Film Festival Film

Synopsis

A movie shot over a weekend at the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, in July 2018 by the underground South African collective Medu African Film Ensemble (aka Medu AF).
With a sense of mischief and minimal resources pooled together by its contributors, the film tells the story of Fanon - a Black female filmmaker - beset by her demons ten floors up in an oceanside hotel, gazing out over African shores during the hermetically-sealed weirdness that is the world of a film festival. Using elements of fiction and documentary, the film follows Fanon as she wrestles with what the film industry expects her to be, and not to be, as she readies herself to pitch her first film.
Fanon navigates this uncharted territory, while a supporting cast of real-world, “leading, industry professionals”, seated in her hotel room but never seeming to address her directly, dish out advice straight to camera - are they apparitions or voices in her head? Behind-the-scenes shifts to front-of-scene and back again, theory blends with praxis, as it becomes less and less clear who has the reins, unsettling the foundations of the so-called proper way of doing things.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Details

Year

2019

Type of film

Shorts

Running Time

46 min

Director

Mpumelelo Mcata, Perivi Katjavivi

Producer

Anna Teeman, Mpumelelo Mcata, Perivi Katjavivi

Editor

Khalid Shamis

Director of Photography

Zen Marie

Sound

Dylan Valley; Sound Design: Joāo Orecchia

Music

Joāo Orecchia

Principal Cast

Lindiwe Matshikiza, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Sara Blecher, Sarah Dawson, Rehad Desai

Genre

• Documentary

Production status

Complete

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Last updated 12th March 2019