The 2020 edition of iREPRESENT International Documentary Film Festival has been postponed indefinitely. A statement by Co-Founder/Executive Director, Femi Odugbemi, said the painful decision is to keep the country and festival participants safe.
“Over the past weeks, the world has been facing an unprecedented challenge. As a responsible
organisation that takes safety seriously, we want to do all we can to help keep our country and
our participants safe and healthy. In view of the Novel Corona Virus pandemic, the Foundation
for the Promotion of Documentary Film in Africa, organisers of the popular iREPRESENT
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL has taken the hard decision to postpone the
year 2020 festival indefinitely.
“We clearly understand the preparation that may have gone into the decision to attend the
festival. We commend the loyalty of our long standing partners and international collaborators,
but to see that a lot of our resource persons and guests outside of Nigeria would not be able to
make it to the festival is quite unfortunate, and moving the festival to a later date when we might
all be able to celebrate the 10th anniversary of iREP Film Festival together, is a good course of
action,” said the statement.
It further said the organisers have constantly followed global developments on COVID-19 and have been monitoring appropriate sources for accurate and up-to-date information, and believe the decision is the responsible thing to do, “more so as we are expecting guests from Europe and America”.
It promised to monitor the situation, evaluate the risk actively and communicate a new date to the public soon.
“We recognize that this is a challenging period globally, much as we are committed to the Arts, we are equally committed to the safety of our guests, staff and our country. We sincerely hope that you would find the time to join us when a new date is announced. Please take care of yourself and stay safe. Thank you.”