Investing in African Cinema Films

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Film is an amalgamation of different artforms, incorporating writing, drama, cinematography, music etc, to me, it remains the greatest work of creativity. i choose to talk about this because Africa has so many stories of Independence, amalgamation, culture and diverse lifestyles which every film lover will definitely sit in the cinema to watch. the market is still lucrative; earlier than now, in Nollywood, we ran back to low budget films for home distribution when we realized that our market resides with us. but things are changing now, with our inquisitive attributes, we have understudied the process of Cinema film making; we have access to Full frame production equipments and above all, we have the stories. i can be your expert guide here, we want to do business with both local and international business men that can invest in Films. the market is secured now.

consider our options:

Go high and wide – release films at festivals, secure theatrical distribution before going to DVD, TV, Online streams. This route means competing head on in the cinema market with Hollywood, Bollywood and other big budget blockbusters.

Go wide and low – includes exploiting free to air TV, Cable TV, and Community TV platforms, going straight to DVD, using mobile TV and Internet online rental and offline purchase options, as well as the use of multiple internet promotional opportunities.

Africa needs filmmakers across all these sectors. We want flagship African films that will compete successfully in theaters, locally and globally, and develop return on investment throughout the value chain. Africa needs more producers and more distributors to engage with the challenges. We also have innovative low-budget films that tell local stories and provide viable economic opportunities.

During the colonial era, Africa was represented exclusively by Western filmmakers. The continent was portrayed as an exotic land without history or culture. Examples of this kind of cinema abound and include jungle epics such as Tarzan and The African Queen, and various adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s 1885 novel titled King Solomon’s Mines. In the mid-1930s, the Bantu Educational cinema Experiment was carried out in order to educate the Bantu peoples.

In the French colonies Africans were, by law, not permitted to make films of their own. This ban was known as the “Laval Decree”. The ban stunted the growth of film as a means for Africans to express themselves politically, culturally, and artistically. In 1955, however, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra – originally from Benin, but educated in Senegal – along with his colleagues from Le Group Africain du Cinema, shot a short film in Paris by the name of Afrique Sur Seine (1955). Vieyra was trained in film-making at the prestigious Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographique (IDHEC) in Paris, and in spite of the ban on filmmaking in Africa, was granted permission to make a film in France Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in France during the 1950s and is considered to be the first film directed by a black African

Film Festivals in Africa (partial list)

Abuja International Film Festival (Nigeria)

Amakula Kampala International Film Festival (Uganda)

ANIMAFRIK (Ghana)

Cairo International Film Festival (Egypt)

Carthage Film Festival (Tunisia)

Dockanema (Mozambique)

Durban International Film Festival (South Africa)

Encounters South Africa International Documentary Festival

Ethiopian International Film Festival

FAKO Film Festival (Cameroon)

FESPACO PanAfrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (BurkinaFaso)

Festival du films de Dakar (Senegal)

Images That Matter international short film festival (Ethiopia)

Kenya International Film FestivalLola Kenya Screen

Marrakesh International Film Festival (Morocco)

Out in Africa South African Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (South Africa)

Rwanda Film Festival

Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (Congo)

Tri-Continental Film festival (South Africa)

Zanzibar International Film Festival (Tanzania)

Zimbabwe International Film Festival

Zuma Film Festival (Nigeria)

African Film Festivals (International)

We are expecting investors to come in and fund likes of Black Panther here

George Ugwuja

Senior Producer, Media & Communications Consultant

+234-803-884-3041

info@georgeugwuja.com