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Tafadzwa Zimoyo Senior Arts Reporter
Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust and Alliance Francaise who are jointly running the ongoing Smartphone Short Film Competition said the extension of the dealing of entries by two weeks was meant to give entrants from remote parts of the country an opportunity to participate.

They also said the extension was necessitated by the realisation that some contestants were failing to grasp the concept of their theme and needed more time to work on their products.

The submission of entries that was meant to end on May 27 was stretched to June 10.

Running under the theme “Being Zimbabwean”, the competition is encouraging the youth to speak out and think outside the political and religious boxes, and focus on their creativity.

In an interview ZIFFT consultant and renowned filmmaker, Nakai Matema, said they had moved the deadline so as to give people more time to work on their films.

“We extended the deadline in order to give people in remote parts of the country who did not get the chance to access our social media platforms earlier enough time to work on their projects,” she said.

Matema said participants should understand the importance of the theme in this competition and hinge their productions on it.

“We have received quite a number of submissions but a lot of people have been missing the point of the theme.

“We are hoping that by postponing the due date, filmmakers will have an opportunity to get their films right in terms of the theme.

“We have partnered with Alliance Francaise and launched the competition which was scheduled to run for 45 days. We have themed it ‘Being Zimbabwean’, and the competition is targeting Zimbabwean youth resident in Zimbabwe aged between 16 and 34 to write and produce short films of not more than four minutes with their smartphones,” she said.

Young filmmakers have applauded the move by ZIFFT to extend dates as they said it will give them more time to script and shoot considering that the theme needed more analysis.

“We are excited to receive such news that the dates have been extended. The theme is very critical and needs thorough research and analysis considering that it is broad.