Each year AFDA (The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance) hosts an annual film festival which showcases more than 50 new third year graduates and fourth year honours (post graduate) students’ films. This year, the festival comes to Durban for the first time, with FREE screenings at Gateway’s Cinema Nouveau on 25 November.
In the photo: behind the scenes on ‘Like Clockwork’ – part of the AFDA Festival
The festival is a unique opportunity for graduate students to attract and experience an audience in a public cinema environment. “This gives students the experience of the visceral emotional response of the audience – a key learning moment in terms of learning to identify and develop audiences for the future,” says AFDA Chairman Garth Holmes.
This year will also see the festival go online for the first time – a pilot process driven by the AFDA digital innovation laboratory and two of its key participants Wicus Labuschagne and Jeffrey Rusch.
“We’re constantly sharing and tweeting about experiences, pinning videos for our friends and some might argue that our digital footprint is becoming as much of an identity as the brands we wear on our clothes,” says Labuschagne.
The AFDA Online Festival website www.afdafestival.com allows people to interact with the films they see at the Cinema Festivals. It will also showcase film that you can’t watch at the Cinema Festival. Second year films, fourth year documentaries and even a few first year films will be included online.
The online festival will be run for a week after the Ster Kinekor festival and there will be activities prior and during the festival from 25 to 30 November.
The film festival runs from 10am to 8pm on Sunday, November 25. There are a total of 24 hours of fascinating short films to take in.
Donations are welcome and will go to Vision Mission – Ster Kinekor’s CSI initiative to assist youngsters in underprivileged communities by identifying and helping those with visual problems.
For the programme, trailers and behind the scenes info for the festival, go to www.afdafestival.com.