The vision of a women’s business support network has helped a film inspired by the 2008 wave of anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa, take the top spot in Cornwall Film Festival’s first-ever Reel Women competition.
The category, which highlighted the talents of international female film directors, was sponsored by Cornwall Enterprising Women (CEW) and showcased an array of films covering a variety of subject matter and styles during the festival’s tenth anniversary weekend (November 4-6) at Newquay’s Lighthouse Cinema.
Josie Purcell, women’s enterprise co-ordinator for CEW, and a competition judge, said: “It was a difficult decision to choose from the fantastic entries but Candice Reisser’s challenging Protect the Nation film, which focused on a young boy’s reaction to the unexpected kindness of a stranger after growing up in turbulent times, struck an emotional chord.
“Female film directors are under-represented in the industry and I hope competitions such as this will help catapult their work to a wider audience and lead to more women getting ahead in this field.
“As CEW offers support to female entrepreneurs in a number of sectors, including creative, this was an ideal platform for us to showcase the help we can provide.”
CEW, which is funded by ERDF Convergence via the intensive start-up support organisation Outset Cornwall, assists new and established businesswomen across the county to grow in business through its varied events programme, mentoring, online resources and networking and is part of the 8000 member-strong national Enterprising Women community.
