Status Of Cinema Production In East Africa

National Theatre Activities (by Morgan Mbabazi)

AMID THE struggles to get funding, building images unique to the region, quality, training, broadcast fees, history, language, and copyright abuse, East African filmmakers are producing movies in all these teething hardships – the booming Nairobi River Road and the Ki-Uganda films in Kampala are good examples.
 
In various interviews during the recent 4th Amakula Kampala International Film Festival a number of filmmakers in the region singled out copyright abuse as their major threat in trying to develop cinema industry in the region. Even in countries were there are copyright legislation implementation seems to be failing.
 
“Artists in the first place should know the importance of preserving their own material before respecting other people’s works,” Tanzanian filmmaker, Samuel Obae observed. “If for example we have to copy some else’s music beats and duplicate for our own needs, it means that we are not innovative or creative.”
 
“We have a copyright society in Tanzania but I don’t see it playing its role in enforcing the law. To me for the society to function well it should be felt at the grassroots across the country. The society should also carry out sensitization programmes to empower the creators and users in understanding copyright,” Obae said.
 
“Our biggest threat is piracy, because it’s not easy to control and let alone your product. A film is not a one man’s show, it involves many people who may wrongly handle a copy to the copyright thieves after it has been released,” Ugandan filmmaker, Prince Joe Nakibinge says.

The Ugandan producer of the drama series, Eky’Ekango Mu Mukwano (Love Shock, 2007, 90 min.) Osman Matovu argues that: “We are still along way to go because people do not trust or believe in filmmakers thinking that because they understand Luganda anybody can make a film. It is not a matter of holding a camera, shoot and you have a film, it’s not as simple as that.”
 
“Another problem is about the language of communication. Some people prefer local languages while others want English. Those who prefer local languages do buy our films and yet the English speaking elite with more money are instead fill of criticism and don’t value local productions,” Matovu said.
 
According to Kenyan filmmaker, Wanjiru Kinyanjui, “Cracking down on pirates is not easy because they are fast and thorough. But there are efforts by the Government and the artists and producers to work together to arrest those caught with pirated wares. The producers, who started off with music, know the problem and are ready to act. There are meticulous efforts on the side of producers to curb the plague: the package has the original signature of the artist, the distributors seal, and addresses and phone numbers of the producers and artists. Unfortunately, some pirates master the art of counterfeit so thoroughly that the VCD looks original.”
 
“I understand there is copyright bill that is supposed to be tabled in Parliament soon. We need it very urgently because it’s killing the arts,” another Kenyan producer, Peter Tharao Ngure (Manga in America, 2007, 57 min.) said. “We have a lot of young artists in the River Road area with a lot of talent. As soon as they produce their films then the pirates go to work selling a pirated copy for as little as Kshs50. It’s very sad because it denies these young artists to earn a living from their talents. They are forced to find something else to do because they can’t compete with the pirates. The end result is wasted talent.”

Rwandese filmmaker, Jacques Rutabingwa says there is a copyright law in his country but it’s not being implemented. “There is a copyright law in Rwanda but its not being applied by the authorities. This has given way to the pirates because no one will punish them and all we do is just to look on. However, the ministry of commerce is currently looking at the intellectual property rights and maybe after the law will be used.”
 
Rutabingwa (Isugi, 2005, 25 min.) says Rwanda doesn’t have regulations of cinema because the producer, directors and actors do not know their limits and rights even though the ministry of youth has a by-law on the protection of script writers. “When I give you my idea for a story then you translate it into a movie, who takes the credit and acknowledgement?”
 
“In Rwanda we don’t have funds to make movies but we are producing films out of the little we have. We do this by convincing the volunteers that by appearing on screen it may open doors for them for careers in the industry.  In this case I will then offer my own cloths as costumes, house and feed the entire team on my own money,” Rutabingwa said.
 
According Kinyanjui the entire problem stems from lack of cultural policies. “We don’t have a cultural policy to support the arts in general in Kenya, even then the people are not aware or used to viewing African films. Our national television doesn’t commission freelance producers, so we don’t produce for television. In the end it’s cheaper for televisions to buy cheaper and rejected soaps and films in the West. It’s sad that our government has only managed to turn the country into a shooting location for foreign film crews,” Kinyanjui observed.

The financing of films in Kenya has been in the hands of donors, NGO’s and foreign institutions. “This is not especially conducive to nurturing and supporting local talent to creatively contribute to the film industry. Rather, the subject matter, which is mostly on development issues, has little to do with entertainment,” Kinyanjui says.
 
