Sisters of the Wilderness, the social impact feature-length documentary, which won best South African Feature Documentary at the Durban International Film Festival in July last year, and qualified for an Oscar consideration, will have its International Premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 26, 2019.
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind[/caption]
One hundred sixty-six features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 91st Academy Awards®. Several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process. This year, for the first time, films that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival or have been submitted in the Foreign Language Film category as their country’s official selection, are also eligible in the category. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 17.
Films submitted in the Documentary Feature category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 22, 2019.
The 91st Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
“Above and Beyond: NASA’S Journey to Tomorrow”
“Active Measures”
“Amazing Grace”
“American Chaos”
“Andy Irons: Kissed by God”
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Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco[/caption]
“Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco”
“Avicii: True Stories”
“Bali: Beats of Paradise”
“Bathtubs over Broadway”
“Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché”
“Believer”
“Better Angels”
“Bill Coors: The Will to Live”
“Bisbee ’17”
“The Bleeding Edge”
“Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat”
“Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine”
“Call Her Ganda”
“Charm City”
“Chef Flynn”
“The China Hustle”
“Christian Audigier The Vif”
“The Cleaners”
“Communion”
“Crime + Punishment”
“Dark Money”
“Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders”
“The Dawn Wall”
“The Distant Barking of Dogs”
“Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes”
“Drug$”
“Eating Animals”
“Eldorado”
“Fahrenheit 11/9”
“Fail State”
“Family in Transition”
“Far from the Tree”
“Filmworker”
“The First Patient”
“Foreign Land”
“40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie”
“Free Solo”
“Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable”
“Generation Wealth”
“Ghost Hunting”
“Ghosthunter”
“The Gilligan Manifesto”
“The Gospel According to André”
“Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami”
“Graves without a Name”
“The Great Buster: A Celebration”
“Hal”
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”
“Half the Picture”
“The Heart of Nuba”
“Hillbilly”
“The Homeless Chorus Speaks”
“Hondros”
“Howard”
“In Search of Greatness”
“In the Land of Pomegranates”
“Inventing Tomorrow”
“Invisible Hands”
“Itzhak”
“Jane Fonda in Five Acts”
“John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection”
“The Judge”
“Kangaroo: A Love Hate Story”
“Killer Bees”
“The King”
“King in the Wilderness”
“Kusama – Infinity”
“The Last Race”
“Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy”
“Letter from Masanjia”
“Licu, a Romanian Story”
“Living in the Future’s Past”
“Liyana”
“Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle”
“Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story”
“Love, Cecil”
“Love, Gilda”
“Love Is Tolerance – Tolerance Is Love – Make Tolerance Great Again!”
“Making The Five Heartbeats”
“Maria by Callas”
“Matangi / Maya / M.I.A.”
“McQueen”
“Minding the Gap”
“Monrovia, Indiana”
“The Most Unknown”
“New Moon”
“93Queen”
“Nossa Chape”
“Of Fathers and Sons”
“Of Love & Law”
“On Her Shoulders”
“Opera about Poland”
“The Opera House”
“The Oslo Diaries”
“The Other Side of Everything”
“The Panama Papers”
“Path of Blood”
“People’s Republic of Desire”
“Philosopher King – Lee Teng-hui’s Dialogue”
“Pick of the Litter”
“Piripkura”
“Police Killing”
“Pope Francis – A Man of His Word”
“The Price of Everything”
“The Price of Free”
“Qiu (Inmates)”
“Quincy”
“RBG”
“The Rachel Divide”
“The Raft”
“Recovery Boys”
“Restoring Tomorrow”
“Reversing Roe”
“The Road Movie”
“Robin Williams: Come inside My Mind”
“Ruben Blades Is Not My Name”
“Samouni Road”
“Saving Brinton”
“Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland”
“Science Fair”
“Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood”
“Searching for Ingmar Bergman”
“Seeing Allred”
“The Sentence”
“Shirkers”
“Shot in the Dark”
“The Silence of Others”
“Sisters of the Wilderness”
“A Son of Man”
“Songwriter”
“Stan”
“Studio 54”
“Summer in the Forest”
“Tea with the Dames”
“That Summer”
“That Way Madness Lies…”
“They Fight”
“They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead”
“This Is Congo”
“This Is Home: A Refugee Story”
“Three Identical Strangers”
“To Be Continued”
“Transformer”
“Travel Ban”
“The Trial”
“Triumph: The Untold Story of Perry Wallace”
“Trust Machine”
“Under the Wire”
“United Skates”
“Unknown Distance”
“Up Down and Sideways”
“The Waldheim Waltz”
“We Could Be Heroes”
“Weed the People”
“What Haunts Us”
“What Lies Upstream”
“Whitney”
“Wonderful Losers: A Different World”
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
“Yellow Is Forbidden”
“Yellowing”
The Reports on Sarah and Saleem[/caption]
The 39th Durban International Film Festival held its awards ceremony on Saturday and awarded the Best Feature Film prize to The Reports on Sarah and Saleem, directed by Muayad Alayan. Maisa Abd Elhadi was awarded Best Actress prize the for her role as Bisan in the film. A total of 17 awards were given out at the ceremony.
