By Iminza Keboge
Published February 14, 2018
A television series festival shall take place in Zanzibar in July 2018.
Organised by DISCOP Zanzibar, the inaugural Zanzibar TV Series Festival shall run in the framework of the 21st annual Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF).
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“With Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google planning to spend up to US$15 billion on film, television and online content in 2018 and with millennials raised on streaming,” says Patrick Zuchowicki, General Manager of DISCOP Markets, “the time has come to celebrate entertainment content as a whole and bring to the attention of the Zanzibar public the world’s foremost creators to TV series, and provide the best ones with a well-deserved award.”
Fabrizio Colombo, Festival Director of ZIFF, says ZIFF has added the Best TV Series and the Best Web Series categories to its awards in 2018.
“With the big step this year of ZIFF’s partnership of DISCOP Zanzibar, we are ready and excited to welcome all the players in the business of film, television and content production,” Colombo says. “ZIFF is one of the first festivals in Africa to recognise the importance and power of both TV and web content. These awards, along with related workshops and discussions, represent ZIFF’s commitment to growing the whole of the East African content industry.”
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The aim of the Zanzibar TV Series Festival that shall run July 11 – 13, 2018 and highlight series from all over the world, Zuchowicki and Colombo say, is to give an international voice to this increasingly popular and fiercely creative new art form. They say the Zanzibar TV Series Festival will celebrate excellence and create a stage on which the foremost creators in the world of TV series come together, tomorrow’s talents are showcased and an international competition for series of all shapes and forms is presented.
Consequently, ZIFF and DISCOP Zanzibar invite African produced or co-produced and broadcast content within the last two years for consideration for the Best African TV Series. Three episodes have to be submitted for consideration by the March 15, 2018 deadline.
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