Malawi film to screen at Bayelsa Film Festival
A Malawian romantic film The Beautiful Hen Behind the Yao Mountain by Blantyre-based youthful group Young Travellers is set to be screened at the Bayelsa International Film Festival (Biff) in Nigeria.
Apart from the film screening at the festival, three members of the group have been nominated in the categories of cinematography, best actress and best actor. The nominated members are Ken Kananji (Best Actor), Bertha Nkhoma (Best Actress) and Imran Kaisi (Cinematography).
Young Travellers Theatre premiered The Beautiful Hen Behind the Yao Mountain last year as a stage play before they turned it into a movie, which they premiered in July.
Bayelsa International Film Festival’s major aim is to converge international and local film-makers and renowned academia to have a fun-filled and educating film festival.
The festival’s entries commenced on May 1 and ended on July 31 2019.
The main festival is expected to be held on October 2.
“This is very encouraging for us as a youthful group. Honestly, I don’t know how we earned the nominations but we just submitted the movie after they made a call for entries,” Young Travellers Theatre playwright and director, Imran Shaban, said,
The organisers have sent an official invitation to the group.
Shaban said the nomination alone would motivate them to continue digging deeper.
“Last week, the movie was screened at three festivals in the United Kingdom and it will go to many countries. We are all thankful to God for the opportunities. We hope to grab the awards but if we can’t then we will still celebrate because getting a nomination is not that easy on the international stage,” he said.
Recently veteran filmmaker Shemu Joyah also grabbed four awards at the Shungu Namutitima Film Festival in Zambia with his film The Road to Sunrise. Musician Lazarus Chigwandali’s film, which speaks volumes of his life, recently grabbed the Best Documentary Award at the HollyShorts Festival in United States of America.
