Do you write about film or art? Do you publish your work already, but feel there is more to know, learn and share your experience with fellow journalists? Then apply to the very first One Fine Day Film Critic Workshop in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Nairobi & DW Akademie – Africa. To take part in the workshop, you must be fully available from March 31st to April 11th 2014.
The deadline for submissions is 9th February 2014.
Send your applications to filmcritic@onefinedayfilms.org. Find the application form here.
The training is closely adapted to the individual requirements of African film enthusiasts today and aimed at the professionalization of the craft of filmmaking. It provides the instruction of young filmmakers in various departments by professional filmmakers, as well as the realization of a feature film as an on the job training that conveys filmmaking in practice. The participants will be guided and taught in developing and realizing their own visions and supported to attract attention with their films not only in Africa, but also in the international market.
One Fine Day Films have produced some of Kenya’s most successful (both critically and commercially) films in recent years, including Something Necessary (2013), Nairobi Half Life (2012) and Soul Boy (2008).
Ethiopia Skate is an organization dedicated to supporting youth in Ethiopia through skateboarding and education. It was founded by Abenezer Temesgen & Sean Stromsoe in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They are in the process of establishing a non-profit organization and have collected an international team of skateboarders and organizers to help promote skateboarding in Ethiopia.
They are planning to build Ethiopia’s first mobile mini halfpipe and move it around the city over the course of 2 weeks and will teach children the basics of skateboarding. They will then put the ramp in an accessible location as they build the first ever skatepark in Ethiopian history. They also plan to give at least 100 skateboards to youth organizations and local children as well as start to manufacture their our own decks.
Coming to Kenya for the very first time, The 48 Hour Film Project is a sleepless weekend in which you and your team have a great time making a movie. All writing, shooting, editing and scoring must be completed in just 48 hours.
On Friday night, you are assigned a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, that must be included in your movie. 48 hours later, you must submit your film. Next? Your masterpiece will show on the big screen of a local theater.
The 48 Hour Film Project’s mission is to advance filmmaking and promote filmmakers. Through its festival/competition, the Project encourages filmmakers and would-be filmmakers to get out there and make movies. The tight deadline of 48 hours puts the focus squarely on the filmmakers—emphasizing creativity and teamwork skills. While the time limit places an unusual restriction on the filmmakers, it is also liberating by putting an emphasis on “doing” instead of “talking.”
In May 2001, Mark Ruppert came up with this idea and enlisted his filmmaking partner, Liz Langston, and several other DC filmmakers to form their own teams and join him in this experiment. However, the question was, “Would films made in only 48 hours even be watchable?” Ten years later, and with more than 700 competitions having taken place around the world, the success of the project is plain to see. In 2013 the 48HFP will visit more than 120 cities where more than 60,000 people will make short films. The Project has truly spread to the four corners of the globe as filmmakers from Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas will compete to see who can make the best short film in a weekend.
Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the two-week exchange and development program (November 10-24) is part of the Sundance Institute East Africa initiative, now in its eleventh year, a professional program that creates peer to peer mentorship and exposure opportunities between theatre artists in East Africa and the U.S. In the spirit of this exchange, Sundance Institute East Africa engages with East African artists in Africa as well as East African artists sharing their work in the U.S. Deborah Asiimwe, Specialist-East Africa, and Roberta Levitow, Senior Program Associate-International and Co-Founder, Theatre Without Borders, co-led this initiative.
While advancing the growth of individual artistic voices, they provide mentorship and professional development opportunities-recognizing and honoring the specific cultural, social, political, and artistic realities of East African life (unique to each country as well as to the continent) within both the design and the implementation of the Program. Sundance Institute East Africa is not a training program.
The primary goals of this exchange are to foster:
The growth of the American theatre artist and field through interactions in East Africa and with East African artists
The growth of the East African theatre artist and field through international exposure and exchange
Sundance Institute have announced the artists and projects selected for its first Theatre Lab on Zanzibar, which have now concluded. Deborah Asiimwe, Specialist-East Africa, and Roberta Levitow, Senior Program Associate-International and Co-Founder, Theatre Without Borders, co-led this initiative.
