Abilities Durban 2026 Invitations Rising Filmmakers, Animators, and Critics …
The Durban FilmMart Institute (DFMI) has introduced the official Name for Submissions for the nineteenth version of Abilities Durban, set to happen together with the Durban FilmMart (DFM) in Durban, South Africa, from twenty fourth to twenty seventh July 2026.
Because the official African satellite tv for pc programme of Berlinale Abilities, the Berlin Worldwide Movie Pageant’s expertise growth platform, Abilities Durban is the continent’s premier platform for up-and-coming movie professionals to community, be taught, and collaborate. The programme provides an intensive, hybrid expertise designed to foster inventive growth and business connections. This complete construction consists of an eight-week on-line mentorship and a four-day in-person occasion, culminating on the seventeenth Durban FilmMart for sustained progress and collaboration.
Abilities Durban is inviting functions from all rising movie professionals and critics from the African continent and diaspora who’ve accomplished a minimal of two skilled tasks (e.g., brief movies, options, documentaries, or printed critiques). The programme covers a number of core disciplines, together with Fiction Options, Documentary Options, Shorts, Sequence, Animation, and Movie Criticism.
The choice course of is very aggressive, and candidates are inspired to make sure their submissions are polished and replicate distinctive potential. Final yr’s version noticed over 500 functions, leading to a extremely curated cohort.
Chosen Abilities will take part in a collection of project-oriented, hands-on expertise growth programmes, together with masterclasses, one-on-one mentorship with established business consultants, and the essential Story Junction periods, the place contributors get to current their tasks to producers and potential financiers. The expertise is designed to show promising ideas into display realities.
“African storytelling is experiencing an unprecedented world surge, and Abilities Durban is true on the coronary heart of nurturing the following era of business leaders,” stated DFMI Director, Magdalene Reddy. “We’re actively looking for daring, modern, and distinctive voices throughout all disciplines. Whether or not you’re a filmmaker with a compelling undertaking or an rising critic able to form the narrative, that is your alternative to hitch a vibrant pan-African neighborhood and take your profession to the worldwide stage. We encourage all eligible candidates to grab this chance and submit their work.”
Rising filmmakers, animation administrators, collection creators, and movie critics are invited to submit their functions on-line. You’re eligible to use for the 2026 cohort if:
- You will have submitted an entire utility, together with a pattern of previous work and a undertaking in growth.
- Please be aware that the applying is predicated on particular person submissions and crew functions usually are not acceptable. Chances are you’ll apply as a screenwriter, director, animation director or movie critic.
- It’s essential to have obtained the written consent of the opposite copyright homeowners (if any) for the usage of the work pattern and undertaking submitted.
- You’re employed in one of many following areas: screenwriting, directing, movie criticism and animation.
- You’re an rising movie skilled or pupil within the closing yr of your research, or movie college graduate, or have comparable work expertise within the movie and media business.
- You will have labored on a minimum of one brief/function movie that has been screened at a acknowledged movie pageant, or you might have labored on a TV drama collection that has aired extensively, or you might have labored on an online or cellular drama collection that has roughly 5,000 views, or (for the Expertise Press programme) you might have a minimum of one-year expertise as a movie critic/reviewer/journalist/vlogger/podcaster.
- You have to be a citizen of an African or Caribbean nation, residing in both the African or Caribbean.
- You have to be a minimum of 18 years of age by 1st July 2026.
Established in 2020, the Durban FilmMart Institute is a non-profit firm that facilitates native and worldwide commerce and funding in African movie content material. Its mission is to offer acceptable and efficient programmes and companies with the intention to promote, help and facilitate funding within the African movie industries, in order that African movie business professionals and merchandise are aggressive and celebrated globally.
Full submission necessities and eligibility standards for subsequent yr’s Abilities Durban could be discovered on the Durban FilmMart Institute’s web site. Submission window closes on ninth February 2026.