DIFF has recently been included as a Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival by the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences, which means that both the winners of the Best Documentary, New Moon and Best SA Documentary Sisters of the Wilderness, will now automatically qualify for consideration for an Oscar nomination.
Baby Mamas[/caption]
This year’s 2018 Durban International Film Festival will offer a focused fare of 180 features films, documentaries, and shorts, along with an insightful industry program that includes Isisphethu for emerging and micro-budget filmmakers, the 11th Talents Durban, in partnership with Berlinale Talents, for pre-selected, semi-established filmmakers as well as the co-production and finance forum the 9th Durban FilmMart, the festival’s partner program with the Durban Film Office.
Opening the festival is the first feature film from South African director Jerome Pikwane, the horror flick The Tokoloshe. The LGTBI love-story Rafiki, directed by Kenyan Wanuri Kahiu, will close the festival.
Manager of DIFF Chipo Zhou, explains the choice of these two diverse films that have women as their focus. “We wanted to book-end DIFF with films that tell stories about women, their strength and their resilience. We also want to showcase the fact that there are many ways to tell these stories from a cinematic point of view,” said Zhou.
“We are in a time of diversity, where women, racial minorities and LGBTI communities who have traditionally been underrepresented in film are having their voices brought to the fore,” says Zhou. “Referencing this global narrative, the films in this year’s festival will reflect these new voices as much as possible.”
Among the features in competition this year are South African films Farewell Ella Bella directed by Lwazi Mvusi, which follows a young woman on a journey to bury her father; High Fantasy directed by Jenna Bass, in which a group of young South Africans have to navigate a personal-political labyrinth when they wake up to discover they have swapped bodies; Sara Blecher’s Mayfair, a gangster film about a father and son; and The Recce by Ferdinand van Zyl, which explores the pain and suffering families endured during and after South Africa’s 20-year border war.
International features in competition include The Tale (USA) directed by Jennifer Fox, which chronicles one woman’s powerful investigation into her own childhood memories as she is forced to re-examine her first sexual experience; Clint (India) by Hari Kumar, which tells the story of prodigious artist child who died before his seventh birthday, leaving behind 25000 pictures; and the closing film Rafiki (Kenya), directed by Wanuri Kahiu, which is set in Nairobi and tells the touching tale of two very different girls who fall in love.
Competition titles in the documentary section include the South African film Silas, a global tale directed by Anjali Nayar and Hawa Essuman which warns of the power of politics and celebrates the capacity of individuals to fight back, and Whispering Truth to Power, directed by human rights lawyer Shameela Seedat, which tracks Thuli Madonsela, South Africa’s first female Public Protector, as she builds her second case against President Jacob Zuma.
