Award winners at this year's Durban FilmMart.
-- --
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Pinterest
It's been a bumper year for this year's Durban FilmMart (DFM), the industry development programme of the eThekwini Municipality's Durban Film Office (DFO) and Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), which ended with an awards ceremony at the Southern Sun Maharani Hotel in Durban, South Africa, on Monday, 23 July.
Speaking at the DFM awards ceremony, Toni Monty, head of the DFO and the Durban FilmMart, said, As one of the most important, film industry events and film finance platforms on the continent, we are really pleased that we have grown the DFM substantially this year with 877 delegates attending. We had over 40 countries participating this year, of which 19 were from Africa. A total number of 52 projects were pitched to potential partners, financiers, filmmakers, producers, distributors and agents during countless meetings.
-- --
Key to the value that the Durban FilmMart provides filmmakers are the many meetings and networking sessions that are held between delegates over the four days.
The important work we do to enable filmmakers, would not be possible without our partners and sponsors, said Monty, And we would like to thank our partner markets, development organisations and funding bodies with deep gratitude.
The work we do at this mart supports the DIFF and DFO's vision to dynamically grow the industry and bring African cinema to its own people and to global platforms.
Eighteen official DFM film projects in development were presented at the Finance Forum through the sponsorship of the Industrial Development Corporation and the National Film and Video Foundation.
Supported by Berlinale Talents, the Goethe-Institut and the German Embassy and in cooperation with Fipresci, Durban Talents was able to host 16 young filmmakers, and three Talents Press.
We hosted a number of scriptwriters' labs including Jumpstart which is supported by Produire au Sud, France and the Realness Script Writing Residency. Hot Docs Canada, mentored 11 documentary projects in development and six CineFam Africa television series projects were mentored by Caribbean Tales, Canada.
We recognise the important role that the eThekwini Municipality, the principal funder of the DFM plays in its success, continued Monty. The city's involvement actively enables the economic growth of the industry, and we thank them for this.
The DFM hosted a number of delegations this year including the in-bound delegation through the Department of Trade and Industry, the BRICS Film Festival delegation through the Department of Arts and Culture. Special thanks must go to the Canadian High Commission and US Embassy and the French Institute (IFAS), NFVF and KZN Film Commission for their support in bringing in delegates.
The Awards/Grants:
The International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) awarded the most promising documentary project at the DFM, Cheese Girl (South Africa), produced by Batana Vundla, Marion Isaacs and directedby Milisuthando Bongela, with an opportunity to attend the IDFA Forum, one of the top gatherings for documentary filmmakers, producers, commissioning editors, funds, private financiers and other documentary filmmakers in Europe, in November.
The broadcast stream, Afridocs, that flights African and other international documentaries across 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa on a weekly basis, gave a 2500 award, funded by the Bertha Foundation, to Zinder, The Seeds of Violence (Niger), produced by Clara Vuillermoz, Ousmane Samassekou and directed by Aicha Macky.
The CineMart Award, sponsored by the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, went to the fiction project, Nyanga/The Horn (Zimbabwe), produced by Sue-Ellen Chitunya, Brett Michael Innes and directoed by Brett Michael Innes. The project is given an opportunity to attend the Rotterdam Lab, a five-day training and networking event for producers from all over the world.
Produire au Sud of Festival des 3 Continents (Nantes) awarded the fiction film Porta-Retrato (Mozambique), produced by Aldino Languana, Osvaldo Lupini Bambamba and directed by Orlando Mabasso Jr., an opportunity to attend its developmental workshop programme, PAS, where they will be given tools, expertise, and opportunities to develop European networks.
Videovision Entertainment awarded the Best South African Film Project to Snake (South Africa), produced by Paul Egan, Stanford Gibson and Mustapha Hendricks and directed by Meg Rickards. They receive a prize valued at R75 000, which guarantees its release once it is completed. The prize also includes marketing and distribution support from Videovision Entertainment.
Versfeld & Associates, publicity consultants awarded Nyanga/The Horn (Zimbabwe), produced by Sue-Ellen Chitunya, Brett Michael Innes and director by Brett Michael Innes, the development of a press kit.
S rfond awarded the project How to Steal a Country, produced by Rehad Desai and Zivia Desai and directed by Mark Kaplan, with an opportunity to pitch at the S rfond Pitching Forum in Oslo later this year.
CineFAM-Africa Incubator Accelerator Programme award to pitch at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Toronto, went to The Summit Club by Layla Swart
New awards this year include:
Hot Docs Blue Ice Award a cash prize of 2000 Candian Dollars went to the documentary project The Master's Plan, produced by Hanne Phlypo and directed by Yuri Ceuninck.
11th Talents Durban Talents Press Recognition Award went to Cornelia Glele.
Durban FilmMart Award for the Durban Talents project selected as a project for DFM 2019 went to When Shadows Move by Aliki Saragas.
The DFM ended last night, but the Durban International Film Festival continues until 29 July. There is a free industry programme
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Award winners at this year's Durban FilmMart.