Kinyanjui observes in a paper, The Booming Show Business in Nairobi’s River Road District, presented at the 2nd Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in 2005 that there is a growing and real alternative to those who do not comprehend or wish to adhere to foreign programming. On the ‘other side’ of the Central Business District of Nairobi, the so-called ‘River Road’ area, a whole new phenomenon is taking over the visual entertainment industry.
 
Stand-up comedians, Kinyanjui says have discovered a cheaper way of video production, and, to go with it, the appropriate marketing strategies. The cheaper, digital, broadcast quality video camera has ‘invaded’ Kenya, with the result that many people can now afford their own cameras. The expensive Avid video editing has been taken over by the personal computer. The video card allows a Pentium IV computer to edit a whole video film, and many who have a computer graphics background are can now turn to inexpensive methods to realize their videos – and they are doing so!
 
“Most of the River Road artists have a secondary school education, after which they started acting in plays (Kikuyu) in clubs and bars. They have no formal training in acting or in filmmaking. Most had never been before the camera before their first VCD appearances. They have enough experience in making people laugh, though, and it is this that is pulling audiences like a magnet. What is also interesting is that this phenomenon seems to be artists driven rather than producer-driven,” she observes.

“It is the artists who have the idea, concept, and who star in the comedies. They work on their own storylines, with which they approach a suitable producer. It reminds one of Charlie Chaplin and The United Artists (artists turned producers who ha d total control of their products). Many artists, after their first VCD is fully financed by the producer, revert to commissioning the producer so that they don’t have to share the profits,” Kinyanjui adds.
 
Business, rather than art or politics, is the guiding drive, Kinyanjui notes. The storylines are in everyday, ordinary problems. Many of the settings are rural. The stars are old, grey men (playing under 40s) who wear made-up white beards, cloths that have really seen better days and carry on like old men. They are bridegrooms, spend their coffee boom money on beer and, sometimes, prostitutes instead of paying off debts, they have girlfriends, they leap around like young gazelles. And they think out loudly.
 
Kinyanjui’s film, The Battle of the Sacred Tree (Kenya, 1995, 80 min.) is based on a short story with the same title by Ugandan writer, Barbara Kimenye. It focuses on the conflict between traditional African beliefs and missionary zeal in a Kikuyu village. There, life revolves around a sacred tree that exerts a strange power over the members of the community. The Christian ladies come to see the tree as an offensive reminder of a pagan past, but upon her return from the city, Mumbi, daughter of an old fashioned medicine man, opposes their plan to cut it down.
 
“The acting is almost exclusively improvised. Since there is no written script with dialogues, the play can take different directions at any time, making it quite adventurous for the camera crew. This is also visible on the VCDs, as some actors keep repeating themselves without censorship. Sometimes the actor forgets his line and repeats the last one. Or the response by the fellow actor is not as suited to the former line. The videos also share the problem of not having a proper director…,” Kinyanjui writes.

The editing and VCD cover designs are all done in River Road and once the VCD is packaged, it is picked by the producer’s personnel and sold in various shops in the city. Persons directly known to the producer might take some VCDs on credit to other towns like Mombasa, Nakuru and Naivasha. They remit the money, minus their commission (usually about 10 per cent), to the producer if they sell. If they don’t find buyers, they can return the goods.
 
River Road videos Kinyanjui says are strictly a business. “They are sold to the man down the street, much like groceries. For different reasons, they have not considered offering their product to television channels. But they have found their audience, so why worry about the ‘highbrow’ television?  VCD players are cheaper than VHS players. There are VCD players that utilize batteries, which means that people who do not have electricity, especially in the rural areas or in the slums, one can still watch films on VCD…”
 
Improving the quality of the video CDs will not necessarily imply much higher costs, Kinyanjui says. “If a director and a scriptwriter were to involve the artists and the crew in a professional film, they would automatically improve their technique. A written script would enable the artist to have more control over flaws like repetition, which are rampant in most of the video CDs. A director would make sure of more use of close-ups to get the best sound under the conditions: the cameras do not normally have an external microphone, so that the cameraman, who is usually on an extremely wide shot, has to ask the actors to shout. Indeed, there is so much shouting in the VCDs that is unnecessary.”
 
“There seems to be no age bracket of audiences: young and old enjoy the VCDs depending on their story quality. Parents can watch them with their children because there is no overt sex, violence or tension in the films. The humour is straightforward and simple, but one needs to know the language or read subtitles. So far, no one has tried working with subtitle, but that will come,” Kinyanjui says.

Kinyanjui believes that, “It is time to get to know the market and appreciate the fact that the people really do want to watch local films, especially those that will entertain them. But, as in any market, it is demand driven and the audiences are the most important feature of any kind of business. What will sell? Can one also take those serious issues and turn them into comedy? River Road proves that people want comedy!