Hubert Bals, Jan Vrijman funds plan tour of African festivals

Hubert Bals Fund and Jan Vrijman Fund, which provide support to filmmakers in developing countries, have set up a joint film programme that will tour film festivals in Africa from early July until March 2011.

The Cinema Mondial Tour kicks off first in Tanzania at the Zanzibar International Film Festival, then at the Rwanda Film Festival. Other events will include the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.

The programme includes 12 fiction films and documentaries all made with support from the funds.

HBF films from Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Argentina and Malaysia will be screened, for example. The JVF-supported documentaries come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Iran and Russia.

An advance look at the Cinema Mondial Tour ran in early June at Cameroon’s Ecrans Noir Festival.

This initiative marks the first collaboration between Rotterdam’s HBF with IDFA’s JVF.

From HBF, films are Love Conquers All by Tan Chui Mui; Soul Boy by Hawa Essuman; Un matin bonne heure by Gahité Fofana; Una semana solos by Celina Murga; and Le jardin de papa by Zeka Laplaine.

JVF projects are Congo in Four Acts by Dieudo Hamadi, Divita Wa Lusala and Kiripi Katembo Siku; Glimpse by Dan Jawitz and Alberto Iannuzzi; Santos by Rupinder Jagdev; Sea Point Days by Francois Verster; Shungu, the Resilience of a People by Saki Mafundikwa; Tehran has no more Pomegrenates by Massoud Bakhshi; and Tishe! by Victor Kossakovsky.