The tale of 1001 Nights is being used by a South African Documentary depicting the Arab Spring, and gathering support through social media crowd-funding campaigns. (Image: garlandcannon (CC), via Flickr)

A team of filmmakers from South Africa is currently in the process of finish their film, a documentary showing events that have recently transpired in Middle East and the Maghreb, using the help of social media to realize a campaign funding to finish their film.

What happened during the past 18 months has been described as the “Arab Spring.” This is one of two major events that unfolded during the time frame, with the other one being the fall of dictators such as Mubarak and Gaddafi. Countries involved in this spring include Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.

The Arab Spring is a welling up of creativity from a once repressed region, and this new political and social revolution reflects through the documentary filmed by Neil Brandt, Shameela Seedatand Francois Verster of South Africa.

The film, which was first started in 2006, shows that this creativity boost is not new, but is rather rooted during the early histories of the region, in the form of stories; in particular 1001 Nights, a.k.a. Arabian Nights. The story tells of Shahrazad, a princess who tells stories and saves lives in the process.

The documentary will be finished by October, with funding from The Sundance Documentary Fund, Jan Vrijman Documentary Fund, Spier Films and NFVF. However, since the film needs more funding to finish, the directors initiated a campaign for crowd-funding through Social Media.

Brandt says that this is the first time among South African film directors, using social media for film financing, and he hopes that funding approach through this platform will be a success.

Source: Mediaupdate.co.za

About Neal Alfie Lasta

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