South African succe at Hot Docs

Filmmakers from the South African documentary The Shore Break are back from a successful trip in Toronto where the film was screening at Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival, the largest documentary film festival in North America. The Shore Break a feature length documentary directed by Ryley Grunenwald and Orbis, a short film directed by Simon Wood were the South African documentaries selected for the prestigious festival.

The documentary follows two cousins from the Wild Coast whose opposing plans on how to develop their land divide their community, with ripple effects to their Pondo monarchy and the South African Government. One cousin wants to mine the beaches for titanium which would involve the N2 Wild Coast Toll Road going through their ancestral land while the other believes that sustainable development such as eco-tourism would protect the homes, farmlands, ancestral graves and spectacular landscape of their community. International audiences engage with and respond to documentaries from anywhere in the world if it deals with themes they can relate to. The everyday drama of a family feud and the global issue of community solidarity are some of the elements that ensured the success of The Shore Break at Hot Docs 2015 , says co producer Odette Geldenhuys.

Toronto audiences are well known for their devotion to the documentary genre. The Shore Break enjoyed long lines of people along the sidewalks waiting to buy tickets and packing out venues including Toronto's Isabel Bader Theatre. According to Geldenhuys, Hot Docs appeals to many different types of special interest audiences with The Shore Break finding particular appeal among academics and those active in social issues, community participation, and sustainable development issues. The Shore Break received great press coverage with 4 out of 5 star reviews, television and radio interviews and described by Variety as an accomplished, handsome documentary .

A key aspect of Hot Docs is its film market which has played an integral role in the financing, development and now distribution of The Shore Break. In 2012 The Shore Break pitched publicly as part of the Hot Docs Forum, in 2013 they took part in the Distribution Rendezvous Meetings, secured a Hot Docs Blue Ice Documentary Film Fund grant and Canadian broadcaster Knowledge Network. Now, in 2015, the film has come full circle. As well as having successful screenings it has had a flurry of invitations to further film festivals and had promising meetings for sales representation in North America.

However it's not only foreign investment that made the film possible. South Africa has been the most important partner in the creation of the film. We were funded by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), the Gauteng Film Commission and utilised the Department of Trade and Industry's (the dti's) film tax rebate. We would not have been able to attend film festivals over the last few years, in order to develop and complete the financing of The Shore Break, if it were not the support of the NFVF and the dti's South African delegations to documentary film festivals organised by the Documentary Filmmakers' Association, says director and co producer Grunenwald.

The Shore Break will be screening at South African film festivals starting with the Encounters Documentary Film Festival in June. We've already had so many requests from South Africans who want to see the film. If they aren't based in one of the festival cities they should be able to catch it on television, Video on Demand and DVD in the upcoming months, reveals Grunenwald.

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