ROOFTOP Promotions will live-stream the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) as it premieres in the country from January 26 to February 4 at Theatre in the Park with the support of Hivos Southern Africa.
BY PRECIOUS CHIDA
IFFR offers a high-quality line-up of cautiously selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art and the festival’s focus is on recent work by talented new filmmakers from around the globe.
Speaking during a Press conference yesterday, Theatre in the Park director Daves Guzha said the festival is meant to encourage filmmakers to improve their projects.
“We believe that this festival will become a major boost for the film sector to say not everything is lost because there has been a perception that we are on the bottom of the food chain, so when you see this kind of reaffirmation from a global player like this festival saying we choose Zimbabwe to be their first debut place of appearance, it shows that we should not look down upon ourselves, so we hope that this will be able to generate a buzz among the filmmakers themselves,” he said.
“Also looking at our films like Neria and Flame, we are trying to show filmmakers that we were there once and we can always reach that point again.”
Zimbabwe will become the first African country to live stream proceedings from this festival from Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The event comes at a time when the country’s film industry is breaking new ground on the international arena with Zimbabwe’s own local feature film, Cook Off, directed by Thomas Brickhill and produced by Joe Njagu, having been selected for screening at the festival.
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Running under the theme A History of Shadows, the festival will showcase six films from around the globe and a few local films, among them the blockbuster Neria, which features Jesesi Mungoshi, Flame and the recent production Cook Off.
The film screenings will be free to the public.
Guzha welcomed the global collaboration as key in raising the profile of the arts sector in Zimbabwe.
“We are very excited to host this event at Theatre in the Park. It is special to us because it’s the first time this world-class film festival is being live-screened in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is clear testimony that Zimbabwe is ready to engage robustly with the rest of the progressive world,” he said.
