Rwandan film maker, Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo, emerged the top winner at East Africa’s biggest film, music and arts festival, Zanzibar International Film Festival last week reports New Times.
The 28 year old’s short film ‘A Place for Myself’ won the Sembene Ousmane Award for Best African Short Film, the ZIFF Award 2016 Best Short Film, and the Signis Award 2016 for East African Talent.
A Place for Myself is a film that tells the story of a five year old albino girl who discovers that being different is unique after her classmates and neighbours mock her, with her mother being the only person that looks out for her and encourages her and together they fight the negativity to find ‘ a place for themselves.’
For the first time in the festival’s history, East African fils dominated the awards with Kenyan Nick Reding’s film “WAtatu’ getting the coveted Golden Dhow for the Best Feature Film, Signis Prize and the European African Film Festival award which he shared with another Kenayn fil maker Richard Card and David Kinyajui for their film ‘Zawadi’.
Also known as the Festival of the Dhow countries, the festival seems to be expanding as two categories were introduced this year; Azam Bongo Movie Awards and Com Net Bongo Movie Awards. The nine-day festival ran from July 9-17, had a week of film screenings and other special side events that brought together over 60 filmmakers from across the globe.
The annual festival promotes film, related cultural sectors and players with a view to spur regional socio-economic growth.
