Durban filmmaker merges fashion and art
Nirma Madhoo regularly directs and produces fashion shorts which are showcased on local and international platforms.
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A FASHION lecturer at Durban University of Technology, who has a passion for filmmaking, has been selected as a semi-finalist in the 2019 PPC Imaginarium Awards.
Nirma Madhoo originally trained as a fashion designer but branched into fashion photography and fashion filmmaking in 2013 during her time at the London College of Fashion. She regularly directs and produces fashion shorts which are showcased on local and international platforms such as short film and fashion film festivals.
“After attending a VR/AR artist residency and filmmaking Lab hosted by Electric South and supported by the Ford Foundation in 2018, I decided to submit for the PPC Imaginarium short film category 2019. I am thrilled to be one of the semi-finalists and did not expect to be selected as my pitch deviates from normal film genres as a crossover of fashion and art film, and is a non-narrative production,” she said.
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The PPC Imaginarium Awards offers emerging artists and designers over half-a-million Rand in prizes, together with a significant public exhibition tour, mentorship and exposure opportunities, and invites entries in six categories – film, fashion, sculpture, industrial design, jewellery, architecture – where the innovative use of cement and concrete are key.
For the 2019 round of the Awards, all film category entrants were required to not only conceptualise a film idea investigating the role that concrete plays in environments, but to pitch this idea to a panel of judges while proving their production and technical capabilities. From this, Nirma was chosen as one of the two film category finalists, and was commissioned to produce a short film entry.
The film category winner will be announced at a gala event at UJ Gallery in Johannesburg on 18 April. The winner of the film category also stands in line to be named the overall winner of the competition. Thereafter, the completed films will be screened to the public.
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