adminLovemore Meya : Arts Correspondent
Organisers of the ongoing International Images Film Festival have bemoaned the unwillingness of local filmmakers to partake in the festival, which has seen regional and international players’ productions taking centre stage this year IIFF programme coordinator Karen Mukwasi said the event was going well, but local filmmakers were losing an opportunity to shine by failing to take part in the festival.“A very big challenge has been getting local content because we sent out a call that was international and all the responses we got were films from other countries,” said Mukwasi.
“We then sent out a specific call to Zimbabweans through our channels and we had 14 submissions with only one feature film.”
She said the feature film was still not complete since it was in post-production stage as result of failure to do it on time.
“The filmmaker had challenges in post-production, so could not deliver it on time. Other filmmakers for other reasons could also not submit their films and we ended up going with a catalogue with 11 Zimbabwean films, one made in diaspora while the rest were shot in the country.”
However, Mukwasi said the unimpressive response was actually better than last year.
“Last year we had six Zimbabwean films in the competition including fiction and three documentaries. However, as long as we do not have feature films, these Zimbabwean films cannot compete for the Sadc category.
“It becomes a very huge challenge because we would like to see Zimbabwean filmmakers contesting for the big honours at IIFF rather than being stuck in the local competition.”
She said despite poor figures in terms of participation, another major challenge was on meeting deadlines.
However, Mukwasi said they are happy they never dropped the Zimbabwean competition despite the challenges in terms of film-making that will be addressed in the next edition of the festival. A total of 59 films made it to this year’s festival.
Online Reporter