African women filmmakers to be recognized

The African Women Filmmakers Awards have been dubbed one of the premier events and highlights of the arts and culture calendar in 2004 to be held at Sithengi, Southern Africa's biggest annual international film and television market.

The Awards, designed to honour women filmmakers within the African continent, are the brainchild of Women of the Sun (WOS), a non-profit media network and resource organization of African women filmmakers. WOS is a project driven organization which facilitates networking amongst African women filmmakers to share their visions and experiences and to commercially exploit filmmaking opportunities. Boasting a diverse membership of women filmmakers in South Africa and such countries as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Namibia, WOS has invested resources to assist both aspirant as well as established filmmakers.

In their quest to raise awareness about the Awards as well as to promote the annual Women's Film Festival, WOS will be hosting a high profile event at Sithengi next week sponsored by the Department of Communications.

As the only organization which represents African women in film and television in South Africa, WOS has formed a partnership with Sithengi to ensure an annual focus on women filmmakers. WOS believes Sithengi gives the opportunity to expose women filmmakers to broadcasters and investors. The key categories for the awards next year will include:

Lifetime achievement award;

Best film ;

Best director;

Up and coming filmmaker (including director, writer/producer);

Best actor; and the

Most active WOS member of the year;

"The awards will be a new dawn to the industry, one that will bring to the fore the hard work and competence of women filmmakers continentally in an industry that has always been perceived as a male domain. An award ceremony of this nature is long overdue, one that will give rise to women role models not only for women who aspire to be filmmakers, but also for women already in the industry. We believe this will increase the quality of their films made by women." said Eve Rantseli, the Executive Officer of Women of the Sun.

The Department of Communications (DOC) and South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) have come on board as sponsors of next year's Awards Ceremony. WOS invites sponsors to partner and engage with us on this journey to highlight the tremendous work done by women filmmakers on the African continent. To partner in an event that will grow into a major and popular industry event that will put South Africa and Africa as a whole on the map internationally.

To mark the country's ten-years of democracy and women's emancipation in 2004, WOS will also repositioned their annual Women's Film Festival to "The African Women's Festival" which will take place in Johannesburg in August 2004. The theme for next year's Festival is "Film from a Woman's Perspective". The film festival will showcases films of all genres, by women, about women /in a women's perspective with special focus being the African Continent. Although the spotlight falls on African women, WOS will also showcase films and women filmmakers' perspectives from other developing countries, e.g. Asia, South America.

Rantseli said, "The African Women's Festival will also be a platform for a selection process as it will showcase films that will stand a chance to be awarded later in the year at "The African Women Filmmakers' Award' ceremony at Sithengi in 2004. "The festival will give the opportunity for the public to see what African women filmmakers continentally are up to and to also allow them the opportunity to nominate films and filmmaker for the awards later in the year."

For more information, please contact WOS:

Eve Rantseli:
Telefax: +27 11 912 7636
Mobile: +27 (0) 72 143 1825
Email: