'Tsotsi' impresses fest auds

This year's fest, held in conjunction with the 10th Sithengi Film and TV Market, is showing 110 feature films, shorts and documentaries including an African film retrospective and focuses on Cuba and Argentina.

Also being screened are the South African premieres of actor Richard E Grant's semi-autobiographical directorial debut "Wah Wah," based on his traumatic childhood in pre-independence Swaziland, a small land-locked country neighbouring South Africa, and local comedy king Leon Schuster's new film, "Mama Jack."

Sithengi chief exec and fest director Michael Auret said the inclusion of a film by Schuster ("Mr. Bones") -- whose slapstick-style films usually leave critics unimpressed and do not win major international awards but are the only local productions to have pulled in audiences in serious numbers -- was an attempt to increase audience participation in the festival and grow audiences for different types of film. "If by doing this more people look at the program and go to other films, then we will have achieved something," he said.

The Sithengi market has seen significant growth in delegate attendance over the past decade, with numbers climbing from an initial less than 1000 to over 1900 from 46 countries last year including 36 broadcasters from 13 African countries and 5 European and U.S. countries.

A major part of the market, expanded and developed further from last year, is the co-prod market with forums and facilitated one-on-one.

Auret said the forums were designed to stimulate investment in co-production projects between African filmmakers/producers and leading international industry players by bringing the "right project to the right people" in a targeted way which could lead to the making of more feature films in Africa.

South Africa already has co-production treaties with Canada, Italy and Germany, all of which were signed at Sithengi over the past three years. A Mission of Understanding is currently being negotiated between SA and the Netherlands and set to be signed at Sithengi this year.