21-year old Beninese woman wins “7 days for 1 film”
Following partnerships with the Emergence Films Festival in Togo and the African Women Film Festival in Senegal, CFI was once again involved, this time with the short-film competition held from 27 November to 11 December 2020 during the Lagunimages festival in Benin.
“7 days for 1 film” is an itinerant programme of female promotion, training and discovery, for women looking to play an active role in African cinema. The programme is carried out in partnership with film festivals and aims to give the winners skills across multiple film industry disciplines through education and the creation of high-quality works via a process that brings together a competition for short film screenplays, a film training workshop for the finalists and a film project selected to be produced and screened during the host festival.
The main challenge for the winner is managing to produce her film in just 7 days, albeit with the help of her co-finalists. The support that the winner will receive and the fact that her film will tour the international circuit will also give her great exposure.
The winner of this year’s competition is Samirah Mansah, a 21-year old woman from Benin. Samirah won for her screenplay “Against all odds”, which tells the story of a young rape victim who intends to file suit against her attacker but will go on to face resistance from her parents since he happens to be someone very close to them...
