ZIFF 2015 ANNOUNCES OFFICIAL SELECTION

The Zanzibar International Film Festival is the longest running film-festival in East Africa, with global credibility and instant Pan-African recognition. ZIFF 2015 will take place from the 18th – 26th of July 2015 in Stonetown.
ZIFF announced the films in the Official Selection based on a record of 419 submissions. Lhe list contains 25 feature films, 44 shorts and 27 documentaries from over 30 countries across the globe.
Festival Director Dr. Martin Mhando said: “We would like to congratulate and thank all those who submitted their films. With so many films to choose from the selection process was especially difficult. This has been the largest number of films received to date. We are also pleased to say that the online submission process was a success, with 90% of all the films were submitted online through the FESTHOME platform.”
The entries came from 38 countries with the largest number of entrants coming from Germany and with The Dominican Republic having its first entry in ZIFF 2015.
The selection committee also noted a clear growth in the quality of short films from Africa revealing a refreshing creative input and experimentation with film language.
East Africa is well represented at ZIFF 2015 with 7 films from Tanzania to compete in the general competition. Within the Official Selection Kenya leads in the region with 9 films selected, while Uganda has 3, Burundi 2 and Rwanda 1. South Africa has 7 films in competition this year.
Selected films for the Bongo Movies competition, which is backed by the Satelite TV Channel ZUKU will be announced at a later date. ZUKU is also the event sponsor of the festival.
It has also been announced that the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning film Selma will officially open ZIFF 2015 on the evening of July 18th.
As in previous years ZIFF will welcome dozens of professional and aspiring film directors, producers from across Africa and the world for 8 days of film, music and cultural celebration.
Find the full list of selected movies here: www.ziff.or.tz