Nineteen filmmakers have been approved to represent the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in June in the UK with the financial assistance of the Department of Trade and Industry’s SASS scheme. The opportunity to apply to these missions is only available to paid-up members of the DFA although training sessions for market readiness are open to all interested filmmakers.

In Cape Town, SAGE member Khalid Shamis shared his experiences as a seasoned documentary editor and filmmaker, including his own films The Iman and I and The Colonel’s Stray Dogs. Khalid also shared tips on improving the story aspects of a pitch and how to develop marketing materials that will support successful market attendance.

The Cape Town session held at InvestCape thanks to Wesgro Film, included time for networking and peer feedback on the projects shared.

Project Manager of Afridocs Theresa Hill shared her deep experience and understanding of the importance of distribution planning and gave invaluable tips on contracting and negotiating deal-making as a documentary filmmaker.

The CPT workshop video is now available for viewing. Please note that we compressed the videos quite a bit to an mp4 in order to ease upload and download. Should you want higher resolution versions, feel free to contact us and we can arrange a collection (you’ll have to provide memory stick/hard drive).
Opening & Welcome – Liezel Vermeulen (23min)
Proposal Writing, Story Aspects & Marketing Material – Khalid Shamis (2hrs 15min)
Co-Productions & Pitching – Theresa Hill (1hr 45min)

The Johannesburg Shefffield Doc/Fest workshop was held at Media 24 with Sihle Hlophe and Sifiso Khanyile sharing tips on making the most of attending such a market. The JHB video will be available for viewing in the next two weeks.