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Entries for the iREPRESENT International documentary film festival 2019 will open soon. The festival organizers have fixed a September date for the submission of films for the festival. More details on how to submit your films will be released later
The iREP Film Forum in partnership with Orange Academy will hold an exchange programme on the 25th of August 2018. The programme is a discussion and mentorship session with Femi Odugbemi. It would hold on Saturday 25th August, at Freedom Park Lagos, by 10am prompt.
This month we would screen Ariadne Asimakopoulos & Maartje Wegdam’s No Place For Rebel and a short film Eno by Yemi ‘Filmboy’ Morafa.
The venue is Freedom Park Lagos, and screening starts by 6pm prompt.
No Place For Rebel
Opono Opondo grew up to become a war commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army of Joseph Kony. Sixteen years after his abduction by the rebels, Opono must fight for acceptance back home, in a place where he doesn’t know the codes and conventions and where the neighbors fear him. The film shows Opono’s fight for his future, while struggling to come to terms with his past and to reconcile with his family.
Eno
Three ladies are at loggerheads with themselves after going through an ordeal, they must come to a compromise eventually.
iREP News and Updates
The Human Shelter a film directed by Boris Benjamin has been selected as the opening film of the 2019 edition of the iREPRESENT International Documentary Film Festival. The film explores the different living conditions of people around the world and what the idea of home means to them.The narrative has a subtle undertone about perspectives and how we see things differently in our worlds
iREP 2017 UPDATES, irep News & Reports, iREP News and Updates, News/Media Reports
In 2010 Makin Soyinka, Jahman Anikulapo and I founded the I-Represent international documentary film festival in Lagos. Since then, We have made some progress making a case for rebuilding a vibrant documentary cinema culture in Nigeria. Our annual documentary festival has screened over 250 films from across the world partnering with other documentary festivals such as the Dok.fest in Munich Germany and the WADF out of the University Missouri in St. Louis Missouri and the New York University’s African Studies department. We have vigorously advocated documentary cinema as an important art form, yes, but more so as a powerful tool for empowering new voices and new perspectives on the issues of our political and cultural history and our development agenda within the framework of our ambitions for development, constitutional liberties, human rights, social justice and democracy. That is why IREP chose from inception to frame our intervention on the theme “Africa in self-conversation.” The clear recognition being that, Nigeria needs more than a cinema that entertains. Whilst we must continue to celebrate the emergence and growth of our Nollywood industry as an artistic and economic engine projecting globally the realities of our culture in fictional cinema, non-fiction day-to-day realities of institutional corruption, poor governance, gender inequality, ethnic divisions and economic paralysis of our country challenge our sense of responsibility as artistes. Our film industry is stronger and more relevant to our community if our filmmakers, can be persuaded to also turn their cameras on questions of important social issues armed with the power and perspective that makes documentary cinema so compelling. For me and for IREP, Making the case for documentary cinema at every opportunity such as today presents, is an on-going conversation. We need all of us in Nollywood especially to continue to hear it. The vibrance of our industry, the audience attention we have gained, gives us huge power to which we must now add purpose. Someone said filmmaking is an “act of provocation.” Perhaps the irony of Nollywood’s success, in this regard, may be that after these many years we are challenged to wonder what is the subversive value of our thriving cinema culture? What is our artistic response to the stagnation of development in our nation? We cannot continue to abdicate the space for the public intellectual to silly NYGoodHealth online bloggers and compromised newspaper columnists. The world is going through a whirlwind of complex issues on many fronts that challenge our understanding of the world, of ourselves and how we sustain our pursuit of peace and prosperity. These challenges are urgent and critical. They demand a response. As artistes, WE ARE THE RESPONSE! In a world of Sound-bites, documentaries provide us an opportunity to think, understand, and connect the dots. They are exploring the issues of our time, offering perspective, historical context and possibilities. They are controversial, divisive, fascinating, unexpected, and surprising. That is because Documentary is not a deliberate art form. It starts from questions not answers. Its success relies not in having all the answers, but in asking the right questions. And because development is a conscious agenda that requires mass mobilization, documentary cinema is a desirable “ideology” embracing diverse voices and realities.