SITHENGI awarding 15 bursaries to young talent! Hurry!
15 talented and up-and-coming film makers from OUT OF TOWN have the chance to get to the Sithengi film festival in Cape Town on a bursary… 1000 Euros which is about R8300. If you’re from a rural area, a small town or an area where film-making is under-developed, get your application in – details and rules below. Students and buding film makers in Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique and other count…
ries within the Sub-Saharan area are also invited to apply!
Bursary Programme to bring Budding African Talent to Sithengi 2006
A new bursary programme, funded by the Goethe-Institut, Germany’s Cultural Institutes abroad, will help budding film professionals from all over Africa enter the Sithengi Market mix this year.
The Goethe-Institut with its branches in Sub-Saharan Africa, will offer fifteen bursaries of 1000 euros each to students across the continent wanting to attend the 2006 Sithengi Talent Campus. A number of bursaries will also be allocated to Francophone and Lusophone states in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The bursary will cover individual travel expenses as well as accommodation, and might allow for an additional per diem where necessary.
The bursary programme will augment Sithengi’s Pan-African outreach and facilitate a cultural dialogue amongst African film professionals. It will also pave the way for new entrants in the industry to learn from players experienced in a broad range of film disciplines.
Nikolai Petersen, Head of Programmes at the Johannesburg Goethe-Institut said: “With this programme, the Goethe-Institut in Sub-Saharan Africa intend to strengthen the existing strategic partnership between Sithengi Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale)”.
The bursaries come on the back of a growing realisation that the Sithengi Talent Campus, modelled on its Berlinale precursor, has been instrumental in helping a core of young filmmakers acquire a spectrum of practical skills for making and selling movies.
The Sithengi Talent Campus was a huge success last year and the then co-ordinator, Jacqueline van Meygaarden, said the feedback from students was uniformly good. “Most students said they learnt so much in this short time.”
A series of master classes that deal with many elements of craft – from scripting, through production and editing to distribution – got two-thumbs-up from students.
Thembisa Cochrane from the Eastern Cape said that she had developed a “more nuanced and realistic view of the world I am approaching.” She had also learned “new approaches to financing, filming, directing, writing, screening…”
Spokaz Nogaya said “the classes made me realise that SA filmmakers need to start producing to satisfy the local market before aiming for the international market.”
For many of the newcomers, the Campus also gave encouragement to artists to get out there and make films. “I also learned that it does not matter what you do, but how you do it,” said Lenise Llewellyn a student from Walter Sisulu University in East London. “But once you discover you have a passion for it, then just do it, do it good and do it with your heart.” Lenise concludes that the Sithengi Talent Campus yielded “all positive vibration from a group of positive people who were eager to learn.”
The bursary programme is good news for many aspirant filmmakers on the fringe, in rural areas and small towns in Africa where cinema is still under-developed. Even for young students already undergoing some form of film and media training in South African tertiary institutions, the Talent Campus remains a rare opportunity to sample the skills of masters and mentors in cinema disciplines. Thembisa Cochrane summed up the experience: “Amazing – three years of studying film at university could not prepare me for the insights this workshop gave.”
So if you are a film student registered at a tertiary institution or an aspirant filmmaker not registered at a tertiary institution, then we invite you to submit your application to the 2006 Sithengi Talent Campus, in co-operation with the Berlinale Talent Campus.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2006 CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE
To apply, students and aspirants would need to submit:
* Completed application form (see website for application form)
* a short film / television product or commercial of no longer than 30 minutes on VHS / DVD format for viewing
* letter of motivation explaining why you feel you should participate in the Sithengi Talent Campus
* Curriculum Vitae (CV)
PLEASE NOTE: All applications are to be submitted in duplicate, one submitted to Sithengi, Cape Town, and the other to the local Goethe-Institut office in or closest to your country. Goethe-Institut and Goethe-Centre offices are based in the following Sub-Saharan African countries: Cameroon (Yaoundý); Cýte d’Ivoire (Abidjan); Ethiopia (Addis Ababa); Ghana (Accra); Kenya (Nairobi); Madagascar (Antananarivo); Mozambique (Maputo), Namibia (Windhoek); Nigeria (Lagos); Senegal (Dakar); South Africa (Johannesburg); Togo (Lomý); Zimbabwe (Harare). To find out about the address of your local Goethe-Institut please consult www.goethe.de or contact the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, mailto:petersen@joburg.goethe.org (++27-11-4423232)
Submissions must be addressed to:
Sithengi Talent Campus
SABC Building
209 Beach Road
Sea Point
Cape Town, 8002
South Africa
Applications are open to everyone. Of all applications received, 20 registered film students and 10 aspirants from South Africa will be selected. Applicants (students and aspirants) chosen will then have to register as students through the online Sithengi registration system.
Once the Sithengi Talent Campus programme is confirmed and posted on our website, all registered 2006 Sithengi delegates or members could select the classes in which they would like to participate. Bear in mind that only 20 delegates or members will be allowed entry into the Talent Campus, with preference to members.
The sessions will accommodate 70 participants in total and will cover a variety of topics from the writing of concepts through pre-to-post-production to marketing & distribution. Classes will be presented by acclaimed local and international masters in the international film & television industry.
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