London's Black Filmmaker International Film Festival 2015 has invited the feature documentary When I Was Water to screen in Tottenham at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre between Friday 3 July and Sunday 5 July.
When I Was Water is a documentary about the conflicts between modernity and tradition, the city and village, seen from the perspective of a young girl called Marry-Ann, who grows into a woman over a period of 20 years. The mfmiff screening will be the European Premiere of the film.
Independent South African filmmaker David Forbes S.A.S.C. who produced, directed and shot the 82-minute film, says he was surprised to get the invite out of the blue after several prestigious festivals had turned the film down.
It's clear that someone watched the film and was very touched by it. The festival itself is the brainchild of filmmaker and Festival Director Menelik Shabazz , with the stated aim of bringing the unseen to light , says Forbes.
It's not every day you get a film that took 20 years to make, but it's also not the sexy or politically correct kind of film that big festivals usually go for.
When I Was Water is about a very ordinary person who was extraordinary. She embodies the real-life experience of millions of women around the globe, and audiences will identify with that, except if perhaps they come from a so-called developed world' society. I think that it's an important film in that sense, that the untold story of millions of ordinary people has been captured in this one film that speaks volumes about the other stories out there, says Forbes.
We got the idea while making another doc in mid- 90s, to make a sort of Seven Up film but with one central character and follow them year by year rather than just every seven years. We never knew how the film would turn out, because we were following real life events in a classic doc manner.
Funding it was a nightmare. Everyone would say, Wow! That's amazing. What a great idea, etc, and then the funding would not materialize. It became the film that no-one wanted to fund, that no-one wanted to see, yet the response from initial screenings has been incredible, laughs Forbes.
It doesn't start with a bang, but you get drawn into the story and it is also amazing to see Marry-Ann become a woman in just 80 minutes. She had a roller-coaster ride through life, and fortunately we caught most of those moments, Forbes continues.
I got a Kenyan to edit the film. I had worked with Franki Ashiruka before on another co-pro in Nairobi, and we just clicked in what we liked and didn't like, the kind of music that we thought was appropriate etc. I had been so involved in the story, for so long, I felt I was too close to the subject matter.
Franki has lots of international experience, but was also a black African woman, who could bring that sensibility to the film, while maintaining the distance required so the film did not become an ethnographic portrait, but captured the nuances of the heroine's journey and emotions. I'm very proud of Franki, I think she did a fantastic job editing the film.
Forbes is busy negotiating a deal with the SABC for another of his films, the award-winning The Cradock Four, five years after he completed it in 2010 and won Best SA Documentary at Durban International Film Festival later the same month. The film was also nominated for the Amnesty International (Durban) Human Rights Award, but for some reason was never screened on public free-to-air television in South Africa. The Cradock Four was nominated for Best Documentary Script this year at the 2015 Muse Awards.
My films always take a long time to make, says Forbes. But this was exceptional. We had to watch how events unfolded and find a natural arc for the narrative to conclude successfully for Marry-Ann. We believe the film will resonate widely with audiences worldwide. It's a truly global story.
To view the trailer: https://vimeo.com/119625964
Website: www.wiww.co.za
SmartMonkey interview:
Social media handles
And
To check out the bfiff festival:
#bfmiff2015 @bfmiff @BGACentre
To contact David Forbes or get more pictures and information:
david@shadowfilms.co.za www.shadowfilms.co.za
+27 82 450 8003 @DavidShadowFilm
za.linkedin.com/pub/david-forbes/14/87a/b36/
00:00
--
Documentaries
South Africa
News
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...
London's Black Filmmaker International Film Festival 2015 has invited the feature documentary When I Was Water to screen in Tottenham at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre between Friday 3 July and Sunday 5 July.