Our East Africa initiative is rooted in the understanding that exchange opportunities for independent artists, though rare, promote the inclusiveness and diversity of story that ultimately serves to advance the field of theatre.
Himberg said,
This is our third residency in the region. Two previous Labs were hosted on Manda Island, Kenya. Hosting our first Theatre Lab on Zanzibar, Tanzania, as part of our longstanding East Africa initiative allowed us to extend our unique and renowned model of creative support to artists in the region. We are grateful to our artists, both in East Africa and from the U.S., for contributing to an international conversation that enables us to better understand the role of the artist in our respective cultures.
The creative teams and projects participating in the Theatre Lab on Zanzibar were:
Kwani Trust are celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a programme of special events. On Friday 29th November, Kwani? present a lecture titled Contemporary African Writing in the context of 50 years by renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from 2.30pm – 4.00pm at the 844 Building, University of Nairobi (please note change of venue from Taifa Hall)
Free entry (by Pre-registration ONLY) Register here.
An Al Jazeera documentary takes an in-depth look at the grievances that Kenyan-Somalis have toward the Kenyan government and how Al Qaeda-affiliated group Al Shabaab is taking advantage of this to establish a foothold in the region.
Not Yet Kenyan, filmed just before the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, exposes how Al Shabaab militants and their sympathizers have carried out a series of attacks in North Eastern Kenya to test the resolve of Kenya’s security system before bringing their campaign of violence to the capital.
In the documentary, Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Adow travels to his hometown of Garissa in Kenya’s North East Province to investigate the escalating violence caused by serious insecurity in the region. Mohammed asserts that the horrific massacre at Nairobi’s Westgate mall, although shocking, was not surprising. Following Kenya’s invasion of Somalia in 2011 there have been more than 100 revenge attacks in the country by al Shabaab and its sympathizers.
The KDF operation in Somalia was named ‘Linda Nchi’- Kiswahili for protect the nation. But residents of this part of the country have not been protected, leaving them to suffer at the hands of both the militants and Kenyan security forces whenever attacks occurred.
The Afrika Eye Festival in Bristol, UK will return for its 8th consecutive year from 8th – 10th November 2013. This year’s theme is Kenya in celebration of 50 years of independence.
Prior to the launch of the festival, Afrika Eye have organised a pitching workshop. Read the brief below:
Pitching, or presenting your film idea, to professionals is a vital skill in getting your film made. So this year, Afrika Eye decided to hold some mentored sessions where a selected group of film makers (or would-be film makers) get 4 minutes to pitch their idea to film professionals in front of an audience.
The pitch with the most votes from the film professionals will win a small cash prize towards making the film happen. You’re eligible if:
You live in or near Bristol
Your idea is for a 5 – 10 minute film
You are African, African Heritage or your idea is connected to Africa
There are 2 sessions.
The first will be a mentoring workshop on October 24 , 9.30-1pm at Watershed arts centre for 20-30 people, split into into groups of 10.
You’ll learn how to write, time and present your pitch.
From each group, the 2 pitches judged to have the most potential to be made into films will be selected to pitch in the second session. At the second session, the selected pitches will be presented to a team of film professionals plus an audience of the other workshop participants and interested public.
The professional team will award a small cash prize to the most outstanding pitch. More importantly, all participants will have the chance to learn from the professionals and turn their ideas into saleable pitches.
E-mail your film pitch idea to us at afrikaeye@gmail.com by 15th October.
1 page only, with:
your name, age and address
a tag line for your film if you have one
the story, the character(s)
how you are going to tell the story
if you have stills or a trailer or any samples, you can attach them – they may be useful as part of your pitch.
