Film Director Ekwa Msangi from Tanzania receives the Sembene Ousmane award at ZIFF 2015 PHOTO | Peter_Bennett
Zanzibar. The Zanzibar International Film Festival
(ZIFF) have announced they are bringing back the Sembene Ousmane Awards
in the 2021 edition of the festival.
Organisers say the re-launching
the Awards is to highlight the role that films play in development,
encourage filmmakers to challenge themselves to discuss development
issues in film and inspire the youth.
Sembene Ousmane Awards have
been presented at ZIFF since 2011 following the demise of the Senegalese
director Sembene Ousmane, who is also regarded as the “Father of
African Cinema”.
The Awards are designed to reward excellence in
short film production and to encourage the production of new short
films, including short documentaries.
Making the pronouncement the
Festival Director Prof Martin Mhando, confirmed that the German
International Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ) will revive support
of the awards at ZIFF.
“We would be ready to again support the awards
since we do see a clear contribution to regional integration in East
Africa an objective we are aiming at within our portfolio in the East
African region”, said Dr Mike Falke, Country Director of the GIZ
ZIFF
which is one the biggest cultural events in East Africa is also the
only festival in the world allowed to utilize the Sembene Ousmane name
for its awards.
This year’s edition of the festival will take place between July 21 to July 25,in Stone Town, Zanzibar.
Between
2015- 2017 a new program under the Sembene Ousmane Film for Development
Award Competition was installed with ZIFF awarding three films $3000
each to ensure that as many filmmakers as possible are encouraged to
make creative films through the Sembene Ousmane Prize.
However, each
winner was then required to utilize the funds to produce a new short
film that would be given its premiere at the next edition of ZIFF.
“This
was also in recognition of the fact that Africa now expanded beyond the
continent thus allowing collaborative work between Africans in the
Diaspora and non-Africans, in producing Africa-themed stories,” said
Prof Mhando
But with the professor’s departure from ZIFF the awards
were not given the importance they deserved as a prime vehicle of
African expression worth the name of Sembene.
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