The festival, which fosters local talent in the creative world of fashion films aims to celebrate the massive local talent pool in SA with the awards show.
"I always wanted to promote a sense of collaboration amongst the disciplines that help make fashion film the creative and vibrant a genre that it is. The students and graduates of fashion, film, design, advertising, music, make-up and hair colleges, and other related tertiary education facilities, are all encouraged to find a place at Bokeh where they can create teams with other young people wanting to produce fashion films. I think that it’s only through collaboration and being offered a hand up, that one can get to explore this highly creative world of Fashion Film,” says Adrian Lazarus, founder and managing director of Bokeh.
The festival will issue a brief on the Bokeh website and social media pages on 15 October 2017, presenting the category guidelines and the film requirements. The teams then have two weeks to create treatments that accurately describe the films they wish to make, keeping in mind the original brief.
Five films from the Cape and five from Gauteng will be selected, and the teams will receive guidance and assistance to create their stated films. All films will be 90 seconds excluding credits, and have to be filmed over one day, in one location. Bokeh will supply cameras, lighting, locations (within reason), mentorship, editing facilities, and professional make-up artists to assist on set, as well as years of experience in film making. The final ten films will be complete works that each team member will be very proud of, and they will also be encouraged and assisted to enter these films into other international and local festivals.
The 2017 Emerging Creative Talent award was previously won by a team from AFDA Film School, also receiving the R50, 000 prize.
The exciting part of this category is that the team can be led by anyone from a copy writer, to a jewellery designer, make-up artist or film maker. Everyone has a great idea for a film, but without a creative team it will always remain just that – an idea.
The creatives are all encouraged to team up, explore ideas and take advice and input from every team member. Unlike features and commercials, the Fashion Film world is still in its infancy - comparable to where music videos were in the 80’s. They are a safe space for directors and brands to experiment and test out style, format and content with audiences.
