South Africa’s premiere documentary festival Encounters South African International Documentary Festival is pleased to announce the winners of the prestigious Jameson Audience Awards at the 6th Encounters in 2004. The winning films are:
Best International Film – Touching the Void by Kevin Macdonald
Best South African Film – Born into Struggle by Rehad Desai
The next top four films in each category, Best International Film and Best South African Film, are as follows:
Best International Film
Riding Giants
House of Saud
Bus 174
The Corporation
Best South African Film
The Story of a Beautiful Country
Spirits of the Uhadi
South African Love Story – Walter and Albertina Sisulu
A Fisherman’s Tale
Kate Harrison, Brand Manager for Jameson Whiskey was pleased with the turnout at the festival and the audience’s enthusiastic participation in the audience award, she said “For the 4th year running Jameson has been proud to be involved with Encounters, through the sponsorship of the Jameson Audience Award. We have witnessed the dramatic growth in attendance and enthusiasm for both the festival and the Jameson Audience Award over the years, and it has resulted in a festival of phenomenal success! It seems Encounters, just like Jameson, is truly a crowd pleaser!”
Encounters is very pleased to report an unprecedented 34% growth in attendances at this year’s South African International Documentary Festival with over 13 000 patrons attending the Festival.
Touching the Void, based on the novel of the same name, is a great big screen movie. It is about a mountaineering accident and one man’s will to survive. Touching the Void is distributed by Ster Kinekor film and will be released on the circuit this month. It is a British film directed by Academy Award winner Kevin MacDonald.
Born into Struggle, a world première at Encounters, is a very personal story directed by Rehad Desai. His father, Barney Desai, took his family to live in exile in England and this is the touching tale of their trials and tribulations. Born into Struggle will feature at the upcoming 3 Continents Festival and will been screened by SABC1 in 2005.
For further information please contact:
Joan Legalamitlwa
joan@encounters.co.za
Tel: +27 21 4260405
