Industry Events

Girls in Film x Encounters Presents Community Shapers: Documentary Shorts

Through the collaboration with Encounters, Girls in Film (GiF) wants to expand the festival space to emerging filmmakers starting their journey and discovering their storytelling voices. GiF curated a selection of micro-budget and experimental documentaries by promising independent filmmakers from Africa and the African Diaspora who showcase strong perspectives and stylistic distinctiveness.

Together, the films reflect how communities across the diaspora are shaped, whether it be through leaders and change-makers, social circumstances, unique individuals or transformative spaces. Through their resourcefulness, these filmmakers saw global lockdowns not as an obstacle to their craft, but as an opportunity to seek out stories closer to home.

This event includes a Directors Q&A and will be followed by a workshop with Girls in Film and Blackboard. 

DFA docSHARE: THE BRAVE ETHICS PANEL

In this inter-generational conversation between emerging and established filmmakers, we map approaches to ethics in South African documentary and explore a range of responses to some of the key ethical questions: “How do we create spaces of care and compassion while telling powerful stories?” and “How do we honour responsibility to participants?” Join the discussion to unpack the issues that lie at the heart of ethical practice in documentary filmmaking from the Global South.

Facilitated by filmmaker-academics Dr Julia Cain and Dr Alette Schoon.

Supported by the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association in partnership with the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University

Izimbali Mental Health Campaign – Is it just me? Speak Out! A Mental Health Crisis Is Not A Stigma

The Covid-19 pandemic has unveiled a growing mental health crisis in the creative industries. The lockdown restrictions imposed by the government for the last two years have imposed unprecedented conditions for the industry. The already existing socio-economic conditions of the creative industries are a breeding ground for mental health challenges due to employment insecurity and irregular income, lack of personal and family benefits, competition for work opportunities and discriminatory practices. These issues give rise to a range of problems such as financial stress and pressure, anxiety and panic, depression, substance abuse and ensuing poor family relationships.

Join us for a wide ranging panel discussion with expert creatives from different sectors; to speak out on the mental health crisis, and the urgent action required from the industry.

This is the first of a series of panel discussions organised by the Independent Black Filmmakers Collective (IBFC) to create awareness and support the creative sector, culminating with the development of a mental health toolkit.

Container Exhibition

Container is a collaboration between documentary filmmaker, Simon Wood, and visual artist and researcher, Dr Meghna Singh. The interactive work positions itself at the intersection of virtual reality and installation art, forming a hybrid of documented and constructed realities to make visible the invisibilised millions enabling our consumerist society. Discussing elements of hyperreal tactility and viscerality of constructed environments, the co-directors will consider tools to facilitate an emotional engagement with the human condition.

Container Exhibition

Container is a collaboration between documentary filmmaker, Simon Wood, and visual artist and researcher, Dr Meghna Singh. The interactive work positions itself at the intersection of virtual reality and installation art, forming a hybrid of documented and constructed realities to make visible the invisibilised millions enabling our consumerist society. Discussing elements of hyperreal tactility and viscerality of constructed environments, the co-directors will consider tools to facilitate an emotional engagement with the human condition.

Reclaiming Memory: Celluloid, Restoration and Innovation in Documentary Storytelling – Three Minutes – A Lengthening

The discovery and use of archival material is a phenomenon which allows us to explore different aspects of the past, through artefacts, photographs, documents or film such as Three Minutes – A Lengthening. The material from the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre is used as evidence of the Holocaust and as a mark of respect for both victims and survivors. This panel discussion will explore historical aspects of the Holocaust and its contemporary consequences through the various modalities of telling the stories.

Beyond Nostalgia: Reimagining Post-Apartheid Freedom (The Double Futures of Athlone)

In the aftermath of grand Apartheid’s forced removals, a form of cultural politics burgeoned around the cinemas of Athlone on the Cape Flats. Often targetted by pernicious strategies of petty Apartheid, the cinema, or bioscopes, nevertheless became spaces for reimagining community. Spaces such as the Kismet Cinema opened vistas of freedom and created a platform for building a non-racial future, inspired by film and music. How did we account for these cultural politics in the very midst of Apartheid’s dread? What was the significance of the bioscope in building community? And what future might we envisage for such cultural politics on the Cape Flats in the wake of Apartheid? This panel brings to the fore themes and ideas from Premesh Lalu’s documentary, The Double Futures of Athlone. 

A Case Study in Collaborative Documentary Filmmaking:

Among Us Women

A Case Study in Collaborative Documentary Filmmaking: Among Us Women Exploring the production process behind the making of the documentary film Among Us Women, this session delves into the collaborative nature of the project, the relationships developed within the community portrayed, and how the subtle intimacy of the film was achieved.

