The Adiaha Award includes a $2,000 cash component as well as an invitation to attend the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund/Colgone in February 2021.
The Ladima Foundation will be awarding its Adiaha Prize for Best Documentary by an African woman filmmaker at the 22nd Encounters Documentary Film Festival taking place in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa from June 4 to 14, 2020.
In the past, the Adiaha Award has been awarded twice at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2017 and 2018. The 2018 winner, Phillipa Ndisi-Herrmann’s New Moon went on to win Best Documentary at the Durban International Film Festival.
The Adiaha Award includes a $2,000 cash component to be used on the director’s next film, as well as an invitation to attend the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund/Colgone (Internationales Frauenfilmfestival Dortmund | Köln) in February 2021.
The Award is just one of the initiatives of the Ladima Foundation in its work to promote and support African women filmmakers.
Ladima aims to support women in a variety of roles within filmmaking, video production and related content development, through a range of projects and interventions.
Women documentary filmmakers from across Africa are encouraged to submit their films to Encounters, which is one of Africa’s longest running and most respected documentary film festivals. The Adiaha Award will be added to the existing award categories at the festival and will be announced on the closing night of the event.
African film submissions are exempt from the submission fee while a nominal submission fee of $15 is charged for International entries.
Encounters has always had a strong Pan-African mandate, and ahead of the 2020 festival is further reaching out across the continent to encourage filmmakers, especially women, to submit their films.
Commenting on hosting the Adiaha Award in 2020, Encounters Festival Director Mandisa Zitha said: “It’s very special for Encounters to host the Adiaha Award at the 22nd edition. To be able to welcome African filmmakers to the Festival over the years has been a privilege, and the Award is a wonderful partnership to strengthen collaboration amongst African documentary filmmakers.”
