Durban FilmMart is to hand out career-advancing awards

The Durban FilmMart (DFM), taking place from Friday, 18 to Sunday, 21 July at Elangeni Tsogo Sun Hotel, has eight career advancing awards to grant African filmmakers in 2014. The Durban FilmMart is a developmental initiative created by the Durban Film Office and the Durban International Film Festival with funding from the City of Durban.

The Durban FilmMart aims to build local and international partnerships in the film industry to help further development and production of African cinema. With focus on developing filmmaker's skills through workshops and forums run by leading local and international experts, DFM also provides a platform for filmmakers to find funding and to access co-production opportunities for their projects.

Additionally, DFM partnerships play a crucial role in ensuring these objectives are reached; the 2014 partnerships remain steadfast and new partnerships have come on board, collectively bringing eight invaluable awards to grant African filmmakers a chance in furthering their skills and assistance in advancing their projects.

Newcomers, New Cinema Network (NCN) from Rome and Docubox from Kenya, will be joining DFM and providing awards for DFM projects. New Cinema Network, the Rome Film Festival's selective projects workshop and market, will be providing a winning project the chance to attend the ninth edition of NCN in Rome, taking place on from Sunday, 19 to Tuesday, 21 October, with the chance to present their work to active companies of the International Film industry.

New Cinema Network delegates, Alexia De Vito and Annalisa Donnarumma state, NCN will offer one complimentary round-trip air ticket for either the director or producer of the selected project, as well as four nights' accommodation and a free TBS (The Business Street) to both filmmaker and producer. The staff at NCN will carefully organise an individual agenda for the project's representatives following their needs and strategies.

Having attended DFM 2013, Docubox, an East-African documentary film fund, has returned as partners in hopes to meet emerging East-African documentary filmmakers and immerse themselves in new films, movements from across the continent, networking and exchanging ideas. We will be seeking to support an East African documentary production with $2500 development funds, says Judy Kibinge, representative of Docubox.

Furthermore, Judy Kibinge, says, Currently, we support 12 films with development money, training and mentoring. We then go onto support six of these films with a further $20 000 each. Durban is a good platform to share our achievements and films to date as we select a project to support with a development grant. Hopefully this will encourage more EA filmmakers to make the effort to send their film proposals into Durban.

These new awards follow a long line of dedicated partnerships DFM has worked hard to develop over the years. The fifth edition of DFM will see the return of Produire au Sud of Festival des 3 Continents (Nantes), a developmental workshop programme aimed to familiarise producers with a variety of important tools and international techniques. Their award will offer a winning project the invaluable opportunity of travel and accommodation (for the director and the producer) to the Produire au Sud (PAS) workshop, and given tools, expertise, new connections especially with European networks through this one week unique training programme.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam, it's co-production market CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund have been close partners with DFM since the initiation of FilmMart. The 2014 DFM will host IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund Boost! project called Tjovitjo by Vincent Moloi (South Africa), who was selected at CineMart earlier in the year. Boost! supported by MEDIA Mundus provides financial, creative and networking stimulus to high potential film projects by offering them a trajectory of funding, tailor-made coaching and networking opportunities. In addition to collaborating on Boost! for its 2015 edition, CineMart will invite and sponsor a producer of a DFM 2014 fiction project to attend the Rotterdam Lab, a five-day training and networking event bringing together producers from all over the world. The Lab is aimed at strengthening a producer's international network and experience at an international festival and market.

Having supported and sponsored awards for the Durban FilmMart's most promising documentary pitches from the first year, renowned International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), will be providing a winning pitch team (a max of two people) with an IDFA and Forum Pass, with a 4-night hotel stay and daily allowance. The winning pitch team will also receive guidance and information on how to make the most of the festival.

Another invaluable partnership of the DFM is with Videovision Entertainment, the Durban-based film and television production and distribution company headed by well-known producer, Anant Singh. Videovision Entertainment will return as the sponsor of the Best South African Film Project Prize valued at R75 000. The award guarantees the winning project a release once the project is completed and includes marketing and distribution support from the company which has a successful track record of releasing both South African and international films in South Africa. Sanjeev Singh, Videovision Entertainment's director of Acquisition and Distribution commented, We are delighted to continue our support of South African film projects. We are committed to the development of the South African film industry and growing local audiences for locally produced films so that our industry is sustainable in the long term.

Having received tremendous support from France, ARTE France and the International Organisation of La Francophonie will be sponsoring an award for

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