It’s not because you don’t have the means that you don’t dream,” says Guy-Serge Namane, a director at the second Bushman Film Festival, a cornucopia of global smartphone cinema. “Action!,” his assistant director calls. Namane asks actress Berenice Irie, in full make-up, to knock on the door of Room 8 at the Bushman Cafe in Abidjan, the venue at the centre of the second such festival, unique in West Africa.
David Masanso is an animator who has mastered the art and science of making computers and cartoons work together. He Crossroads Digital Multimedia, a local animation production studio in Kampala, Uganda. Masanso rose to fame after this short animation film, ‘Imitate’ won an award at the 2009 edition of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival.
Vanessa Obioha Joel Benson's virtual reality documentary In Bakassi has been added to the lineup of the largest documentary festival in North America, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. 'In Bakassi' tells harrowing tales from one of the most populated Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in northeast Nigeria, Maiduguri.
Pan-African non-profit organisation the Ladima Foundation, which was founded with the aim of contributing to correcting the major imbalances within the industry, recently announced the brand new Women’s Film Festival Network. At the African hub at the European Film Market of Berlinale, or the Berlin International Film Festival, Ladima announced this initiative, which starts in 2019 and includes the formation of a network of women-focused and managed film and cultural festivals from across Africa.
There has never been a better time for gender equality to take center stage than right now. When it comes to the creative film and television industry, academies such as the MultiChoice Talent Factory in East Africa have deliberately made strides to achieve gender equity in their student selections. In time, these skilled young creatives will thrive due to the legacy that the following successful industry forerunners have built.
Hermon Hailay, Ethiopia