The iREPRESENT International Documentary Film Festival (IREP) has announced a joint virtual film fest in conjunction with the US-based African World Documentary Film Festival (AWDFF). A joint-statement statement by the organisers said the event will take place from March 18-21, documentary filmmakers from 26 countries will converge in the virtual space to showcase their works to diverse audiences around the world. While 60 films sourced from filmmakers in 26 countries in five of six continents of the world will be screened.
The AWDFF is at the School of Theatre, Television, & Film at San Diego State University.
Other collaborators, the organisers stated further, have been drawn from Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Rwanda and the Caribbean.
“Staying in faith with its usual thematic thrust, Africa in Self-Conversation, the entire events – screenings, conversations, lectures, producers’ conventions, etc — will happen in the virtual world. This is occasioned by the prevalent COVID-19 pandemic, which has rendered physical gatherings impossible, especially due to its stringent protocols,” said the statement.
Recall that the advent of the pandemic had also halted the plan by the Lagos-based iREP to stage its grand 10th anniversary edition in 2020 as the necessitated lockdown was announced on the eve of the starting of the festival.
“Through the collaboration of both Lagos-based iREP and San Diego, US-based AWDFF, however, the documentary world will be treated to a feast of flicks that have been carefully curated to reflect the diversities of human experiences through themes that cut across social, cultural and political issues that affect the collective human family,” the organisers stated.
The virtual option, the organisers added, has enabled them to harvest films from even greater numbers of countries and filmmakers; and especially the notion of bringing Africa and its diverse diasporas together has been greatly enabled by the virtual option.
“IREP-AWDFF 2021 is a necessary child of circumstances. In the world we currently inhabit, there is hardly any other way to realise the full potential of an international film festival of our pedigree than to collaborate and cooperate with other organisations with similar objectives. Luckily, we have always been in partnership with the AWDFF in our past 10 editions but we have also expanded to accommodate collaborations from colleagues in Cameroon, Rwanda, South Africa, and The Caribbean,” said Femi Odugbemi, Executive Director of iREP.
Why the Theme: AFRICA IN SELF-CONVERSATION, drawn from the founding conceptual framework of the iREP Documentary Film Forum, is designed to promote awareness about the power of the documentary format to serve as a means of deepening and sharing social and cultural education as well as encouraging participatory democracy in African societies.