Experiencing Interruptions?

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
    Film Festival Film 2019 | 48 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
  • Perivi Katjavivi
    Director
    Film Festival Film 2019 | 48 mins | co-director Mpumelelo Mcata | World Premiere at the 69th Berlinale with Forum Expanded. Emoyeni: Nsanguluko 2018 | 60 mins | Director | SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation). The Unseen 2016 | 70mins | Writer/Director/Producer | PAFF; Durban International Film Festival; LAFF; Busan; New Voices in Black Cinema; CAFF; AFRIFF; CinemAfrica; Winner, Best Film, Innsbruck; Nominated for 6 Namibia Film Awards; Special screening at the British Foreign Office 2017. My Beautiful Nightmare 2012 | 12 mins | Writer/Director | Winner, Best Actress, Namibia Film Awards 2012; Winner, Luxor African Film Festival 2013; Special Recognition Award from the California Legislature Assembly 2013.
  • Anna Teeman
    Producer
    Film Festival Film 2019 | 48 mins | co-directors Perivi Katjavivi & Mpumelelo Mcata | 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. How to Re-establish a Vodka Empire 2012 | 75 mins | Co- producer | BFI London Film Festival. Without Gorky 2011 | 86 mins | Co-producer | Sheffield Doc/Fest; LA Film Festival; Documentary Fortnight Festival; Museum of Modern Art New York; Australian Centre for the Moving Image Melbourne Australia; BBC Storyville. The Battle for Barking 2010 | 85mins| Co-producer | Sheffield Doc/ Fest; More 4. Sprint 2008 | 90 mins | Producer | BBC TV.
  • Mpumelelo Mcata
    Producer
    Film Festival Film 2019 | 48 mins | co-directors Perivi Katjavivi & Mpumelelo Mcata | World Premiere at the 69th Berlinale with Forum Expanded.
  • Perivi Katjavivi
    Producer
    Film Festival Film 2019 | 48 mins | co-directors Perivi Katjavivi & Mpumelelo Mcata | World Premiere at the 69th Berlinale with Forum Expanded.
  • Lindiwe Matshikiza
    Key Cast
    "Fanon"
    Film Festival Film (dir. Mpumelelo Mcata & Perivi Katjavivi / 2019) We Live in Silence (dir. Kudzanai Chiurai / 2017) Omnyama (dir. Zamo Mkhwanazi / 2017) Silent Form (dir. Simon Wood / 2017) Beast Fur (dir. Jemma Kahn / 2017) Imbizo ka Mafavuke (dir. Uriel Orlow / 2017) Plastika (dir. Lindiwe Matshikiza / 2015) Black President (dir. Mpumelelo Mcata / 2015) Four Corners (dir. Ian Gabriel / 2014) Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (dir. Justin Chadwick / 2013) Zone 14 (dir. (selected episodes) Lindiwe Matshikiza / 2011) Will to Power (dir. Michael Macgarry / 2010) Philia (dir. Zamo Mkhwanazi / 2010) Jozi (dir. Craig Freimond / 2009) State of Violence (dir. Khalo Matabane / 2009) Silent Witness (dir. Tim Fywell / 2008)
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Runtime:
    47 minutes 58 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 8, 2019
  • 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
  • World Preimeire Forum Expanded Berlinale 2019
    Berlin
    Germany
    February 8, 2019
    World
    Official Selection
  • Encounters
    Johannesburg and Cape Town
    South Africa
    African premiere
    Official Selection
  • Wallay Barcelona African Film Festival
    Barcelona
    Spain
    April 17, 2019
    Spanish premiere
    Offical Selection
Distribution Information
  • Anna Teeman
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Mpumelelo Mcata, Perivi Katjavivi

Mpumelelo Mcata 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.

Perivi Katjavivi is an award winning Namibian filmmaker. He was born in Oxford, England to an English mother and a Namibian father. He grew up in Windhoek, Namibia and studied film at Columbia College in Los Angeles where he attained his BA.
His first feature film The Unseen played at several film festivals including Busan, in competition at Durban and won Best Film at Innsbruck in Austria. Perivi’s second feature, Film Festival Film, co-directed with Mpumelelo Mcata, world premiered with Forum Expanded at the 69th Berlinale in February 2019.
Perivi holds an MA in African Cinema from the University of Cape Town and is a PhD candidate in Visual History at the University of the Western Cape. He is a Berlin and Durban Talents alumni and was mentored under Haile Gerima at the Luxor African Film Festival’s yearly workshop series.
Aside, he has written extensibly for the Windhoek Observer, Africa is a Country and OkayAfrica on issues such as culture, identity, race and genocide. He has presented papers at the University of Westminster, Nottingham Trent University and SOAS focusing primarily on African cinema.

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, & continue to try to better understand the complex relationships & responsibilities we have in cinema, not just with our local scenes but what it means both having to square those interests with the global film industry, and in our ongoing conversation, through our work, with our home, international and global audiences within and without of the African continent.