Encounters celebrates 10 years

This year's festival runs in Johannesburg at Nu Metro in Hyde Park, 19 -29 June 2008, and, in Cape Town, at the V&A Waterfront Nu Metro, 3 - 13 July. It touches on a broad range of topics: music, human rights, justice, the environment, popular culture, ideals of female beauty, surfing, love and survival.

“We are very proud that Encounters has reached its 10-year mark and that our passion for documentaries is shared by our growing audience. We will continue to showcase significant films that the local public has not seen before and serve as the meeting point for documentary filmmakers, students, broadcasters and funders,” says Mandisa Zitha, the festival's director.

Besides a record number of South African documentaries (24), there will be 11 world premières: Zulu Surf Riders directed by Carlos Francisco and André Cronje, Courting Justice by Jane Lipman, Uit my kop uit by Jeanette Jegger, You Chuse by Anita Khanna and Rehad Desai, 30 seconds by Kekeletso Khena, The Beneficiary by Themba Monare, Kabelo's Zeroid Xpress by Thapelo Maleka, and five short films that are the result of the SABC and Jan Vrijman Fund Encounters Africa Shorts initiative: Dear Morris by Joanne Levitan, Old-time, Long-time Love by Mali Kambandu, Mbira' My Music My Love by Dorothy Meck-Chimbuya, Silent Response by Maleka Pululu and Villant Virginia Ndasowa's Where My Heart Belongs.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the UDF, Encounters will be screening New Deal?, which captures the birth of the movement in Mitchell's Plain in 1983, and hosting panels that will be attended by Valli Moosa, Popo Molefe, Mzwakhe Mbuli and Minister Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota in Johannesburg and Allan Boesak and Prof Jeremy Seekings in Cape Town.

International festival guests

This year's are: Dutch filmmaker Sunny Bergman, who will focus on body images, ideals of beauty and how the media influences and manipulates these; Emmy-award winning African-American director and producer Stanley Nelson, from the US, who will examine the Black American middle class; Cameroonian producer and director Cyrille Masso; the South African surf legend and former world champion Shaun Tomson and a survivor of flight 571 that crashed in the Andes in 1972, and was forced to eat his deceased friends and relatives in order to survive.

Opening night films are Iron Ladies of Liberia, a portrait of Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and some of her female cabinet members, by Siatta Scott and Daniel Junge and Lucilla Blankenberg's Don't Shoot on Riaan Cruywagen, who is the world's longest-serving newsreader. Both films are part of the award-winning Why Democracy? series by Cape Town-based executive producer Don Edkins.

There will also be a number of industry events such as the Producers' workshop, with the support of the Goethe Institut, which aims to support local producers in further developing their business skills; the SABC/Encounters Master Classes, held by Sunny Bergman and Stanley Nelson; the Distribution, Co-production and Sales Workshop, with the support of the Cape Film Commission, run by three highly experienced local and international industry experts, Claire Aguilar, Diana Holtzberg and Don Edkins; an SABC Roundtable and Briefing Session that will give filmmakers an opportunity to meet the SABC's factual genre team and a SABC Encounters Debate on documentaries and human rights, which will be held both in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

This festival is supported by SABC, NFVF, Cape Film Commission, Western Cape Government, Jan Vrijman/IDFA, Africalia, Gauteng Film Commission, Goethe Institut, French Embassy, Tempest, US Consulate, British Council, French Embassy, Holland Film, The Times, Nu Metro, Exclusive Books.

Go to www.encounters.co.za for further information and booking details.