By Caroline Comport | Project Leader
Dear AFP Supporter,
The highlights of our last report came from the Netherlands, where thanks to your generious support two of our African Film Project graduates were about to attend the largest documentary film festival in the world today, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
The objective of the eleven-day festival is to promote creative documentaries and to present them to as wide an audience as possible - screening more than 200 documentaries and attracting nearly 120,000 visitors.
To make the most of the six-days they were able to attend the festival, AFP Director Jody Hassett Sanchez designed an interactive learning module for AFP graduates Stella Oigo of Kenya and Irene Fon Zih of Cameroon. This included film screnings, relevant lectures, and meetings with producers and programmers.
For Stella and Irene, the festival experience added another dimension to both their understanding of the filmmaking process and the challenges they face in telling the important stories of Africa.
"I was startled to hear that Africa has the worst market for documentaries which are distributed around the world to international broadcasters. If that holds true, I am really surprised how that can be when Africa has so many stories happening that are worth telling. However, it reaffirms my belief that as an African filmmaker, I have the responsibility to tell those stories in my community, and with the ability to make them relevant to an international audience by treating universal themes," said Irene.
Stella who describes herself as a filmmaker "hungry for information and direction" listed her three greatest lessons from the festival as:
1. Only fimmakers open to collaboration make great projects.
2. Not all failure is good but failure is essential in filmmaking.
3. If you don't pursue big ideas, you will get small results.
In addition to these valuable lessons, attending the festival allowed us to make promising connections for future development of the Africa Film Project.
Thanks to each of you for helping Stella and Irene learn new ways to tell the many important stories of Africa.
With our gratitude,
The AFP Team
By Caroline Comport | Project Leader
By Caroline Comport | Project Leader
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