ZIFF introduces new category for women

Calls on female documentary filmmakers to enter

GOSEGO MOTSUMI

The Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) last week announced a new special jury award category open specifically to women documentary filmmakers from Africa. The category dubbed, the Adiaha Award for Best African Female Documentary Filmmaker will be offered for the first time at the 20th edition of ZIFF, taking place from 8th to 16th July 2017.

“Adiaha means first daughter in the Ibibio language of Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria, not only will the winner be the 1st daughter of African Documentary Filmmaking, but she will also go home with USD2000 cash, a prestigious Adiaha Statue, and a certificate of award,” said one of the award sponsor and creator Lara Preston of Red Flag, South Africa.

The award has been created and sponsored by Edima Otuokon of OMESS (Nigeria) and Lara Preston of Red Flag (South Africa), both entrepreneurial women who have been involved in the film industry and are also actively involved in ZIFF.  Recognizing a gap within the awards at the festival, Edima and Lara aim to raise the profile on documentary filmmaking on the continent, and more specifically to ensure that more female filmmakers all over Africa get involved in the development of documentaries.

According to Preston in this the 20th anniversary edition of ZIFF, it is hoped that more female filmmakers than ever will submit films. She says submissions are open to all African women filmmakers and the deadline for submissions is the 15th March 2017. For all submission and related criteria entrants can visit http://www.ziff.or.tz/ziff-2017-film-submission/ to submit their works.