Encounters Documentary Festival, Cape Town & Johannesburg, South Africa

Encounters with IDFA Bertha Fund

May 212013

With an ever increasing demand on the limited funding resources available for filmmakers, it has become crucial to present a persuasive proposal and sound finance plan to potential funders.

Six participants will be given the unique opportunity to meet IDFA Bertha Fund manager Isabel Arrate and receive one-on-one counsel and guidance on their proposals. With previous experience in festival production, programming and film financing, Arrate has been fund manager for 10 years.

The IDFA Bertha Fund is the only fund in the world solely dedicated to stimulating and empowering the creative documentary sector in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe.

Interested parties should send not more than:
1. A one-page synopsis of their film
2. A budget summary
3. Provisional finance plan (not compulsory)
4. A one-page biography, including complete contact details(telephone no, city of residence, home and work address

To: Nikissi Serumaga (manager@encounters.co.za) on or before 4pm, Monday, 27 May 2013.

Selections will be confirmed by Friday, 31 May 2013.

AL JAZEERA PITCHING FORUM

May 202013

On Saturday, 15 June 2013 in Cape Town, two commissioning editors from Al Jazeera will listen to pitches from 16 African filmmakers. Each person will have a maximum of five minutes to pitch their film, with an additional 10 minutes allocated for feedback and questions from the panel. Visual aids will be provided for those that have DVDs or presentations during the pitch.

This is the second year in a row that Al Jazeera has hosted a pitching session during Encounters. In 2012, Mayenzeke Baza pitched Ndiyindoda: I Am Man, which went on to screen on Al Jazeera earlier this year.

Submissions
Interested parties should send not more than:
• A one-page synopsis of their film
• A one-page biography of the filmmaker, including complete contact details (telephone no, city of residence, home and work address)

To: Nikissi Serumaga (manager@encounters.co.za) on or before 4pm, Monday 27 May 2013.

Selections will be confirmed by Friday, 31 May 2013.

Please note that all participants who have been selected to pitch must be available for a one-day pitching workshop that will take place on Friday, 14 June 2013.

The Al Jazeera Pitching Forum takes place on Saturday, 15 June 2013 at the Protea Breakwater Lodge, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. MORE

Ndiyindoda: I Am A Man will screen at Encounters 2013 after being pitched to Al Jazeera last year

ENCOUNTER THE WORLD’S BEST DOCS

May 162013

The 15th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival runs from 6-16 June 2013 in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Africa’s premier documentary event will screen the most-talked about documentaries from around the world, including two 2013 Oscar nominees (The Gatekeepers and How To Survive A Plague) and winners from Berlin (Marina Abramovitch: The Artist is Present; In Heaven Underground), DOK Leipzig (Columbianos), and Sundance (Queen of Versailles; The House I Live In).

“Documentaries broaden our experience of the world, showing us places few of us would otherwise see,” says new festival director Lesedi Oluko Moche, pointing to a varied line-up that takes you from the biggest home in America (Queen of Versailles) and the world’s richest apartment building (Park Avenue) to one of Jordan’s poorest villages (Rafea: Solar Mamas); from the locker rooms of Wimbledon (Venus & Serena) to behind-the-scenes at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (Marina Abramovitch: The Artist Is Present); and from farms in Zimbabwe (The Bag on My Back) to a 130-year-old Jewish cemetery in Berlin (In Heaven Underground). MORE

Watch the trailer for The Queen of Versailles below.

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