‘The Ones With the Tempered Flowers,’ ‘On the Sea Road,’ ‘Where Do I Belong?’ Win Big at Durban FilmMart — SkimNews
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- "The Ones With the Tempered Flowers" by Tanzanian filmmaker Neema Ngelime took home five awards, including NFVF Best Non-fiction, DOK Leipzig, Sheffield Doc Fest, Movies that Matter, and Visions du Réel prizes
- Fitnat Waked's "On the Sea Road" (Palestine) and Ibrahim "Snoopy" Ahmad's "Where Do I Belong?" (Sudan) each won four prizes, with Waked's film documenting the friendship between two Palestinian women separated by borders
- "The Boy Who Spoke Static" from Nigeria's Agbajowo Collective — the group behind 2024 Toronto premiere "The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos" — won three awards including the NFVF Best Fiction prize
- Thirty-nine awards were handed out Monday night with a total value exceeding $120,000, spanning projects from Kenya, Sudan, Palestine, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Libya, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Ahmad's "Where Do I Belong?" follows the director leaving Nairobi to return to his family in Khartoum, blending documentary footage with hand-drawn pencil animation; Ahmad co-directed last year's Sundance-premiering "Khartoum"
- The 17th edition opened by celebrating DFM alumnus "Ben'Imana" by Rwandan first-time filmmaker Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, which won the Cámera d'Or at Cannes and became Rwanda's first-ever Oscar submission for best international feature
- Durban FilmMart Institute director Magdalene Reddy praised the "dynamic array of filmmakers and industry leaders" and stressed the event's role in "building the industry" and "shifting the world"
Why it matters: The $120,000+ prize pool and partnerships with DOK Leipzig, Sundance, Rotterdam Lab, and Visions du Réel confirm DFM's growing role as a continental launchpad — the Ben'Imana precedent (Cannes Cámera d'Or to Rwanda's first Oscar submission) shows what DFM alumni trajectories can now look like.
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