The French government's efforts to nurture south-south co-operation amongst producers internationally, moved to a new level at the Cannes film festival this year, with its sponsorship of several participants from last year's Produire au Sud Inter-continental Workshop for Producers from Southern Countries to attend Cannes 2005.
Workshop director Guillaume Marion selected several producers from the 2003 and 2004 programmes to receive sponsorship for the Cannes festival and market, as well as the Producer's Network, which brings together producers from all over the world through very well structured daily breakfast meetings during the Cannes festival. I was honoured to be selected to attend as one of only two producers from Africa (along with Mak Kusare of Nigeria) to represent My Secret Sky, to be directed by Madoda Ncayiyana.
Cannes tends to be dominated by big players from North America and Europe, so the collegial relations between producers "from the South" was a welcome contrast. Like the Three Continents Festival that hosts the Inter-continental Workshop, producers from Africa, Latin America and Asia were able to meet and share information and experiences at the Cinemas du Sud (Cinemas of the South) pavilion at Cannes. Along with South Africa's well presented pavilion, both places were great venues for meetings.
"Producing in the South: Cannes 2005" hosted a series of afternoon seminars taking the form of case studies on the development, production and distribution of five films "from the South" that were screened in official selection or "Un Certain Regard". The most lively and well attended session was the case study on Battle in Heaven by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas, a Mexican-French-German co-production.
Another example of French support for South African filmmaking is the award of funding from Fonds Images Afriques to the feature film in development, My Secret Sky. In addition, a June scriptwriting workshop is being sponsored by the French Embassy in South Africa. French audio-visual attaché Laurent Allary has brought French script expert Jacques Akchoti to Johannesburg for a week-long workshop on three of Dv8's films in development: My Secret Sky, Victor Chicken and My Little Black Heart.
Posted on Tuesday 30 Nov 1999
Festival Daily
Market Daily