The Storymoja Hay Festival is organized in collaboration with Storymoja and the Hay Festival (UK). It will be held on the 19th to 22nd September at Nairobi National Museum, Nairobi. This year, author, art historian and distinguished writer in residence at Bard College Teju Cole is also participating.
This year’s festival theme is: Imagine the World! Waza Dunia!
Founded in 2008 The Storymoja Hay Festival is a four day celebration of stories, ideas, writing and contemporary culture through storytelling, books, live discussion forums, workshops, debates, live performances, competitions, mchongoano and music. This year, there are over 60 events. The festival attracts the most exciting local and international writers and thinkers.
The Schools Programme and the Storyhippo Children’s Village offers exciting activities and sessions for children ranging from creative writing classes, dance and theatre camps, publish your own book session and fun science experiments.
Meet with the brightest thinkers from home & abroad; literature, technology, innovation, self-development, wealth creation, art and music.
Highlights | Film screenings:
The Global Seminar – Documentary Filmmaking in Kenya: The Art of Science Storytelling
Saturday 21st, 11:00, Ford Hall
Film screenings of The Matriarch, Curse of the Gazelle King, Nature’s Nurturers, Re-alignments: A Zebra’s Story, The Lost Boys of Laikipia.
Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers; Muhinza Bushoki, Kevin Midigo, Loise Njagi, Maryanne Wangui Njuguna, Victor Oloo and teaching assistant Karim Kara. Presented by Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Princeton Atelier &the Program in Visual Arts of the Lewis Center for the Arts, & by the Princeton Environmental Institute
New Year’s Eve
Saturday 21st, 17:00, Discovery Hall
The Kenyan premiere screening of the Commonwealth Short Film New Year’s Eve. As a New Year’s Eve party plays out, Baraza is forced to find the courage to come clean. He risks shattering an entire way of life. Followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Wanjiru Kairu.
Highlights | Talks:
Voicing The Unspoken
Saturday 21st, 11:00, Storymoja Amphitheatre
Warsan Shire, Dr Neal Hall, Mongane Wally Serote and Njeri Wangari
Warsan Shire (Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth) won the Brunel University African Poetry Prize. Dr. Neal Hall (Nigger for Life) has won over 10 prizes for poetry in book festivals around the world. Mongane Wally Serote (Yakhal’Inkomo) has won the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize, the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa and was a Fulbright Scholar. These multiple-award-winning poets read from their work and talk to Kenyan Poet, Njeri Wangari (Mines and Mindfields) about asylum, war, love, loss, borders, insanity, race, identity and inequality.
Teju Cole in conversation with John Sibi-Okumu | Open City
Saturday 21st, 13:00, Louis Leakey Auditorium
This story of a young Nigerian-German psychiatrist in New York City five years after 9/11 was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won both the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Internationaler Literaturpreis. ‘A powerful and un-nerving inquiry into the human soul. Open City is
a profoundly original work, intellectually stimulating and possessing of a style both engaging and seductive.
– Time Magazine.
John Sibi-Okumu is a Kenyan playwright (Role Play and Minister Karibu) journalist and actor best known internationally for his role in The Constant Gardener.
The Commonwealth Writers Conversation: The Untold Story
Saturday 21st, 13:00, Ford Hall
The first in a global series of conversations invites writers, artists and thinkers to discuss the subjects and themes that are sometimes met with silence in societies around the world. This is the place to talk about how to communicate the difficult and the unsayable, whether through words or other forms of expression. Panelists include Chief Nyamweya and Keguro Macharia. Tell us on email or twitter what you’d like to discuss with the panel.
Ng’endo Mukii, Tazim Elkington, Zukiswa Wanner, Renee Mboya
The film-maker of Yellow Fever, Ng’endo Mukii chats with Tazim Elkington, Zukiswa Wanner and Renee Mboya about the shades of discrimination arising from our convoluted ideas around beauty and skin colour.
