A Girl and a Gun

Runtime: 80-85 '

Expected release: March 2026

Production stage: Production

Budget: €350,000 (10% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Funding, minority co-producers, archive partners, advisors

Synopsis:

Lost in a ciné-trance, adrift in the ghost worlds of personal, apartheid and colonial archives, a filmmaker explores her relationship with the camera. A Girl and a Gun stitches her dreamlike observations of a world either dying or being born depending on who’s looking, with the camera’s role in making and unmaking the historically colonized world.

Director’s Profile:

Arya Amber Lalloo is an award-winning South African multi-disciplinary filmmaker. Conceptually, artistically and politically driven, she is a true believer in cinema’s myriad powers to reflect, resist and re-imagine reality. She has played key creative roles on ground-breaking international features that have screened at major festivals including Cannes, Sundance and IDFA. These include Jeppe on a Friday (2012, co-writer/director), Rafiki (2018, Production Designer), Everything Must Fall (2018, Editor/Contributor) and Milisuthando (2021, Archives and Consulting Editor). She is an active member of the film community and has mentored projects, sat on juries, started collectives and reviewed projects for local and international festivals. She is an alumnus of IDFA Project Space, IDFA Academy, IDFA Forum and the Durban FilmMart.

 

 

 

Producer’s Profile:

Antoinette Engel is a producer of documentary films and immersive storytelling projects, committed to the collaborative spirit that underpins all creative projects. Her work has screened at IDFA, Dok.Fest Munich, Encounters South African International Documentary Festival, Filmfest FrauenWelten, NY ADIFF and on Al Jazeera. She has executive produced VR experiences for Electric South, which have premiered at IDFA, SXSW, Sheffield DocFest and Sunnyside of the Doc and worked with partners Meta, the British Council, UNESCO, Atlantic Institute and South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation. She is a Durban FilmMart Talent Campus, IFFR Cinemart Producer’s Lab and RLNS DET alumni, has co-chaired the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association of South Africa and has served as jury member for the Durban International Film Festival, Fak’ugesi Digital Lab Africa (2023) and goEast XR (2022). In 2025 Antoinette joined the DFMI as industry programme manager of the Durban FilmMart.