ION Film Festival …Partners AFRIFF On Talents Dev

Rivers State Government says its partnership with the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) is aimed at encouraging young Rivers persons in the movie industry to explore opportunities to excel in their chosen endeavour.

The commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Hon Marcus Nle-Ejii gave the indication during a media chat in Port Harcourt on the forthcoming film festival scheduled for first week of December, 2010.

Hon Nle-Ejii explained that the state government involvement in the film festival stems from the success of the ION International film festival hosted in Port Harcourt last year and to avail local artists as well as producers  of the presence of experts to further their  career.

He said the state government would offer necessary assistance to ensure a huge success of the programme, emnphasising that the package would be better than that of last year and called Rivers people to cooperate with the organisers to enable the state benefit maximally.

Also speaking the Chief Executive Officer, AFRIFF, Chioma Ude, said the festival has short and long term benefits to the state, stressing that the festival will attract experts in various departments of the film industry.

Ms Ude disclosed that the vision of the festival was to create a platform for the world to zoom in on the diversity and creativity of Africa through motion pictures, noting that the films were diverse and beautiful.

She also hinted that the Rivers State Government had signed a partnership with the AFRIFF as avenue to further the state’s aspiration to be a reference point for culture, arts and tourism in Africa.

Also speaking, the Technical Partner on Training and Workshop Facilitator, Quinty Pillay, said the festival would feature workshops, discussion, screening, equipment handling and management for practitioners in the industry to improve on the competence.

The President of Movie Producers, Rivers State, Mr Reginald Orlu, said the festival would provide various learning experiences as technical experts would be available to interact with the local participants.

Mr Orlu said the Association of Movie Producers was also collaborating with AFRIFF to ensure a huge success of the festival, adding that the forum which would attract people from around the world would be used to sell their local production and market the state to the international community.