Private Project

Film Festival Film

Fanon is an ambitious young African filmmaker attending an international
film festival. She is desperately looking for a producer to fund her debut
feature film but the more that Fanon explores and observes the festival
space the more she begins to question whether she will ever find her place in
this world.
A self-reflexive project documenting the film industry from the point of
view of a black African female filmmaker called Fanon.

  • Mpumelelo Mcata
    Director
    Black President (2015)
  • Perivi Katjavivi
    Director
    The Unseen (2016)
  • Anna Teeman
    Producer
    Black President (2015)
  • Anna Teeman
    Producer
    Film Festival Film (2019)
  • Lindiwe Matshikiza
    Key Cast
    "Fanon"
    Film Festival Film (2019)
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Genres:
    Docu-Fiction
  • Runtime:
    47 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    7,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    South Africa
  • Country of Filming:
    South Africa
  • Language:
    English, Zulu
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Berlin International Film Festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    February 8, 2019
    World Premiere
Director Biography - Mpumelelo Mcata, Perivi Katjavivi

Mpumelelo is one of South Africa’s leading artists and
cultural activists.
Best known as one part of internationally acclaimed award
winning South African rock band the BLK JKS -
Mpumelelo plays the guitar, self-taught at that, but he is
quick to remind us...that he is not a guitarist. Mpumelelo is
somewhat of a polymath and considers himself a conduit
and artist who is as passionate about film or art in general
as he is about music. He is an autodidact musician and
filmmaker.
Black President - his debut feature - a creative
documentary set in the life and work of celebrated
Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai - world premiered
as part of Forum Expanded at the 65th Berlinale in 2015
and had its African premiere at the 2015 Durban
International Film Festival as well as taking part in the
Durban FilmMart 2011.
Mpumelelo is currently developing An African Thrillogy
- a fiction feature trilogy, comprising the films:
Somebody Has Got To Do It; White City; and Black
Sunlight.

His second feature Film Festival Film, co-directed with
Perivi Katjavivi, World Premiered at the 69th
Berlinale in February 2019.

PREVIOUS WORK

Film Festival Film 2019 | 46 mins | co-director
Perivi Katjavivi | World Premiere at the 69th
Berlinale with Forum Expanded.

Black President 2015 | 79 mins | Berlinale 2015; Durban
International Film Festival 2015; Film Africa 2015; Africa in
Motion 2015; CinemAfrica 2015; Afrikanische Filmtage
2015; T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival
2015; Festival Cinema Africano 2015; Matutu Festival of
Stories 2015.

Twin Lakes 2013 |2 mins | A short film in response to
Trayvon Martin’s murder featuring artists from the US State
Department's Cultural Diplomacy Program “One Beat” in
which Mpumelelo also participated as a musician.

Motèl Mari - Just Like A King 2012 | 4 mins | Official Video.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In response to the “Wakandafication” of the African cultural revolution,
Film Festival Film
is a movie shot over a weekend... at a film festival, namely the
Durban International Film Festival in South Africa, with resources
scrounged together by all its contributors. A grand achievement within & of
itself.
What we have achieved philosophically, by finishing the film, is
showing others that it can be done, great & impactful art can be made, without necessarily waiting for those vultures - who only see art as a vehicle
for their propaganda or its commercial viability & nothing else - to swoop in.
This belief that the mark of good work lies primarily in its commercial
viability is a deeply dangerous way of thinking, a ruthless model of
understanding what success is.
We as team Film Festival Film would like to
contribute to the conversation that questions Hyper Capitalism, interrogates
the idea of what a good film is & who gets to decide that, who gets to decide
who gets to make a film in the first place & why?
We are very much
interested in this discussion.
Especially as young African/Afro-Centric filmmakers who have travelled to
screen work internationally, continuing to try to better understand the
complex relationships & responsibilities we have in cinema, not just with ourselves, or our local, but also what it means both having to square those interests with the
global film industry's system, an ongoing conversation, through our work with international and global audiences within and without of the
African continent. Film Festival Film looks at this maelstrom dead in the eye.