforts, is a TEDx speaker, and she recently received an award from the Cyprus International University in recognition of her contribution to youth development. She brings her wealth of experience as a consummate filmmaker, and avid mentor to young girls and women spread across different disciplines.

Fibby Kioria (Kenya): Fibby Kioria is the programme director at Maisha Film Lab and has – for the last eight years – worked in film education management. She has sat on numerous film festival juries around the world and founded two short film festivals in East Africa. She is passionate about African cinema,  particularly the archiving the history of  African Cinema.

Kioria is also the associate producer for the ‘Sembene Across Africa’ screenings, which, to date, have shown Ousmane Sembene’s work in over 35 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa over the last three years.

Elias Ribeiro (South Africa): Elias Ribeiro is a Brazilian born film producer who has lived and worked in over 10 countries. He has – for the last decade – been based in South Africa where he founded Urucu Media. His award-winning body of work spans a wide range of documentary and fiction projects that have premiered in Competition at Sundance, Berlinale, Festival do Rio, Beijing and Durban, to name a few. In 2017 he had two of his films in the running for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, representing South Africa and Mozambique. Ribeiro is the founder of Realness, a Pan African Screenwriters Residency; Creative Producer Indaba; and most recently Realness Institute. In 2018, he helmed the Market and Industry Programme of the Cape Town International Film Market and Festival. Lately he has enjoyed being a jury member for film funds such as Hubert Bals, mentoring producers in labs in Locarno, Addis Ababa, Kampala and offering consultancy services to different production companies and film related businesses on International co-productions and distribution.

Monica Rorvik (South Africa): As head of Film and Media Promotion at Wesgro, Rorvik’s mission is to inspire. She travels the globe representing Cape Town and the Western Cape. She has worked in the film industry in South Africa for many years, always with a strong focus on promotion, development, and collaboration. Rorvik is well known and respected around the world as she works tirelessly promoting the film industry of the Western Cape. A consummate networker, Rorvik has already added significant value as an ally of the Ladima Foundation and will continue to do so as a member of the Advisory Board.

Debra Zimmerman (USA): Zimmerman is the Executive Director of Women Make Movies based in New York City. She has worked for many years to support women in the film industry, not just in the USA, but around the world. She is the recipient of New York Women in Film and Television’s Loreen Arbus Award and the Hot Doc’s Doc Mogul Award, given to those who “over the course of their career has made an essential contribution to the creative vitality of the documentary industry, both in his or her country or abroad.”

Founded in 2015 by a group of Rwandan women filmmakers, the URUSARO International Women Film Festival is an annual celebration and cultural exhibition that promotes women in cinema for the benefit of the society and gender equality.

The 2019 edition that will take place between 4-11 October under the theme: “Woman: Pillar of Cinema” is now accepting film submissions for the festival.

All nominated films will be screened during the festival week (4-11 October 2019).
Winning films will be awarded during the closing ceremony on 11 October.

The award categories for 2019 are:

• National Short Fiction
• National Documentary
• East African Short Fiction
• East African Documentary
• Africa Short Fiction
• African Documentary
• African Feature Fiction

During the festival guests can enjoy screenings of films in competition and panorama sections. Additionally, a “Let’s Make Docs!” training programme, master-classes and panel discussions will round out the festival programme.

The Urusaro International Women’s Film Festival is a part of the Women’s Film Festival Network created by The Ladima Foundation as party of its support of women in the film industry across Africa. This network also includes The Udada International Women’s Film Festival in Nairobi, The International Women’s Film Festival Contonou in Benin, and Uganda’s Celebrating Womanhood/ Native Voices Festival.

Submission details for Urusaro are below:

Submission deadline: 16 August, 2019; 5.00 PM (GMT+2)
Official Selection: 26 August 2019.

Eligibility instructions:
• Directed by a female; and a male only if it narrates a story around a woman on a basis of positivity
• Not produced before 2017
• Be in English OR subtitled in English
• For pre-selection purpose, films will be sent via: PRIVATE Vimeo OR PRIVATE YouTube link
• Required Video formats: .vob/.mov/.mp4
• Resolution: HD 1920x1080pi
• Aspect Ratio 16:9

Selected films to be sent via WeTransfer (after official mailing).

Click here to apply and follow all relevant instructions.

The Ladima Foundation has been invited to take part in this year’s Berlinale Africa Hub as part of the European Film Market at the Berlinale 2019, taking place from 8 to 13 February 2019.

The Ladima Foundation is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and the EFM in connection with the Berlinale Africa Hub.

The Foundation’s co-founder, Lara Utian-Preston has been invited to present a short keynote speech at the Opening Ceremony of the Berlinale Africa Hub on 8 February. Her speech will follow the Words of Welcome by Michelle Müntefering (Secretary of State for International Cultural Policy, German Federal Foreign Office). Tsitsi Dangarembga of the African Women Filmmakers Hub, Zimbabwe will also present a keynote at the Opening.

During this speech, Utian-Preston will take the opportunity to announce a number of initiatives and partnerships that will be rolled out by the Ladima Foundation in 2019.

Edima Otuokon, the other co-founder of the Ladima Foundation, will then take part in a panel discussion Interconnectivity, Self-Empowerment and Inclusive Network Building of African Women Film Professionals. This Africa Hub Talk will focus on network building through online repertories and will foreground the strategies, organisations and individuals that aim at creating a self-empowering, self-enabling inclusive network of African women film professionals.

Panelists will include:

Tsitsi Dangarembga (AWFH, Zimbabwe);
Bongiwe Selane (Producer, South Africa);
Mmabatho Kau (Producer, South Africa);
Edima Otuokon (The Ladima Foundation, Nigeria).

Moderated by Katarina Hedrén (Goethe Institute, South Africa).

The full schedule of talks at the Berlinale Africa Hub can be found here: Africa Hub Talks

This Africa Hub Talk also forms part of the EFM’s Diversity & Inclusion initiative, led by Themba Bhebhe (Diversity & Inclusion – EFM).