Editor

 The AFDA Annual Film Festival

Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban

23, 24 and 25 November 2012

Each year AFDA (The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance) hosts an annual film festival which showcases more than 50 new third year graduates and fourth year honours (post graduate) students’ films.  The festival is a unique opportunity for graduate students to attract and experience an audience in a public cinema environment.

The festival is held at Ster-Kinekor Cinema Nouveau in Johannesburg (Rosebank) and Cape Town (Cavendish) on November 23 and 24 and for the first time in Durban at the Gateway’s Cinema Nouveau on November 25.

“Although it’s a fun and exciting event for everyone concerned, the festival is unique as it uses a audience response rubric directly aligned to the learning inputs and modelling process that AFDA utilizes.” says AFDA Chairman Garth Holmes. “This gives students the experience of the visceral emotional response of the audience – a key learning moment in terms of learning to identify and develop audiences for the future”.

This year will also see the festival go online for the first time – a pilot process driven by the AFDA digital innovation laboratory and two of its key participants Wicus Labuschagne and Jeffrey Rusch.

“We’re constantly sharing and tweeting about experiences, pinning videos for our friends and some might argue that our digital footprint is becoming as much of an identity as the brands we wear on our clothes” says Labuschagne.

The AFDA Online Festival website www.afdafestival.com which allows people to interact with the films they see at the Cinema Festivals.  The AFDA Online Festival website will also showcase film that you can’t watch at the Cinema Festival. Second year films, fourth year documentaries and even a few first year films will be included online.

The online festival will be run for a week after the Ster Kinekor festival and there will be activities prior and during the festival from 25 to 30 November.  

The film festival in Johannesburg begins at 11h45 to 23h00 on Friday, November 23 and 12h15 to 22h00 on Saturday, November 24; in Cape Town from 11h30 to 23h00 Friday, November 23 and 10h30 to 22h00 on Saturday, November 24 and Durban from 10h00 to 20h00 on Sunday, November 25. There are a total of 24 hours of fascinating short films to take in.

Tickets for Johannesburg are R20 per screening, Cape Town are R15 per screening and Durban’s screenings are free. (Donations, however are welcome which will go to Vision Mission - Ster Kinekor's  CSI initiative to assist youngsters in underpriveleged communities by identifying and helping those with visual problems nationwide.)

For the programme, trailers and behind the scenes info for the festival go to www.afdafestival.com