Cooked in Africa finalist in ROSCAR Awards

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The Cape Town based reality and documentary TV production company was shortlisted in the Expedition/Adventure Category. The ROSCAR Award winners will be announced at a high profile black-tie gala event in Durban on 25 July 2013.

Journey around Iceland

The adventure documentary portrays extreme adventurer, Riaan Manser's first non-African international expedition that saw him partner with cerebral palsy sufferer Dan Skinstad to kayak around the 4800 km circumference of Iceland between March and September 2011. Riaan and Dan completed their excursion on 4 September 4 2011, becoming the first Africans to circumnavigate Iceland in a kayak.

Self-funded by Cooked in Africa Films, the production was supported by Toyota (Iceland) and Lucozade and represents the first formal documentation of one of Manser's excursions where he is accompanied by a professional TV crew.

The core TV team spent six months filming in Iceland, each member becoming a character in the series and providing an entertaining back-story to the series' physical challenges.

Tough conditions

Despite having to film in temperatures ranging from -5 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees Celsius, Cooked in Africa Films' cameraman Darren Ilett, who has filmed over 80 episodes across a number of the company's reality TV series believes that Iceland is one of the most visually exciting places in the world with its glaciers, forests, rugged cliffs and narrow fjords.

"The expedition started at the tail end of winter, which was particularly cold and had us exposed to crazy temperature extremes for months at a time. However, using a combination of Sony Prosumer and consumer cameras, including cameras from the EX range and Sony HD Handicams, which we'd used in numerous testing conditions on previous productions, we did the job and were able to record some of the most testing physical challenges that Riaan and Dan had to overcome on their courageous journey," says Ilett.

The company's executive producer Peter Gird, is delighted to be nominated. "Taking on Iceland was no easy feat for Skinstad and Manser but it represented as ambitious a challenge to our film crew. No one could have prepared us for the marathon journey that took six gruelling months to cover. Our key crew Darren Ilett (camera), Brad Theron (camera) and Zahir Isaacs (sound) are a testimony to all dedicated film crew in South Africa. Throughout the hardships and freezing conditions, they managed to overcome all the obstacles that resulted in this, at-times, death defying and riveting reality-documentary. If anyone should be recognised it should be our film team."

The series premiered on SABC 3 in December 2011 and was broadcast to networks around the world including the Travel Channel in 2012.

For more information, go to www.cookedinafrica.com.