from vk & associates

$115,000 IN GRANTS AWARDED TO TOP AFRICAN DOC PROJECTS

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and Blue Ice Group are pleased to announce that six projects have been chosen to receive a total of $115,000 in development and production grants from the Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund in its first round of disbursements. Two projects will receive development funds and four projects will receive production funds, selected from 140 submissions from over 29 different countries in Africa. The Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund is a $1-million production fund that provides financial support to independent filmmakers based in developing African countries, with the goal of increasing the quality and quantity of social, cultural and political documentaries produced on the continent.

Grant recipients will also be attending Hot Docs 2012, and will participate in International Co-Production Day on April 30, and take part in the filmmakers’ lab on April 28 and 29.

The application process for the second round of disbursements will be open June 25 to August 20, 2012. For further information on the application process, eligibility requirements and deadlines, please visit www.hotdocs.ca/funds/productionfunds.

Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund Development Grant

BUDDHA OF AFRICA

Director and Producer: Nicole Schafer

Production Company: Thinking Strings Media

Country: South Africa/Malawi

BUDDHA OF AFRICA explores China’s rise in Africa through the story of a Malawian orphan being raised at a Chinese Buddhist orphanage near the country’s economic capital, Blantyre.

FIFIRÉ EN PAYS CUBALLO (FIFIRÉ IN CUBALLO’S LAND)

Producer: Sellou Diallo

Director: Mame Woury Thioubou

Production Company: Les Films de l’Atelier

Country: Senegal

In the past, the Fifiré celebration featured crocodile hunts, but no longer since the beasts have disappeared from Senegal River. Now young people, with no crocodiles to hunt or fish to catch, live facing cultural upheaval, caught between tradition and modernity.

Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund Production Grant

THE CHILDREN’S WIZARD ACCUSED

Producer: Nadège Ndembo

Director: Camille Mouyeke

Production Company: Horten’s Films

Country: Congo

Allegra, Thierry, and Mara are child witches, who have been driven from their families. In the streets and cities in Central Africa there are thousands like them, ages 2 to 16, who are accused of witchcraft and who, left to fend for themselves, stretch the limits of human dignity and the rights of the child.

JUST A BAND: THE MOVIE

Producers and Directors: Wanuri Kahiu & Anjali Nayar

Country: Kenya

JUST A BAND: THE MOVIE is a kaleidoscopic portrait of four artistically eclectic twenty-somethings who form Kenya’s super nerdy Afro-electro-pop group Just A Band. The film follows them through projects and performances – from their out-of-control street parties in downtown Nairobi to the making of their blaxploitation music-mentry HA-HE, which became Kenya’s first Internet meme.

NORWEGIAN CRIME IN CONGO

Producer and Director: Djo Tunda Munga

Production Company: Suka! Productions

Country: Democratic Republic of Congo

Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French, two Norwegians citizens, were found guilty by a Congolese military tribunal of the death of a taxi driver in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo, in September 2009. Behind the crime, thriller and investigation, the documentary will look at how the Congolese population is trapped in an environment where justice, the State, Western diplomacy and almost everything are dysfunctional.

WHOSE COUNTRY

Director and Producer: Mohamed Siam

Production Company: Arthkhana

Country: Egypt

Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Siam fervently seeks to expose the dark underbelly of the police through the uninhibited accounts of two assistant police officers who have served, for more than a decade, the old Egyptian regime. Enabled and encouraged by their police superiors to exercise power unjustly, the characters in the film recount stories of how Egyptian citizens have been harassed, kidnapped, tortured and, in some cases, even killed.