Nuru Rimington-Mkali: 22-year-old winner of Filmaka.com's $5m feature prize
"No matter how powerful an enemy is, you can always escape - there’s always a way, somehow. But how the hell do you escape your own head?"
Nuru Mkali
Director of I Refuse to Forget, winner of $5m feature funding prize, and Laura MacDonald, Creative Director for Filmaka.
Back in 2000 TCM's £5,000 short film prize seemed huge - you could almost make an El Mariachi for that much money. Fast forward a few years and there's Iris' £25,000 Gay & Lesbian Short Film Prize, before MySpace's MyMoviesMashup prize of $1m raised the bar once more. And then Filmaka.com came along with it's $5m full feature film finance prize and rewrote the rulebook.
Picture it. You’re 22 and making your first tentative steps as a filmmaker. You signup with a website and start making films in the hope of getting your work seen by an impressive lineup of judges – Neil LaBute, Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog – and pay £10 to upload each film. Then, after winning a series of contests, they offer you $5m to make your first feature. No film school. No climbing up the ladder from tea-making. No depending on the favors of well connected relatives. No casting couch.
Hold back your envy, and meet Nuru Rimington-Mkali, the London filmmaker who did just that with his winning film I REFUSE TO FORGET. After seeing the film - which we stream below - I had to find out more, and went on to interview Filmaka's Creative Director Laura MacDonald as well...