Freddy Ogterop
Freddy Ogterop (1941- ) is a librarian, film historian, archivist and contributor to ESAT.
Biographical details
Born on 7 June, 1941.
Career
He worked as a Film/Video/DVD Selector, first for the Cape Provincial Library Service and subsequently the Western Cape Provincial Library Service for more than 40 years. In this capacity he was responsible for building up a collection that grew to some 13,500 titles in different formats.
For many years he was involved in the film society movement and was General Secretary of the Federation of Film Societies of Southern Africa, as well as Vice Chairman of the Cape Town Film Society. He has served on film festival juries both locally and abroad, and has lectured on various aspects of the cinema, notably at the University of Cape Town’s Summer School.
He was a member of the Cape Town International Film Festival's Advisory Committee, was active in Film & Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO) and has served on the government’s Legal Deposit Committee.
In 2007 he was curator of an extensive Panorama of South African films presented at the Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland and subsequently completed a contract acting as consultant to Cape Town City Libraries, charged with building up a collection of audio-visual material from and about Africa. After that he completed an audit of film/video material dealing with the South African liberation struggle for the South African History Archive (SAHA) and worked at the University of Cape Town as Film Researcher/Archivist. Thereafter he acted as Film Research Consultant to the Visual History Archive and became a Contributing Editor to the Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT). He was the programmer for the 2014 Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival and continued as Senior Reader up to 2024.
Publications
Besides numerous articles and filmographies for The Cape Librarian, he was also responsible for the contents of 6 volumes of a Catalogue of 16mm Films and 4 volumes of a Catalogue of Videos published by the Western Cape Provincial Library Service. The Audiovisual Audit Report: The South African Liberation Struggle written for SAHA is available on-line at http://www.saha.org.za/publications/audiovisual_audit_report_the_south_african_liberation_struggle.htm
Sources
Own report.
Tevya Turok Shapiro. 2023. "You think you like movies? Get a load of passionate cinephile Freddy Ogterop", Daily Maverick, 4 July 2023.[1]
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