This year’s festival focused a spotlight on various genres including documentary, feature and short films, as well as including themed awards such as Best LGBTQ, Best Asian Film, and a notable award for Best New Director.
The overall winner of the year’s CTIFMF - recipient of three awards including the most coveted award of the night, The Grand Prix, as well as awards for Best Director Award and Best Actor - was the Italian film, Dogman.
The CTIFMF’s Opening Film, and South Africa’s official submission for the Oscars, Sew the Winter to My Skin, directed by Jahmil X. T Qubeka, won the Award for Best South African Feature Film, whilst Rehad Desai’s Everything Must Fall won for Best South African Documentary, and the Best South African Short Film was won by Rea Moeti’s Mma Moeketsi.
South African film Kanarie also took home the award for Best LGBTQ Film, while Kenyan director of Supa Modo, Likarion Wainaina, won the award for Best New Director in the New Voices category and was described by the jury as “a true new voice of contemporary cinema. The director succeeds in bringing its audience into the shoes of a kid, showing us the world through her eyes, without ever trivialising nor overdramatising a difficult topic such as a child’s illness. The director shows an uncommon capacity of leading his actors and keeping a difficult balance between drama, comedy, and fairy tale.”
Additionally, the CTIFMF Market announced the winners of the Works in Progress and Screenwriters Guild Pitch competition.
The jury - made up of filmmakers Arya Laloo and Mohamed Siam, sales agent Sara Sissoko from Memento, producer Dominique Welinsky, talent gent Cynthia Okoye and Cannes Semaine de la Critique Festival programme manager Remi Bonhomme - made a unanimous decision to support this project with the highest award, combining two weeks of Online by Monk and two weeks of Grading at Priest Post with the following motivation: “For its unique subject and its meticulous patient development, for the crossroad of important themes, and for the different worlds that have overlapped and met in tangible captivating characters, the jury chose to give the combined two prizes to the very promising Malawi set film project Buddha in Africa by Nicole Shafer.”
“For the subtle way of dealing with witchcraft issues and allowing us, through the eyes of a young character, to get deep into a touching Kenyan grandma and her family, the jury awarded two weeks of Sound Design by Raphsody and two weeks of Final Sound Mix by The Moving Billboard Picture Company to The Letter by Maia Lekow and Chris King.”
Rene van Royen is a local voice and, as described by the jury, Toorbos is “an accomplished and assured feature debut from Rene Van Rooyen. While a period setting the skill and voice of this filmmaker is tremendous and undeniably fresh. We are guided through the magic and the wonder of the forest which is beautifully and thoughtfully captured and brought to life through our strong central female character.”
Kenya’s Mugambi Nthiga was a co-writer on two of the latest Kenyan festival hits, Kathi Kathi and SUPAMODO, which screened as part of the 2018 festival programme. For its engaging characters and its unexpected and clever use of genre elements to tackle a problem too often ignored in African societies that is post-traumatic stress disorder, the jury awarded the subtitling and credits award to Lusala.
From Madagascar, a place in need of the basics, Bolomboto is an immersion documentary on the daily life of young people detained in Madagascar’s prison. It is an important and political film that offers a unique perspective on the Malagasy youth thanks to a strong cinematic vision. The producer is invited to the Festival International du Film d'Amiens in France in November to further advance the project. They also will receive publicity mentorship from Versveld Associates and a R50,000 award from Hollard Film Guarantors.
Meg Rickards and Tracey Farren with project Snake won WGSA top award and Cate Wood Hunter was runner-up with Family Roots.
Rafiq Samsodien, chairman of the CTIFMF board, has been particularly excited about this year’s event: “I am so pleased with the outcomes of the festival, we are definitely on the right growth trajectory. We had increased levels of participation both in terms of numbers and in terms of the standard of the festival and market submissions. The responses that we are getting from the delegates, festival-goers, and filmmakers is a testament to this progress and we look forward to CTIFMF 2019.”
For more information, go to www.filmfestival.capetown.
