A LECTURER at the Africa Film Academy, Jonathan Samkange, is flying the country’s flag high after a film he directed and videographed won him two accolades and international awards.
Samkange recently added two awards to his trophy cabinet Best Short Film Award by Jury and the Best Short Film Award by Audience for directing and videographing the Angolan short film JOIA.
The film production and travel expenses were met by Cultural Association Creative Impact (ACIC).
After winning the two awards, Samkange said ACIC aimed to impact society through arts, provide, design multi-disciplinary training, talent refining, high quality training and creation, promotion, recognition and valuation of talent through the film works produced by the organisation.
He said: “JOIA is a drama inspired by an exciting true story of a young woman in Angola who experienced a period of great conflict in the province of Benguela, Municipality of Bocoio and in the face of various dangers. Her courage, determination, hope and love are key to facing and overcoming what seemed insurmountable.
“The film production began in Bocoio, with a whole motivated technical team and a fabulous cast composed of talented actors and crew members from different experiences. The actors came from various parts of Angola and were invited to support the process of selecting the cast in Luanda and Benguela by ACIC.”
Samkange said “JOIA, the award-winning Angolan film, was also a winner in Brazil of the Best International Short Film at the Prestigious Paraty International Film Festival. It is with great enthusiasm that we celebrate this great achievement that makes us believe and allows us to go further,
“At another film festival in Portugal, JOlA was the grand winner of FESTin’s best short film.”
- Samkange shoots multi-award-winning film JOIA
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Samkange said winning the two awards was a memorable experience.
The trip to Angola made him realise that meaningful collaboration can help in the development of the film industry in Zimbabwe and Africa at large.
Accordingly, the collaborations in JOIA helped in exchanging technologies and knowledge on scripting, directing and best practices in film production.
“I had the pleasure of travelling to Angola with one of my best students, Terence Ayanda Ndlovu and we filmed for 14 days, in jungles, climbing mountains and crossing rivers. Ndlovu is now in South Africa running his professional film production studio and doing very well for himself,” Samkange said.
“All to tell this amazing story, I hope more and more people watch JOIA. It shows what is possible when we forget our borders and collaborate with each other.
“This was a joint effort between Angola, Zimbabwe and Portugal and we need more. The future is bright for cinema in Africa as our industry is booming. These are truly exciting times to be a filmmaker in Africa.”
