OYO produced films to premiere at the Garden Route International Film Festival in July
The Ombetja Yehinga Organisation’s (OYO) latest productions, ‘Be a Lady’ and ‘Be a Man’ will have their world première at the Garden Route International Film Festival (GRIFF) in July in South Africa.
Director and Founder of OYO, Dr Philippe Talavera on Friday explained that the two films were first poems before OYO invited prominent figures to give life to the poems, converting them into two seven-minute-long short films.
Speaking about the poems, Talavera said the poems are powerful and often sarcastic, but they are all based on what young people hear almost daily. “Unless we change the narrative, we will not reach gender equality and win the fight against GBV and I hope that by hearing those worlds put back to back young people will start to reflect on what it means to them,” said Talavera.
“The films will be showcased between the 12 to 16 July at the GRIFF and later on they will have their Namibian première at the Goethe Institute on 13 August as part of ‘the caring Namibian man’ photo project and the photos and clips will then be used in schools to discuss issues around masculinity-femininity and the meaning of gender quality in a modern Namibia,” elaborated Talavera.
Talavera added that it is a great honour for them to have been selected by the GRIFF. “This is an exciting yearly festival in South Africa and this year they are resuming a physical festival in Mosselbay and we feel privileged to have been selected alongside some pretty exciting new work from SADC and beyond,” he added.
The films have been produced and directed by Philippe Talavera, with Joshua Homateni as director of photography, Vincent Mboku for editing, Una Hoebel as a make-up artist and Ponti Dikuua for the music and have been made possible by the support from the Embassy of Finland in Namibia.
