By Ogova Ondego
Published July 21, 2015

Filmmaker Zipporah Nyaruri in discussion with Moderator Ogova Ondego during 43rd monthly Lola Kenya Screen film forum in Nairobi in 2011A film project by a Kenyan has been selected for development at South Africa’s 6th Durban Film Mart (DFM).

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TRUCK MAMA, a documentary film set in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and that revolves around women truck drivers and the challenges they face on the road, was on July 2015 awarded the most promising documentary project by the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA). The award gives writer/director/producer Zipporah Nyaruri the chance to attend the IDFA Forum–touted as the largest and most influential meeting place for documentary directors, producers, commissioning editors, funders, and other key players in the documentary sector in Europe–that is scheduled for November 23-25, 2015.

Additionally, TRUCK MAMA, whose trailer was shown and discussed during the
43rd monthly Lola Kenya Screen film forum (LKSff) on January 31, 2011 where Nyaruri was described as the ‘next big thing on Kenya’s film sector’, also received a €3000 grant from Afridocs, a platform that streams documentaries across 49 sub-Saharan African countries for what Afridocs described as “an outstanding documentary project”.

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Tapiwa ChipfupaNyaruri’s other works–ZEBU AND THE PHOTO FISH (2010) and MAAMA EMERRE (2008), were screened and discussed at LKSff at Nairobi’s Goethe-Institut in 2011.

Whereas MAAMA EMERRE that captures the women who cook and hawk food in Kampala captured the imagination of the audience, ZEBU AND THE PHOTO FISH on the ingenuity of a boy who resques his family from economic exploitation was declared the Best Kenyan Film award by the Children’ Jury of the 6th annual Lola Kenya Screen festival, skills-development programme and marketing platform for children and youth in eastern Africa.

Working variously as director, writer and editor, Nyaruri is an independent filmmaker who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from Uganda Islamic University and a diploma from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication.

Winners at Durban Film Mart 2015

Also winning in South Africa were director/producer team of Kenya’s Simon Mukali and Uganda’s Nathan Magoola and and Zimbabwe’s director/producer Tapiwa Chipfupa.

Nathan MagoolaSUNFLOWERS BEHIND A DIRTY FENCE, a fiction project directed by Mukali and produced by Magoola, won the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s CineMart Award

that shall see the director and producer attend Rotterdam Lab, a five-day training and networking event that brings together producers from all over the world.

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THE OTHER HALF OF THE AFRICAN SKY, directed and produced by Chipfupa, won the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Programme award for demonstrating “potential for strong storytelling craft, artistic use of visual language, originality, feasibility, and relevance”. It also received a cash award of US$7000 for development.

South African Norman Maake-directed and Peter Pohorsky-produced INKABI: THE HITMAN won Videovision Entertainment’s Best South African Film Project that is worth ZAR75000.

France’s Produire au Sud of Festival des 3 Continents also awarded INKABI: THE HITMAN the opportunity to attend its developmental workshop programme.

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Two South African projects–LUCKY by Jacobus van Heerden and BRACE YOURSELF by Thati Peele–won The Restless Pitch’s one-on-one consultation with Restless Talent Management co-founder Tendeka.

RIOT WAIF, a project directed by Zinaid Meeran and produced by Jean Meeran of South Africa was awarded the opportunity to be presented to film companies at 10th NCN in Rome, courtesy of New Cinema Network.