The second edition Film Africa Documentary Festival to honor budding film makers

The second edition of the Film Africa Documentary Festival is set for early November, this time featuring new international and local entries.

Also, instead of the National Museums of Kenya venue where the inaugural fete was held last year, this time it will be all at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi.

The festival has lined up various activities to bolster film making, including workshops, film screenings, training, discussions, peer networking and mentorship programmes.

“As the festival plans reach high gear, we are not only interested in the quantum of numbers but also on the quality of films that will be submitted to the festival,” the festival founder and director Charles Asiba said.

Once again, the festival will provide a platform for expression to both established and emerging talent in this genre, popularising the documentary genre of film making while reaching a wider audience.

ENCOURAGE INNOVATION

According to Asiba, the festival seeks to celebrate the worldwide achievements of the documentary genre, recognise relevant exemplary performance and success in documentary film making, encourage innovation, creativity and intellectual interaction among film lovers.

The theme for this year’s festival is ‘Africa, the present, past and the future’.

It is envisaged that the selected films will offer a nostalgic experience and bring about “many down memory lanes”.

“We will tag on the audiences sentimentalities and motivate them to share the African story experience,” said Mr Asiba during an interview at The Standard's newsroom.

One of the new highlights will be the ‘One-Minute Film Competition’ intended to use the widely available mobile technology to encourage everybody to use their phones to shoot and edit a film that is only a minute long, hence inculcating a system of learning that is practical and participative.

Accordingly, the best one-minute films will be screened during the festival. The distinguishing characteristic of this concept is that it will support the creative cultural expression while introducing film as a business.

As a precursor to the documentary film festival Maisha Film Laboratory will play host for 8 days to screenwriters from the November 3 to November 10, this year.

The deadline for the documentaries and short films was September 15 while the one for the one-minute film is set for September 24.

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

The Kenya film industry has expanded rapidly over the last few years mainly because of the government initiative for the local broadcasters to increase the local content, coupled with the motivation from Bollywood and Nollywood, the foreign film makers attraction to the varied scenery in Kenya, and the current government support of the industry through various funding initiatives such as Uwezo fund and the Youth fund.

With the government's recognition of the industry as a source of revenue, employment and a boost to the image of the country, this growth is expected to continue at a stronger and steady pace in the foreseeable future. This offers excellent opportunity for new companies with fresh ideas to enter the market.

The festival’s founder, Charles Peter Asiba, has many years’ experience in the film industry as Director of Kenya Film Commission, Director Kenya Copyright Board, Festival director Film Africa Documentary Film Festival, CEO Kenya International Film Festival Trust, a publisher of Audio visual Guide for Africa. In the One-Minute-Film project, he is partnering with Job Mwanga, an engineer who has held senior operational and general management roles both locally and internationally for a major blue chip multinational.