At the Berlinale there is no African contribution, development Minister Gerd Müller sees in the African movie industry still have great potential. Netflix has already begun to enter the market.
“Africa is the creative continent is par excellence,” said development Minister Müller on Wednesday (13.2.) to be invited in Berlin at the event “African Film – on-the-rise-such as Africa, the cinema re-invents” the Ministry, together with the DW Academy. “The African Film economy,” Müller continued, “the series, Web-TV and Mobile cinema to create increasingly Jobs for African filmmakers.”
The Minister also referred to the growing interest of the streaming service Netflix on African productions. In the past year, the company acquired the rights to the Nigerian Film “Lionheart”, with “Queen Sono” gave Netflix the first African in-house production in order.
“Making films for your neighbors”
Nowhere are the growth opportunities for the Film and creative sectors were “not as big as in Africa,” said Müller, who claimed that Africa had to be able to your own stories, films and content production. He put on a “cultural revolution from below”.
Support they could. the young film-maker in training, as, for example, the German renowned Director Volker Schlöndorff transposes with his Rwanda Media Project In cooperation with DW Akademie, the Academy award winner has built up in the East African country of Rwanda a film school.
The only thing he could teach the apprentices, the Craft, Schlöndorff. It was not important to him, that you copied the dramaturgy of the American cinema: “Making films for your neighbors, tell your stories in your language, with your means, with your narrative style”, it calls on the young filmmaker.
Peter Limbourg, Director General of Deutsche Welle, pleaded to support the diversity of the African culture. It was “great, when films will be shown in regional languages,” said Limbourg at the event. “A good movie is a good movie, no matter where he comes from,” the cinema could encourage people to Think and awareness of injustices.
David against Goliath in the Telenovela
Injustices such as in “Country Queen”, a Kenyan Telenovela in the pilot phase. The first episode was shot., produced by the German company Good Karma Fiction. This was used two years ago, the favor of the hour, as the Ministry of development, the Initiative “future.Market.Film.” launched: the African film was promoted economy so far, with 6.1 million Euro. Through the program, ten movies, according to the Ministry emerged so far and more than 1000 film-makers have been trained from 20 African countries, of which almost half are women.
For “Country Queen” has a Team led by artistic Director Ravi Karmalker 40 Kenyan film-makers interviewed. In this determination process, for the Kenyans-relevant topics should emerge. The Plot deals with the subject of rural-urban migration and the threat of a village by a shady company. The main character should be role of a strong woman who is in a David-versus-Goliath-story involuntarily to the heroine.
Also a documentary filmmaker to receive support, for example through the non-profit organization Steps. Their current project “Generation of Africa” is supposed to represent the theme of Migration from an African point of view. In three Workshops in Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) have developed the participants ‘ stories played up in the media has no role.
At the Moment, be selected from the many ideas the projects to be realized. This must, however, be found more donors.