ACDC Film Club Project

The Afrika Culture and Development Club (ACDC) Film Club Project celebrates the power and possibility of film.

The Afrika Culture and Development Club (ACDC) Film Club Project will celebrate its coming of age and the culmination of a successful year long partnership with Association of Danish Film Clubs for Children and Young People (DaBUF) this weekend, Saturday 9 February 2013. With its vision of using the power of film and the arts to develop the youth of South Africa, achieve social cohesion and facilitate real empowerment, the ACDC Film Club’s future could not be brighter.

The vision of Benjy Francis, ACDC Film Club Project was launched in 2012, in partnership with the Association of Danish Film Clubs for Children and Young People (DaBUF). The one year partnership gave the club a platform to launch the project and linear model on which to build their own development model. During the year seven film clubs were launched in Dobsonville, Ivory Park, Alexandra, Westclare, Protea Glen, Evaton and Hillbrow.

For a child to imagine the possibilities available to them and then go on to achieve their full potential, they have to begin with a fertile knowledge of the world. For many of South Africa’s children caught in the cycle of poverty, this is impossible. With its incredible depth of available films, both South African and International, the ACDC Film Club opens the doors of the imagination, they offer, in the flicker of the screen, previously unknown worlds, opportunities and possibilities.

More than this, the screenings themselves, three so far, have become a community point, a place where people can connect and grow. Whether it’s the young man who leaves home early so as not to miss a moment of the screening or the single mother who packs a lunch, spends a day with her child at the film club and then afterwards uses the films as a point of conversation or the film club’s youth leaders who, with every screening, are learning how to grow and develop their clubs, there is something to celebrate.

The ACDC Film Project has already grown beyond the screening of films. Recognising the need for youngsters to have a greater exposure to the full spectrum of the arts, the film project now includes interactive art based activities during the day’s events. The Summer Season saw first of these with an activity based on self image, the results were immediate and tangible

The ACDC’s model advocates a holistic and integrated approach to development. As such it needs many more participants and the support of social, community and business partners in the process. To grow it needs a commitment to action from communities and particularly schools, irrespective of location.

“This is how we get talking about building and educating a nation with dialogue around critical social development and social cohesion issues; like teenage pregnancy in schools, bullying, drugs, sex education or child and gender rights and not hiding them from view and analysis,” says ACDC Film Clubs Programme Director Benjy Francis.

On Saturday 9 February members of the seven established film clubs, the community, educators, media and the social, government and corporate participants will join together to celebrate the conclusion of South African/Danish partnership, affirm the project’s successes and look to the future of the Film Club.

The event will start at 10h00 and will feature a retrospective exhibition of the year long programme, a film illustrating the nature and relationship of film, the arts and development, as well a presentation on the genesis of the ACDC Film Club Project and the practical challenges of leading communities and youth, in particular, into the terrain of social and youth development.

Contact ACDC Office on 011 447 4738 or 072 313 6288 or by emailing on acdcfilmclubs@gmail.com. You can visit ACDC Facebook: ACDC Film Clubs, Twitter: @FilmClubs, or www.afrikaculturalcentre.com

For media interviews and high res pictures please contact Dee’s on (011) 788 7632 or media@jtcomms.co.za .

Issued by JT Communication Solutions on Behalf of The Afrika Culture and Development Club (ACDC)