RapidLion festival director plans to attract the audience from the BRICS Plus countries
The South African Film Festival RapidLion is taking place from the 4th of March to 11th of March. The RapidLion festival director Eric Miyeni told in an exclusive interview with TV BRICS about the history of the festival.
According to Mr. Miyeni, the idea for the festival came around 2012.
“I can't notice that we have BRICS which is an incredible geopolitical and geoeconomic bloc. But there was nothing to connect us in terms of film. I noticed as well that, of course, Europe has a huge number of these festivals,” he noted.
The expert said: “So the EU has many of these festivals, one of the biggest ones being Cannes. Of course we all know about the Oscars in America and all the other film festivals there. And I noticed that we do not have anything BRICS related. And I don't understand why that is not happening. <...> And I thought we have a strong geopolitical and geoeconomic bloc called BRICS. Why don't we find a way to cross-pollinate and promote each other's films in each other's territories and see where it will go. And that's how RapidLion came about initially.”
Why did the RapidLion International Film Festival become the first festival of the BRICS countries in South Africa?
As the RapidLion festival director thinks, it's very important to have big PR events. “I do believe that good nations also need good PR. Good nations also need to start thinking about making sure that they have cultural strength across the world, so that when they start to speak in UN or visit other countries, they are actually already accepted because of the cultural beauty they have pushed forward,”he highlighted.
So, RapidLion tends to say: "Hang on, you are good people, you are a good block. China has a great cultural heritage. China makes some great movies. Russia has a longstanding, amazing history of movie making and Russia has some of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived. The Indians do the same. Brazil has incredible films. We also need to be sharing the fact that South Africa has the second longest lasting film industry in the world after Hollywood."
Eric Miyeni added that BRICS is opening up to other nations and Iran has an amazing rich film heritage and tradition. "We should actually try and make something like RapidLion grow to be massive, to represent the best of our films and filmmakers in our group of countries," the RapidLion festival director noted.
What does the festival program include in 2023? What participants from the BRICS countries are there? What are their films about?
The RapidLion festival director mentioned a documentary from Russia, called “Dostoevsky Intercontinental”.
"And what's beautiful about that film is that we literally have a documentary, which interviews people in the BRICS countries, the first five around what Dostoevsky means to them. So you get to see this international man of letters being discussed by different scholars in the BRICS countries. So that's a beautiful, uniting film, if you like. There are also quite a few short films from Russia."Eric Miyeni RapidLion Film Festival Director
Mr. Miyeni noted that there is a film from Iran, which we call a BRICS Plus country, a movie called “47”, which is going to open the film festival. It’s a beautiful adventure/ mystery/ thriller kind of film.
"From India, we have “The cloud and the man”, which is a whimsical story about a love affair between a cloud and a man. We have movies from India. From China we have also a beautiful documentary called “Reincarnation”, which follows a young band, that does a very interesting, haunting music, that gets together after the leader of the band won or came second in a television competition, and then they follow them going into multiple cities and many music festivals around China, and how the group disintegrates in the end. So we have quite a number of amazing, amazing films here from the BRICS countries", he explained.
What impact the screening of this film by the United Editorial Team of TV BRICS, the “Dostoevsky Intercontinental”, will have on promoting the Russian cultural agenda among the BRICS countries?
Eric Miyeni believes that a cross-pollination will be ideal thing. South Africans get to appreciate, understand and know about Russian excellence in the arts, in film, and whatever. And that Russia gets to know about South African and African excellence in arts, in science, in those areas.
"Of course, there are areas where some countries are superior to others, but I think at the core of it, we are a union block that is looking to advance all our interests, I hope, together. So it's a more of a cross-pollination. We also have at the RapidLion films from Africa and the African diaspora, because that's also an untapped area. So we have a movie called “The Songs of the Rifles” from Burkina Faso, we have a film called “Superno”, a beautiful, beautiful conceptual film from Ethiopia," he expressed his opinion and said that it's necessary to spread our influence through films towards improving relations between nations around the world.
"These are my ideals, these are the things that are big, that are being represented by this very small film festival. I would like for it to grow, and the way it can grow is if I could, for instance, by some influence be able to convince all the top five BRICS countries to say: okay, we’ll each put so much to make sure that it happens, and that we are represented. And then we would do even better," Eric concluded.
Are there any plans to expand the festival's audience by attracting participants from the BRICS Plus countries?
He highlighted the fact that the festival's audience will definitely expand.
"Absolutely, yes, I mean, that's why the Iran came on board. So, hopefully, in the future we'll see Turkey films. We'd like the BRICS Plus countries to start to participate. If you start to become a part of the BRICS geopolitical and geoeconomic bloc, you are more than welcome at RapidLion," he said.
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