I am pleased to enclose a press release announcing the 20 films selected
in competition for this year's M-NET All Africa Film Awards.
Should you have any queries or require any information on the films,
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
SUSANN McLACHLAN
For John Badenhorst
johnbad@sprintlink.co.za
1997 M-NET ALL AFRICA FILM SELECTIONS
Dr. Lionel Ngakane, adviser to the M-NET All Africa Film Awards, has
announced the names of 20 films, from 10 African countries, which have
been accepted in competition for the 1997 awards. They have been
selected, on overall merit, from 31 initial entries.
Nominations for the awards will be announced in September and this
year's prizes will be presented during a gala ceremony at Pretoria's
State Theatre, on October 25.
Lazarus Zim, CEO of the M-NET Channel, said:
"I am delighted that we have such a wide selection of African films this
year. It is good to see new countries entering and that the M-NET
awards have become recognised as a premier film event on the African
continent, along with prestigious festivals such as FESPACO and
Carthage.
"We believe that the All Africa Film Awards represent much more than
just an awards ceremony. On the one hand they do recognise excellence
and provide a platform to expose African film-making talent, but on the
other, they facilitate a cross-pollination of ideas, talent and cultures
from across the continent which we hope will be a cornerstone of the
development of a strong, successful continental industry.
"We look forward to entertaining the cream of our African film makers in
South Africa this coming October, when the 1997 awards will be presented
in Pretoria."
In the Arabophone category there are ten films in competition: from
Egypt: A Girl called Apple, Birds of Darkness, The Destiny, Caprice and
The Woman and the Knife; from Tunisia Bent Familia, Essada and Honey
and Ashes; from Algeria The Sisters Hamlet and from Morocco Rhesus,
the Other Blood.
The Francophone category has four films competing for the regional
prize: Buud Yam (Burkina Faso), Clando and The Power Brokers/Les Cercle
des Pouvoirs (both from Cameroon) and Lords of the Streets/Les
Guerisseurs (Ivory Coast).
ii/..
Closer to home, the Anglophone category has six films including, for the
first time, one from Ethiopia. The selections are Kini & Adams
(Zimbabwe), Tumult (Ethiopia), and from South Africa Fools, Panic
Mechanic, Paljas and Woman of Colour.
The winning films from these regional categories will compete for the
1997 Grand Prize and all other awards will be drawn from the full range
of films accepted in competition.
An eight-person jury will view the films at Constantia Lodge, Midrand,
during the first week of September and it is hoped that screenings will
be open to cinema buffs as well as the judges.
When permission has been obtained from the producers concerned, M-NET
will announce which of the screenings will be public ones.
Apart from the excellent variety of local entries, there is sure to be
much interest in the latest offerings from Youssef Chahine, Gaston
Kabore, and Idrissa Ouedraogo.
Chahine's film, The Destiny, was received with a fifteen-minute standing
ovation at Cannes, where the veteran director was awarded a special 50th
year Cannes anniversary prize, in respect of his lifetime achievement in
cinema.
Gaston Kabore's Buud Yam was the grand prize winner at this year's
FESPACO film festival and Idrissa Ouedraogo's Kini & Adams was also
shown to good effect in competition at Cannes.
Kini & Adams, featuring a West African director living in France, South
African actors in the leading roles and a Zimbabwean/French crew, shot
in Zimbabwe, in English, is a welcome indication of how the continent is
at last beginning to work together in the field of cinema.
This is the tenth year of M-NET's annual film awards and cash prizes
worth over R230 000 will once more be presented to the winning films,
artists and technicians from all over Africa.
ENDS
Issued for M-NET by
JOHN BADENHORST
Three Worlds Agency
tel. 021 24.23.29/24.32.97
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I had to edit out lots of garbage letters like = and =E9 and =20, so I'm
sure I've added some spelling errors, but it is better like this than
with those distracting extra characters, Steve Smith, moderator
In-Reply-To: 199707301554.IAA17191@abraham.xc.org