2017 DFM announces its line-up of speakers

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2017 DFM announces its line-up of speakers --

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 13:41

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The 8th Durban FilmMart (DFM) which takes place at the Tsogo Sun Elangeni Hotel from 14 to 17 July 2017 has announced its line-up of speakers.

According to DFM, a diverse and insightful industry programme has been scheduled for this year, which aims to stimulate collaboration between African filmmakers and international producers and financiers.

Key speakers for the event will include film distributor Tilane Jones, audience development specialist Moikgantsi Kgama, film executive Charles Hopkins, writer-director Shmerah Passchier, virtual reality expert Ingrid Kopp, distributor Nicole Brooks, editor-director Karen Harley, editor-producer Sabrina S Gordon, screenwriter-producer Mila Aung-Thwin, screenwriter Busisiwe Ntintili, filmmaker, playwright, poet and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga, producer-director Stefano Tealdi as well as producer, director and writer Alby James.

Tilane Jones is the executive director of ARRAY Now, a film distribution collaborative focused on women filmmakers and filmmakers of colour. Jones will be speaking about ARRAY Now and the role it plays in supporting women led films.

Since 2011 Array has acquired key titles, including Ava DuVernay s Middle of Nowhere, Andrew Dosunmu s Restless City and Haile Gerima s Ashes and Embers. Jones production credits include DuVernay s Selma and the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary The 13th, as well as a range of high profile fashion and beauty films and television productions.

Moikgantsi Kgama is an audience development specialist whose credits include I Will Follow, Killer Sheep, Lumumba and the Academy award-nominated Trouble the Water.

Kgama is also the founder of the Harlem-based ImageNation Cinema Foundation, which presents progressive media made by people of colour.

Nicole Brooks is the vice president of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution and facilitates the CaribbeanTales Market Incubator Programme. She will be presenting CineFAM Africa - an accelerator programme for African women filmmakers.

Brooks has spent more than 15 years developing narratives that illuminate the people of the African Diaspora. With substantial experience as a filmmaker, director, performer, curator and teacher; Brooks also produces content for film, television and the performing arts.

Charles Hopkins is an executive at Shoreline Entertainment, an independent sales and production company based in Los Angeles. Hopkins will be leading a masterclass called Ten questions to ask yourself before making your pitch.

As a Shoreline executive, Hopkins has overseen acquisitions of projects in development, attended various festivals and markets for acquisitions and sales, and has negotiated a variety of deals with producers, talent and distributors.

Ingrid Kopp and Shmerah Passchier will lead a masterclass and workshop around Virtual Reality: What s Happening in Africa and What Can We Make Happen?

Kopp is a co-founder of Electric South, a non-profit initiative that aims to develop virtual reality and mobile storytelling projects across Africa. She is also a senior consultant in the Interactive Department at the Tribeca Film Institute where she works at the intersection of storytelling, technology, design and social change. While Passchier has worked in the film and television industry as a writer, director and producer; she has also travelled extensively around Africa directing magazine, reality shows and documentaries for the SABC and DSTV.

Editor and director Karen Harley leads a panel discussion entitled Editors Suite: Effective Editing together with Sabrina S. Gordon a producer/editor and documentary filmmaker from NYC.

Harley co-directed Waste Land, the feature-length documentary about artist Vik Muniz s work, which won the audience award at Sundance, Berlin and Durban, and was nominated for best documentary at the Oscars in 2011. While Gordon s editing debut won an Emmy for WGBH s Greater Boston Arts series and she has continued to distinguish herself on award-winning films, web and television programmes.

Gordon has many awards and credits to her name, and also produces media for non-profit and grassroots organizations, as well as engagement campaigns that leverage documentaries for tools for social change. She is also the co-chair of the Black Documentary Collective and serves on many media panels and juries.

Mila Aung-Thwin, co-founder of Montreals Eye Steel film is a writer, director, producer and editor. He will participate in a panel discussion entitled, Making Socially Impactful Documentaries.

Aung-Thwin has produced more than 25 documentary features, including Up the Yangtze, Forest of the Dancing Spirits and the Emmy award-winning Last Train Home. He has served as president of Montreals International Documentary Festival, as well as a juror for the International Emmy Awards, the New Zealand Film Awards and the Sundance Film Festival.

The Durban Talents programme presents South African Busisiwe Ntintili together with Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga, who will appear on the panel From Novel to Script.

Ntintili has had extensive experience as a writer for radio, film and television, as well as writing the screenplay for the local smash hit, Happiness is a Four Letter Word. While Dangarembga is a filmmaker, playwright, poet and activist who has produced several documentaries and has credits on most of Zimbabwe s feature film classics, including Everyone s Child, which she co-wrote and directed.

As part of a collaboration between DFM and Produire au Sud - Nantes, Stefano Tealdi, a director and producer of film and television who lives and works in Italy will be conducting a pitching workshop for DFM Official fiction projects and DFM s Jumpstart projects which aims to support emerging filmmakers through exposing them to the pitching proces

LINK:	http://www.screenafrica.com/page/news/festivals/1662863-2017-DFM-annou...
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