By Unam Ntsababa
The Reel to Reality Festival stands as a young beacon for African cinema, offering a platform for filmmakers to showcase their work and connect with audiences. We spoke to Mbali Mashaba, founder and head curator and Koketso Matabane, co-director and executive producer of Behind Her Lens Visuals, the agency behind the festival, to discuss their mission to reshape the narrative surrounding African cinema and the African diaspora.
*responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to start the Reel to Reality Festival?
When I first started Behind Her Lens Visuals, I was making films and didn’t have a place to showcase my work. I knew so many incredible filmmakers who were my peers who were also creating meaningful work, and who also didn’t have a place where audiences could connect with their work. I wanted us to have a platform to showcase films to audiences but also connect. By extension, the annual film festival Reel to Reality Festival meant that we could create a festival that serves as a platform to celebrate African cinema and amplify the voices of African filmmakers. – Founder
How does the festival aim to redefine the narrative around African cinema and the African diaspora?
The work of emerging filmmakers and the collective contributions from the African diaspora are often overlooked in discussions of African cinema, which is frequently viewed through an early post-independence francophone lens. While pioneers like Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambéty paved the way, significant growth has occurred since then, much of it outside mainstream media. The Reel to Reality Festival showcases this evolution by featuring innovative films across various genres, highlighting the versatility and creativity of African filmmakers. Our festival provides a platform for diverse, often marginalised voices within the African diaspora, celebrating films and filmmakers at all stages of their journey.
What criteria do you use when selecting films for the festival?
Incorporating diverse films into our festival programming is vital for presenting authentic reflections of African people and their experiences. We often look for films that capture Africa’s rich cultures, histories, and contemporary realities, offering nuanced portrayals that resonate deeply with audiences. Visual quality is also crucial, with unique storytelling techniques enhancing emotional depth to convey the beauty, struggles, triumphs, and everyday moments of African diasporic life.
This year’s festival was special, featuring a diverse programming team that shaped our cinema direction. We introduced a themed African diasporic film festival focused on “HOME,” a subject central to African diasporic discourse. Our curation featured emerging and independent filmmakers who explored themes of home, identity, community, displacement, and history. The selected films, under 30 minutes, had to be created by African diasporic filmmakers or reflect aspects of African diasporic life in their narratives.
What impact do you hope to achieve within the African diaspora and the global film community?
As an emerging film curation agency, we are building Behind Her Lens Visuals to be a household name in the African cinematic landscape. We aspire to grow into one of the biggest film distribution platforms for independent and emerging films and our film festival to achieve global status. Similarly to Cannes, Sundance and the biggest festivals in the world, we are working towards becoming a prestigious international cinema organisation that curates unique storytelling experiences to larger African diasporic audiences.
How does the festival support and nurture the growth of African filmmakers?
Our main aim is to create an accessible community for filmmakers and audiences of all ages through film watching, networking, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions with filmmakers and industry experts. These activities provide educational opportunities and foster dialogue about the complexities of African cinema.
The festival also offers a prestigious platform for filmmakers to showcase their work and gain local and international recognition. As Black female filmmakers and curators, we strive to create an accountable and inclusive industry. By highlighting Black female filmmakers and ensuring their presence in our festival team, partners, and talks, we aim to inspire more women to pursue careers in filmmaking and challenge gender disparities.
For aspiring filmmakers, festivals are key for networking and collaboration. Hosting panel discussions on industry trends, challenges, and opportunities helps filmmakers stay informed and engaged. This year, we hosted the Directors Panel with esteemed directors Kit, Zee Ntuli, and Kenny Roc, as well as The Next Wave panel, spotlighting the next generation of creatives in the local film and television industry.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in organising the festival?
Funding is always the biggest challenge for organising a local cinema event, especially when your festival doesn’t fit the traditional mould. Securing approval can take months if it happens at all. Consistently hosting and growing the festival is difficult with limited funding. Fortunately, this year we were funded by the National Film and Video Foundation, which alleviated much of our strain and allowed us to curate as we’ve always wanted.
Another difficulty is audience development. In a country lacking cinema culture, many people don’t see themselves as the target market for film festivals. As a youth-targeted festival, we work hard each year to turn non-traditional cinema fans into our community and audience through careful curation.
What opportunities do you see for African cinema in the global film industry?
The emergence of streaming platforms has given African stories a global audience, expanding opportunities for African cinema. While this doesn’t automatically guarantee higher film quality, it significantly broadens the funding pool for filmmakers. The growing number of black film festivals worldwide means filmmakers can reach audiences beyond their borders. These digital advancements create new funding opportunities and signal a promising future for African cinema.
How is the historical and cultural significance of African cinema incorporated into the festival?
I think African cinema has always served as a means of archiving culture, cultural moments and movements, and The Reel to Reality Festival is constantly trying to engage with what African diasporic filmmakers are telling us about culture and society through the films we showcase. The festival is a great opportunity to archive the times and more importantly, the people are telling us something about culture and society at a specific point in time. In a very real way, the festival is a meeting place for the cultivation of an active cinema culture, through movie watching and networking. In addition, cinema has historically served as a political vehicle for change, explored through the personal stories of people. There are power dynamics embedded in the making of films, as well as the distribution of them and the festival often acts as a mirror and mediator of those socio-political messages, through the curation of films. The film festival also exists to be able to disrupt the status quo around the accessibility of African cinema and create a new way of experiencing it outside of mainstream media.
What personal experiences or influences have shaped your approach to curating and organising the festival?
Travelling through filmmaking and engaging with diverse filmmakers and audiences globally has deepened our understanding of cinema and the role of curation within it. This perspective has shaped our goal to create a festival that resonates with both local and international audiences, fostering a truly African diasporic community.
As filmmakers ourselves, our curation approach is inspired by film’s collaborative and multidisciplinary nature. Effective curation can draw young audiences into cinema spaces, as exemplified by this year’s exploration of our HOME theme. The festival was uniquely curated in a physical setting, the Troyeville House, where various rooms explored sub-themes related to the main theme. Each space, meticulously curated with the guidance of our art director Sydney Baloyi, offered audiences an immersive experience beyond film screenings. Additionally, our Cape Town pop-up at The Gorgeous George Hotel provided an intimate celebration of cinema outside Johannesburg.
Recognising the importance of holistic health, especially for creatives facing mental health challenges, we partnered with Mindful Organization. They curated a panel discussion with mental health experts and facilitated a privilege walk, offering meaningful engagement that could positively impact daily lives.
What do you find most rewarding about the Reel to Reality Festival?
Using film to raise awareness of social issues and inspire action is powerful. Knowing that our festival can influence public opinion and contribute to positive change is deeply rewarding. We witness this impact through audience members submitting films for future festivals or evolving into community supporters and industry partners over time. The festival fosters relationships and community both for us and others. Our programming choices challenge stereotypes about African stories and people, a significant achievement that underscores the impact of our work.