International documentaries in competition include New Moon (Kenya), directed by Phillippa Ndisi-Herrmann, who explores her journey to Sufi Islam; Amal (Lebanon, Egypt, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark), directed by Mohamed Siam, which follows a teenager as she comes to terms with her identity and sexuality in a post-revolutionary police state; Shakedown (USA) directed by Leilah Weinraub, which chronicles explicit performances in an underground queer club in Los Angeles; and The State Against Nelson Mandela and the Others (France) by Nicolas Champeaux and Gilles Porte, which offers archival recordings that include Mandela’s co-accused at the Rivonia Treason Trial hearings, and which transports the audience back into the courtroom battles.
Other South African films on the billing include Durban filmmaker Michael Cross’ award-winning The Fun’s Not Over, about the life of musician James Philips, and Eubulus Timothy’s warm, coming-of-age surf love story Deepend. Sisters of the Wilderness is Karin Slater’s inspiring film which is set in the iMfolozi Wilderness and follows five young Zulu women on a journey of self-discovery. Then there is Oscar-nominated director Darrel Roodt’s horror Siembamba, Stephina Zwane’s comedy Baby Mamas, which revolves around the daily lives and loves of four women and their own real-life baby mama drama, Leli Maki’s comedy Table Manners, in which a wife and mother finds solace and hope in cooking, learning that all she needs is life’s three courses – family, food and love.
Prior to each screening, public service announcements will be shown. These are themed around an industry campaign #thatsnotok created by SWIFT (Sisters Working in Film and Television), the SA-based non-profit that works to protect and advance the cause of women in the industry.
In 2018 DIFF continues its endeavours to grow cinema audiences and this year free community-based screenings will take place at Solomon Mahlangu Hall (New Germany/Clermont), KwaMashu Fan Park, Umlazi W Section Library and The Workshop Amphitheatre. Other screenings take place at Community ZA (formerly Artspace Gallery in Umgeni) and KZNSA Gallery, Musgrave Ster Kinekor, Suncoast Cine Centre and Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, as well as Ushaka Marine World, where the popular free ocean-focused film festival Wavescapeswill take place in the public area.
“With about 400 film-makers in attendance, the public can look forward to a feast of film and some fascinating insights into the world of cinema,” concludes Zhou.
The DIFF is organised by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts in partnership with the eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission, National Film and Video Foundation, Durban Film Office and other valuable partners.
DIFF opens at The Playhouse on July 19 and runs until July 29. The closing film will be screened on July 28, after the competition awards.
Set in the iMfolozi wilderness, South Africa, in the oldest game park in Africa, the iconic Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park, where the White Rhino was saved from extinction, Sisters of the Wilderness tells the story of five young Zulu women venturing into the wilderness for the first time on a journey of self-discovery, reminding them that we are all intimately linked to nature.
Sisters of the Wilderness, a new South African social impact feature documentary, directed by award-wining filmmaker, Karin Slater, will have its world premiere at the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in Cape Town and Johannesburg in June; with further festival screenings at the Durban International Film Festival and at the Nature, Environment, Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF) Congress in Durban in July and at the Mzansi Women’s Film Festival in Johannesburg in August.
The film follows the women as they walk in big game country and camp under the stars, totally surrounded by wild animals. Exposed to the elements and carrying on their backs all they need for the journey, they face emotional and physical challenges, and learn what it takes to survive in the wild.
“We want to ‘transfer’ the audience to an ancient place where no barriers separate human and nature,” says creator / producer, Ronit Shapiro, of One Nature Films, whose experience in the iMfolozi wilderness and a meeting with South Africa’s legendary conservationist, the late Dr Ian Player, inspired her to make this film. “A journey into wilderness is an intense experience where one can expect to undergo a personal transformation and build leadership.”
Director Karin Slater says, “I was born in Empangeni and spent my early years, close to the iMfolozi wilderness. I have a deep love and connection to this area. I know what the wilderness has done for me over the years.”
Sisters of the Wilderness serves as a foundation for an outreach program that will use multiple platforms to re-connect global audiences with nature.
The film also explores the plight of this wilderness area threatened by an open-cast coal mine on its border, as well as the severe poaching that is decimating the rhino population here.