Black Identity
Sunday 22nd, 11:00, Kanga Tent
Dr Neal Hall, Mongane Wally Serote and Binyavanga Wainaina
Mongane Wally Serote was arrested by the apartheid government and spent nine months in solitary confinement. His poems explore themes of political activism, the development of black identity, and violent images of revolt and resistance. Dr. Neal Hall’s award winning book Nigger For Life, reflects his painful discovery that in ‘unspoken America’, race is the one thing by which he is first judged, by which he is first measured and against which his life and accomplishments are measured. Binyavanga Wainaina is the founding editor of Kwani? literary journal. His no-holds-barred Granta essay How to write about Africa drew wide-spread international attention. His memoir One Day, I Will Write About This Place made Oprah Winfrey’s list. In a free ranging discussion, these three powerful writers explore black male identity.
KEBUForum, in collaboration with international theatre companies IFT (It’s A Freedom Thing theatre), and Volcano Theatre present a pilot programme during a celebratory week of public discourse on innovation and hybridity in African and international storytelling. During these five days, conversations, master classes, panel discussions and performances will be presented to ensure a theoretical approach as well as practical demonstration of hybrid form of theatre. There will be reflection and dialogue on what ethos to carry into work inspired by works that are cutting edge, works that push boundaries, and works that are experimental. The Conference will draw Speakers and Participants from three different Continents: Africa, Europe and North America.
From 26th-31st of August 2013, notable Ugandan and International theater-makers will lead conversations, offer workshops, and showcase their work at Buzz restaurant and lounge, Bugolobi, Kampala.
Award-winning Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainaina, will deliver the keynote speech on ‘Owning the African narrative.’ The theme of the conference is “Innovation and Hybridity in African and International Performance.” Key topics for discussion include:
Sustainable theatre business practice/finding funding
Embracing multiple narratives and art forms
Ugandanness, Africanness and Blackness
“She is the story”: women and the theatre
Theatre as a political advocate
Each day will feature public performances, including poetry by Donna Michelle St. Bernard and a musical theater piece Dawn of the Pearl by Acaye E. Pamela on Wednesday August 28, 2013 at the Sheraton hotel, Kampala.
On Thursday August 29, Nova Bhattacharya, a Toronto-based Bharanatayam dancer, will blend this ancient Indian dance form with modern dance at 6pm at Buzz restaurant and lounge. Friday night will host the premier African performance of the internationally acclaimed play White Rabbit, Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour; the piece will star celebrated Ugandan sketch comic Frobisha Lwanga.
Master classes are free but require prior online registration as space is limited; panel discussions, presentations and most other events are free and open to the public with the exception of a few paid benefit performances. For further information, including program details, prices, times, and to register online please visit the Kendu Hearth website, their Facebook page and find them on twitter.
Organisers
Photo credit: Mariuxi Zambrano
Mumbi Tindyebwa is a Kenyan-Ugandan-Canadian Theatre creator and Director raised in Kenya and Victoria, BC and now based in Toronto. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of IFT Theatre and recent participant in the distinguished Michael Langham Workshop in Classical Direction at Stratford Shakespeare Festival. In 2011, Mumbi was honored with the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Protege Award and nominated for the John Hirsch Award in Direction. She has also received funding support for her work and development as an artist through the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Theatre Ontario.
Photo credit: Philippa Ndisi Hermann
Currently working as Specialist for Sundance Institute East Africa in New York, Deborah Asiimweis an award winning playwright, performer, and producer. She is a 2006 recipient of a scholarship of merit in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts, where she graduated with a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree in 2009. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from Makerere University, in Kampala-Uganda. Asiimwe is a recipient of the 2010 Theatre Communications Group (TCG) New Generation Future Leaders grant to work with the Sundance Institute Theatre Program.
This November Film Africa is planning a series of film screenings and events to celebrate 21 years of Nollywood. They are compiling a free ‘zine that shares stories about, and insights into, the last 21 years of Nigerian video film. They are looking especially for texts discussing Nollywood consumption and production in the UK.
Ciné Kenya 