Africa Tourism Film Festival Award Winners Announced
The International Tourism Film Festival Africa (ITFFA) has released the winning entries for the 2020 ITFFA Awards, which can be viewed online from today at (link).
Labelled as the “Lockdown Edition”, the stunning showreel features15 home-grown film winners, each announced by industry celebrities presenting the winning award category video title, client and producer.
The awards were originally scheduled for presentation at the Tourism Film Conference on 07 April in Cape Town, to coincide with World Travel Market Africa (WTM Africa). However, following the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown in mid-march, the event had to be postponed to 2021.
“The decision by Reed Exhibitions, the organiser of WTM Africa, to postpone the event was both justifiable, and unavoidable,” says ITFFA Director, Caroline Ungersbock. “The response to our call for tourism promotional video entries in 2019 was phenomenal and we could not disappoint them by postponing the winner announcement. We simply had to find a way to present the awards. Fortunately, Brendan Stein from SoapBox Productions in Cape Town offered to compile the winners’ showreel, and from there everything fell into place beautifully.”
Leading on from the awards showreel launch, each category winners’ video entry will be promoted on the ITFFA YouTube and social media channels for 15 weeks starting from (week??).
“We’re planning a competition with amazing prizes to tie-in with the weekly roll-outs,” says James Byrne, ITFFA Festival Coordinator. “Each week, over 15 weeks, we will show one of the winners, repeatedly, for that week running from Monday to Friday.
“Our media partners will collectively publish/broadcast the category winners’ video link and invite their respective readers, listeners, viewers and followers to engage by entering the weekly competition and be eligible to win a lucky-draw prize by going to our Instagram page, follow us, and answer a question about the video clip that they have watched.
“On the Friday of each week, radio presenter Jacques de Klerk of ZONE FM will conduct the lucky draw live on air. The winner will then be phoned, and the contributor of the prize will hand it over, live, on-air,” concludes Bryne.
The first-ever film festival of its kind in South Africa, the inaugural tourism film festival took place in Cape Town from 20-24 November 2019. Organised by the Sustainable Tourism Partnership Programme (STPP) in cooperation with the International Committee of Tourism Film Festivals (CIFFT) in Austria, ITFFA’s main aim is to contribute to the development of domestic and international tourism while fostering growth in the local film industry.
To promote South Africa and Africa as tourist destinations, the ITFFA encourages short film productions that showcase South Africa and Africa as tourist destinations and expose the continent to international filmmakers.
International Exposure
The winners of the 2020 ITFFA Awards will now be entered into the CIFFT Awards for international adjudication and screening.
“For its part as an ITFFA partner, CIFFT is acknowledged as the most prestigious awards and recognition initiative in the international travel video marketing industry. With 18 festival members, the Grand Prix CIFFT Circuit is the most exclusive travel and tourism industry video marketing competition, spanning 16 countries and 18 cities,” says CIFFT President, Alexander V. Kammel. “The award-winning tourism film videos will be screened in major cities worldwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Cannes, Riga, Deauville, Baku, Zagreb, Berlin, Vienna, and Warsaw. Participating counties include Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Japan Poland, Portugal, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey.”
Gaining even further exposure for award winners, the 2020 ITFFA Awards showreel will also be screened locally on Durban TV, and internationally to 400 million viewers on TV BRICS in Moscow, and on USA media celebrity Michaela Guzys’ social channel ‘OhThePeopleYouMeet’.
Corporate Social Responsibility
The ITFFA has adopted two Non-Profit Organisations as their CSR initiatives and aims to raise awareness and much-needed funding for these causes.
The Healing Farm in the Koo Valley farming area, just north of Montagu in the Western Klein Karoo, provides a haven of unconditional love, where hurt and broken people come to heal and discover their potential. Their long-term goal is to establish a village, consisting of about six units to house widows, single moms and orphans, and a school.
As a registered NPO, the Healing Farm Haven is finding that funding is hard to come by, especially now that the coronavirus lockdown has stopped their donor collection efforts.
“I have been visiting and supporting this haven for many years now and
anecdotes recited with passion by the farm residents make this NPO a cause worthy for our collective support,” says Byrne.
The second cause, Walk4Africa.org (W4A), is a non-profit multi-stage walkathon project that aims to raise awareness on the United Nations Sustainable Tourism Development Goals (SDGs), to highlight climate change issues, and to create global awareness on Sustainable Tourism in Africa.
The walkathons will circumnavigate Africa’s 38 coastal countries and ocean islands and will become the world’s longest multi-stage walkathon when it concludes the distance of approximately 40,000 km (52 million steps) by 2030.
Announcing the adoption of the W4A project as a CSR cause in March this year, Caroline Ungersbock said that Walk4Africa’s mission aligns perfectly with the aims of the film festival. “A multi-stage walkathon of this magnitude sparks the imagination, and that’s exactly what the ITFFA aims to do. Both provide much-needed exposure for attractive, but previously unknown, destinations to create critical links between tourists and the communities they visit, providing sustainable tourism development opportunities within those communities.”
Speaking for the ITFFA partner organisation, the African Tourism Board (ATB) CEO, Doris Wörfel supported Ms Ungersbocks’ statement by saying that the Walk4Africa project also aligns with the ATBs mandate; to promote economic development, increase employment and reduce poverty in Africa. “The W4A project aligns with our mandate to work with governments, the private sector, and rural communities in promoting and facilitating sustainable tourism growth and development across the African continent. Walk4Africa’s walkathon project will certainly do this in a very unique and impactful way.”
About the International Tourism Film Festival Africa: ITFF Africa mainly aims to contribute to the development of domestic and international tourism while encouraging the growth of the local film industry. By promoting African countries as tourist destinations, the ITFF Africa encourages short film productions that showcase destinations and expose the continent to international filmmakers, thus creating mutually beneficial links between the tourism industry and the film industry. For more information visit www.itff.africa
About the Sustainable Tourism Partnership Programme: STPP has been developed to align with, amongst others, the National Tourism Sector Strategy and the National Minimum Standard for Responsible Tourism NMSRT (SANS 1162:2011). As such the programme incorporates environmental, cultural, heritage and social criteria, economic best practice, community resilience, universal accessibility and service excellence. The STPP is an affiliate member of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and an official partner of the United Nations Environmental Programmes 10 YFP (UNEP 10YFP).
For more information visit http://www.stpp.co.za
About the African Tourism Board: The African Tourism Board (ATB) is a Pan-African tourism development and marketing institution that aims to promote economic development, increase employment and reduce poverty in Africa. ATB has a perpetual existence within Africa in the AU Member States with its headquarters in Pretoria where it is registered as a Non-Profit Company. ATB strives to work with the AU, the UNWTO, governments, private sector, communities and other stakeholders in promoting and facilitating tourism growth and tourism development across the African Continent. For more information visit africantourismboard.com
About The Healing Farm Haven: “Over the past 10 years the Healing Farm has assisted members of disadvantaged communities with drug and alcohol dependency. Those who could not afford costly rehabilitation have been helped to get clean and work through their challenges using the 12-step program, life skills and inner healing sessions and to learn basic skills, all at no cost to the participant. For more information call +27 (0)23 111 0005 (WhatsApp: 0723393370) or email [email protected]
About Walk4Africa: Arranged in alphabetical order, the 38 walkathon host countries are Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo (The Democratic Republic of), Congo (Republic of), Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia (The), Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. For more information WhatsApp +27 (0)82 374 7260, email [email protected] or visit walk4africa.org
