Across three venues - The Bioscope Independent Cinema, Villa Arcadia and Kliptown - the second Jozi Film Festival took place this past weekend. The festival kicked off on Friday, 15 February with Fanie Fourie's 'Lobola'.
Akin Omotoso, winner of last year's Best Feature Film Award for 'Man on Ground', officially opened the festival. "This is a great city and a great city should see itself reflected on screen," said Omotoso.
The festival sold out screenings of 'Lobola', 'Orania' and 'Extraction'. Trish Malone's masterclass in scriptwriting was also standing room only and the organisers were thrilled to say they had about 300 people attend the Kliptown screenings.
On Sunday night the Awards ceremony was held at Villa Arcadia in Parktown, a venue made possible through the partnership with Etana Insurance which has backed the Jozi Film Festival from its inception. John Vlismas hosted the event and proved once again to be the perfect choice of MC.
Winners
- Best Documentary Short Film - Siphe Bongwana for 'Energy is Power'
- Best Documentary Feature Film - Tobias Lindner for Orania
- Best Short Fiction Film - Joint winners Guy Spiller for 'My Room At The Centre of the Universe' & Nevil Sandama for 'iBalaclava'
- Best Student Film - Mikles Manneke for 'Kanye Kanye'
- Best Feature Film - Vickus Strijdom for 'Zama Zama'
- Audience Choice Award - Henk Pretorius for Fanie Fourie's 'Lobola'
Mobile phone competition
The Sunday night also saw the winners of the first Vodacom Mobile Phone Film Competition, where anyone living in Joburg or telling stories about Jozi could enter a 1-3 long film shot on a mobile phone. The winners of this competition were:
- Third place: Donna Sibande - 'Better Tomorro'
- Second place: Jacqueline Wetselaar and Rohin Gosling - 'Jozi Dreams'
- First place - Justin Sandmann - 'Today's Special'
The winners all received a Blackberry Smartphone, Blackberry Internet Service for a year and airtime, courtesy of Vodacom. Gift Mphefu, Vodacom's portfolio manager of digital products was at the awards to hand over the prizes.
The organisers thanked the event's sponsors and partners: Etana Insurance, Vodacom, Communications Advisory, Audio Network, Deacon Designs, Left Hand Films and Fort Greene Filmworks, as well as all the volunteers and the people who offered their time and energy to help make this event a great success.
