HARARE - Over 20 Zimbabwean productions will be showcased at this year’s International Images Film Festival (IIFF) which will run from August 15 to 23 under the theme, “ Women Alive: Women of Heart.”
Short films account for half of the productions that will be on show this year.
The short films that will be showcased are Course Salt, Five Minutes to Shiloh, Blurred, Yeukai, S’thandwa Sami, Letters, Yamaha, Saved, The Christening and Ma 1.
The rest of the films, which include about five feature productions, include Two Villages Apart, When The Voice Sings, Dust and Fortunes, My Lady, Moonlight Cross, Stitch In Time, Water and urbanisation, Shungu Dzevana, The Journey From Rural to Ramp and Ruramiso’s Story.
Charmaine Mujeri, the IIFF public relations officer, told the Daily News that they settled for only 20 films because most of the available films could not meet their stringent standards.
“It might be a case of the storyline. Is it on the same levels as Neria?
“Are the actors good, are they doing what their roles demand? Is it the director? So many films fall short because of small details,” she said.
Mujeri, however, attributes most of the technical shortcoming of local films to lack of resources.
“I am sure the minute we set a standard for our films and take the time to engage the right sound person, lighting experts, make -up, it just changes so much.
“We have more short films available because they are cheaper to produce,” she said.
“Most filmmakers are frustrated by the lack of resources. We need more support to tell our Zimbabwean stories.
“There is so much we can talk about like the Ndebele State, Monomotapa, Nehanda and Kaguvi but we are hamstrung by lack of resources.”
The IIFF, the only annual women’s film festival in sub-Saharan Africa, provides a unique focus theme that attracts the best and most interesting films from around the world.
IIFF aims to engage, interrogate and inspire positive images of women and women’s narratives through film screenings.