The future of filmmaking in Africa is bright, says Victoria Goro

As 20 film creatives enter the film industry after graduating from the Multichoice Talent Factory in Nairobi, can you tell us how the journey has been for the past 12 months?

It has been an eventful journey. Our programme is a 12-month hands-on immersion where students get to work on a variety of film genres. But we always start with the fundamentals of filmmaking, just to make sure every technical skill is significantly grounded. From there, we move to actual production, which includes short films, short practice projects, TV commercials, and public service announcements.

After that, the students do a four-week programme with the New York Film Academy for short-format productions. For the first time since the start of the MTF, the students did a music video project with the New York Film Academy.

After the short-format productions, they move on to the long-format productions. This year we were commissioned by Zee World, and we did an adaptation of an African folktale. After that, the students now embark on a graduation project, which is a one-hour feature film that they produce for the MNET channels.

This has been a wonderful opportunity for the creatives, a year that has allowed them to push themselves a bit more.

This being the fourth cohort overall and the second under your guidance as academy director, tell us how the programme has evolved over the years as you hone the skills of these young creatives.

As the East African Community, we are very passionate about storytelling. From our language, art, passion, and resilience, the celebration of the African spirit is alive in East Africa. One thing we have deliberately invested in because of the wealth of stories we have in the East African region is storytelling.

Each student gets a chance to write a story they believe will resonate with the audience in East Africa, but they also think about the globe.

Another significant investment is looking at the emerging areas of filmmaking. Away from the normal technical areas such as cinematography, sound, editing, and lighting, we are now moving more into the skills required to make the work flow process of any production more significant by ensuring every element has been accounted for.

So right now, our focus is on ensuring we build enough capacity in production management. The students must be able to handle a production from the beginning to the end. Another significant area is script supervision.

We look at how we are able to maintain all elements in a script that allow us to follow through on every component, making sure that we do not have gaps that will disrupt the audience as they try to follow the film.

Another thing we are teaching the students is how to analyse and review films so that they can become film critics and reviewers. This is a skillset that is very relevant in the film industry.

Graduating is just the first step. How do you prepare these young graduates for the realities that they are about to face in the real world?

One of the things that we have deliberately included in our curriculum is that we seek to make our young filmmakers independent producers. We are trying to make them employers by teaching them how to run their own production houses.

We have trained them at length in the area of the business of film. This ensures that they look at film not just as a livelihood but as a profitable business they can engage in and be able to earn a livelihood not just for themselves but also for the people they work with, because filmmaking is a collaborative exercise.

We have spent a considerable part of the programme working with the Henley Business School in South Africa to make sure we can impart in our young people the thirst for the knowledge, experience, and exposure that will allow them to get into independent production.

What do you think is the space for young film creatives in Africa? Is the industry embracing young filmmakers?

It is embracing for the young filmmakers who want to be embraced. The mindset of a filmmaker who’s leaving a programme such as ours with top-notch, hands-on skills and vast experience gained through immersion in different production sets within East Africa is someone beyond what we would consider ordinary in filmmaking.

So for those looking for an opportunity where they can manifest their skills, that kind of person wouldn’t struggle in this industry.

If you look at Africa’s population today and the investment made in filmmaking by various companies, then you also look at the film grants in the region. East Africa has the highest number of film grants for emerging filmmakers. So there would be absolutely no reason for anyone to pass on an opportunity like that. The young filmmaker in East Africa is in a much better place than in many other parts of Africa.

What is the importance of Africans telling their own stories, even from a historical perspective, in today’s world?

That’s a really important aspect of anything we want to describe as uniquely African. Every African community is very strong in the area of language, art, and culture preservation. The only sad thing is that most of our African cultures have remained undocumented.

It hasn’t been reduced to a format that will be accessible in another 10 years or so. Africa has many dying cultures. When you lose out on your culture, you lose out on your actual being and self. Many stories are being told about Africa, and what we see in the Western press are stories of war, hunger, and mercenaries.

It is really sad because these are one-sided stories. The truth is, Africa is beautiful. We have beautiful people, cultures, languages, art, music, and folklore that are able to follow the evolution of our different communities.

But if we do not document these and put them in a form that allows us to share them with the rest of the world to counter the negative images and stereotypes about Africa, we have no one else to blame but ourselves.

Is there a future for the African film industry?

Absolutely. The space and avenue to be able to tell an authentic African story are found in Africa.