BY RYAN FORTUNE
I thought I had bragging rights when I took the Intercape from Cape Town to Durban last week to attend the 15th Durban Film Mart (DFM). Twenty-five hours on the bus made for a great conversation starter when I first got there, and some people even gave me brownie points for sticking to my environmental principles.
But then I met André Gomes wandering around like a lost fart among the delegates doing business at the Sky Bar of the Elangeni Hotel overlooking Durban’s North Beach.
In broken English he told me that he had just arrived in Durban after a five-day bus trip from his home city of Luanda, Angola. I was seriously impressed, and immediately set about introducing him to as many people as I could, who were also seriously impressed. Among the 1400+ cinephiles from 58 countries gathered at the DFM, André's commitment to the movies stood out like a lit-up Christmas tree.
Forget horseracing, Durban in July is where South Africa’s filmmaking community gets together for both the DFM and the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) - where hundreds of the world’s best new feature and documentary films compete for prestigious awards - and I must say I was surprised that our new Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture didn’t pop in, even just for a few hours.
Doing so would have given him a very good sense of the enormous effort being put into building a globally respected and profitable (South) African film industry.
At the DFM, established and emerging filmmakers from every part of the world get to pitch their projects to grant funders as well as local and international buyers: sales agents, distributors, and acquisition executives from streaming platforms like Showmax and Netflix.
Four days of expert-led talks give delegates an opportunity to learn about new developments in the industry, so they can keep their tools sharp. And because filmmaking is such a collaborative occupation, it’s at the DFM that you get to start and strengthen the relationships that will keep you going for many years in the business.
As someone who took a decade-long break from the industry, it felt more like a homecoming to me than anything else: familiar faces were everywhere, a bit more wrinkled of course, but always friendly and beaming with optimism about (still) being involved in this industry with its incomparable highs and lows.
It was also inspiring to encounter the younger generations of creatives: documentary filmmakers with unique approaches to the craft of storytelling, Soweto-born animation artists who are taking the world by storm and bringing the rest of the continent’s talents along for the ride, the young African contestants in the NEFTI Awards who blew everyone away with their five-minute shorts.
Much as I love watching good films, I sadly didn’t make it to any of the DIFF screenings, mainly because I was too focused on connecting with the right people to help me realise my latest project: a 90-minute animation feature that I could tell you more about if you signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Suffice to say that although I missed the submission deadline for the official pitching DFM sessions, I came away with excellent feedback and a short list of potential collaborators, who I believe can help me take it to the Oscars in a couple of years.
Supported by the KwaZulu-Natal Film and Tourism Authority and a host of long-time sponsors, DIFF and DFM are just a couple of the not-to-be-missed events in South Africa’s vibrant filmmaking ecosystem.
Others are the Encounters Documentary Film Festival which has been running for 26 years and which I missed this year because I had to dog sit for a friend, and also FAME Week Africa which happens in Cape Town every September.
If you say you love the movies, get yourself to any of these events, and think of my new friend André Gomes who is right now travelling back to Luanda, his heart full of love and inspiration for the long road ahead.
Ryan Fortune is a journalist, screenwriter, film producer and script editor. He can be contacted via his website at. https://ryan-fortune.company.site/
Saturday Star