By Irene Gaitirira
Published November 12, 2015

le mamans by Maimouna DocoureA United Kingdom registered art charity has begun an online art exhibition series “to showcase our artists, and to raise money for our pioneering education programmes in Kenya”.

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M A S K School for Creativity and Innovation, the organisation that was previously known as Mobile Art School in Kenya (MASK), says in a press statement issued on November 11, 2015 that its first show, that is running November 11, 2015-February 11, 2016, is dedicated to Churchill Ongere, a 22-year-old university student of Political Science “who ‘builds’ his collages out of old newspapers, embossed paper and payment receipts.”

mobile art school in kenya, MASK prize 2015, nairobi

The charity, that says it “discovered Churchill through our annual MASK Prize”, further says Ongere grew up ‘around art’ and that he has been “expressing himself through poetry, singing and painting.”

Ahmed Nour's WAVES wins Audience's Choice award at Africa in Motion in Scotland 2015MASK says proceeds from its online sales shall be split evenly between the artist and MASK; “50% of the sales will go to the artist, and 50% – to our charity MASK.”

Appealing for support “to foster young people’s creative skills,” MASK says its surveys show that 90% of business chief executives say that recruiting employees with creative skills is a primary concern, but 80% of them have difficulty finding such employees. Government policies fail to foster young people’s creative skills and, thus, not adequately preparing them for employment.”

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While Luxor African Film Festival (luxorafricanfilmfestival.com/en/Festival/SubmitYourFilm/), whose 5th annual edition is scheduled for March 17-23, 2016, is accepting films till December 15, 2015, Scotland’s 10th Africa in Motion film festival has announced the winners of its Best Short, Best Documentary and Audience’s Choice awards.

LE MAMANS (Mothers), by Maimouna Docoure, has won the Best Short Film Award and Audience’s Choice Prize. The inaugural Best Documentary Award has gone to COMING OF AGE by Teboho Edkins with the Audience’s Choice going to WAVES by Ahmed Nour.

5th luxor african film festival call for films

Also of interest in our Africa-related arts initiatives this week is a screenwriters residency called ‘Realness’ whose call is open to screenwriters from across Africa November 1, 2016-January 31, 2016 (or until 120 applications have been received, whichever comes first).

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Interested participants are required to send in a PDF dossier containing:
*a motivation for wanting to participate in REALNESS (1 page)
*a synopsis of the proposed feature project (1 page)
*a treatment of the proposed feature project (6 pages)
*a draft of the screenplay
*a writer’s note of intention (1 page)
*a short biography (1 paragraph)
*two links to samples of previously produced work, uploaded to vimeo. If selected, residents will be required to donate one copy of their previous work to the Nirox film library.

AScene from Maimouna Docoure's LE MAMANS (Mothrs) that won Best Short Film Award at Africa in Motion 2015

Presented by Urucu Media, under the mentorship of Berlinale Talents, in partnership with Nirox, Durban Filmmart, Restless Talent Management, The French Institute in South Africa and Institute Français’s Cinémas du Monde, all material to Realness, that must be in English, are to be submitted to realness@urucumedia.com.

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