DFA docCHAT: DEEP DIVE INTO TACTICAL DISTRIBUTION & INDUSTRY TRENDS

“Good films stand out, but make sure you are passionate about your film and that you know how to position it.” – Mandisa Zitha, Encounters South African International Documentary Festival

Join us as we demystify the distribution and commissioning of documentaries. DFA board member, Khanyi Magubane, hosts Rachel Gordon, author of the hot-off-the-press book, The Documentary Distribution Toolkit, and Nicola van Niekerk, commissioning editor of the popular South African true crime series, Devilsdorp. Rachel’s experience and theories will act as a practical guide to reaching audiences and Nicola will invite us into the world of broadcast, mapping the ever-growing VOD landscape and current industry trends.

Presented by Encounters in association with the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association 

docCHAT is a bi-monthly webinar and virtual coffee date hosted by the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association 

UCT Emerging Filmmaker Showcase

Join us for a special screening of UCT Honours and Masters films selected for Encounters this year. Filmmakers will be in attendance for a post-screening panel discussion and Q&A to talk about their work. This will be followed by a reception to celebrate these emerging filmmakers’ achievements.

Seducing Audiences: Understanding the Craft and Politics Behind the Male Gaze in Cinema

In Nina Menke’s meticulous documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, she puts into focus the history of cinema from 1896 – 2020, with a critical lens on the male gaze in film. Carefully deconstructing images, frame by frame, we learn about how women are represented on screen to beguile audiences. This all-female led panel will analyse our engagement with all-too-familiar sexualised portrayals of women and the progress of the #MeToo era in an attempt to challenge our perceptions and champion a revolutionised approach towards filmmaking.

Editing Across Borders

The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent rise of streamer-oriented documentary films have both had significant influence on post-production processes. Remote editing, often with extensive input from different international funding partners and often with an editor from a different country, has become a standard feature of international documentary production. Featuring two filmmaker-editor teams from the films Transactions (Director, Rumbi Katedza / Editor, Ronet Van Der Walt) and Girl, Taken (Directors, Simon Wood, Francois Verster / Editor, Bob Caldwell) that worked in this manner, this panel explores the practical challenges involved, as well as the impact of international market demands on storytelling style and content.

Girls in Film x Encounters Presents Community Shapers: Documentary Shorts

Through the collaboration with Encounters, Girls in Film (GiF) wants to expand the festival space to emerging filmmakers starting their journey and discovering their storytelling voices. GiF curated a selection of micro-budget and experimental documentaries by promising independent filmmakers from Africa and the African Diaspora who showcase strong perspectives and stylistic distinctiveness.

Together, the films reflect how communities across the diaspora are shaped, whether it be through leaders and change-makers, social circumstances, unique individuals or transformative spaces. Through their resourcefulness, these filmmakers saw global lockdowns not as an obstacle to their craft, but as an opportunity to seek out stories closer to home.

This event includes a Directors Q&A and will be followed by a workshop with Girls in Film and Blackboard.

DFA docSHARE: LEGAL TANGO

Legal Tango is a conversation between a multi-award winning group of filmmakers about the common and unexpected legal challenges that arose during their filmmaking processes. The session is hosted by Shameela Seedat, filmmaker, lawyer and DFA board member, whose film, AFRICAN MOOT, is screening at the festival. Panelists include Richard Gregory, whose film THE RADICAL, about ‘the world’s first openly gay Imam’ (Muhsin Hendricks), required the negotiation of various sensitive character and community relationships, Rumbi Katedza whose film TRANSACTIONS, featuring a Zimbabwean family scattered across the globe, involved production in multiple continents, and Thandi Davids and Laura Colucci from Storyscope Media, proactive producers behind an array of hard-hitting documentaries, including WHISPERING TRUTH TO POWER, INFLUENCE, GHOSTS OF GADAFFI, HER STORY AND SENZO: MURDER OF SOCCER STAR, who have often had to face complex legal and ethical issues related to fearless storytelling in a complex world.

Life’s Maxims: Reinventing Educational Systems through Classical Philosophy

Bringing expertise together by clinical psychologists, education experts and mental health activists, this panel will consider the film Young Plato in the context of South African youth education and development. The Belfast-set film documents headmaster Kevin McArevey’s attempt to place philosophy at the centre of his school in a community historically plagued by Northern Ireland’s ‘The Troubles’. With the aim of diffusing violence and improving the well-being of South African school students, the panellists will welcome new perspectives in empowering the young minds of South Africa.

Echoes of the Past: Intergenerational Narratives (Three Minutes – A Lengthening)

Some people grow up surrounded by family memories and mementos that tell the story of the generations that came before them and inform their place within that family tree. But what do you do when the past is not fully known to you? Or when intrinsic parts of your history are missing? Join our diverse panellists, Tali Nates, Mduduzi Ntuli and Luc Albinski, as they share their stories of uncovering their ancestors’ pasts and understanding their identities in South Africa and beyond.