The French Institute of South Africa IFAS-Culture, IFAS-Research & Dibuka
Food-for-thought provider “à la française”, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) was established in the Newtown Cultural Precinct in 1995. Since then, the organization which consists of IFAS-Culture, IFAS-Research and Dibuka, has been a key player on the Johannesburg and Southern African artistic, cultural, academic and literary scenes.
IFAS-Culture is the cultural agency of the French Embassy in South Africa and supports artistic events in various domains, throughout the year and around the country. Highly demanding in offering quality creations while favouring the exchange of ideas between communities, IFASCulture strives to introduce French and Francophone artists in South Africa, promote South African artists on the international artistic scene and support artistic residencies leading to original creations. As a promoter and diffuser of French language and Francophone culture, IFAS-Culture works in close collaboration with the Alliance Française network in South Africa. Since its inception, the organisation has established an important network of strong partnerships with various festivals, universities, artists, museums and galleries, as well as government institutions and businesses. The audiovisual department includes cinema, television, radio and journalism. It aims at initiating and developing exchanges and relationships between the different media and the professionals of the audiovisual industry in France and Southern Africa. This is achieved by providing support to the development of the audiovisual industry, keeping an eye on its evolution, as well as promoting and developing the presence of French audiovisual industry in Southern Africa.
IFAS-Research (Umifre 25), working hand in hand with IFAS-Culture, focuses on Human and Social Science in Southern Africa under the auspices of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). It has a thriving and diverse network of French, European and regional research institutions and organisations. It offers an academic base for students, interns and visiting researchers, and produces a bi-annual newsletter (Lesedi) as well as various publications and papers.
Dibuka is an information centre and multimedia library promoting French language and Francophone culture. Based at the Alliance Française of Johannesburg, it offers subscribers access to a large collection of CDs, DVDs, novels, newspapers and magazines, comic and children’s books. Dibuka also supports literary cafés as well as poetry and literary festivals.
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