About the Baobab Award
The countdown to the Film Africa Baobab Award for Best Short Film is on! Since 2011, this award has celebrated emerging talent from Africa and its diaspora, honoring films that are beautifully shot, brave, and full of directorial vision.
With a £1,000 cash prize and recognition from an expert jury of filmmakers and industry professionals, the Baobab Award is a powerful platform for new voices in cinema. This year we’ve partnered with Rolling Stone Africa to offer the winner a $2,500 cash prize!
- Short must be 30 minutes or under and made by African or African diaspora filmmaker.
- Director must not yet have made a feature-length film – i.e. emphasis is on emerging talent.
- Short must be fiction/experimental– documentaries will only be considered for the main programme.
- Year of production must be a maximum of two years prior to the date of submission.
Film Africa has a programme partnership with the National Film & Television School to select the Baobab Award, which is ultimately aimed at encouraging an appreciation and knowledge of African cinema in the next generation of film programmers. With guidance from the Film Africa team, students on the MA in Film Studies, Programming & Curation watch all submitted shorts and provide our festival programmers with a long-list of 100 from which the final shortlist is then selected.
