Tag Archives: Goethe-Institut

Profile of the Week | Mũchiri Njenga

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Mũchiri

Mũchiri Njenga

This week, my feature profile is Mũchiri Njenga. He is the founder of Nairobi-based boutique creative studio Studio Ang which has become a haven for independent artists that enjoy working on unique and visually innovative projects. Njenga is a self-taught transmedia artist and filmmaker whose background spans the fields of animation, motion design, music and film. Kichwateli and My World is Round are two short films by Njenga that screened at the Afrika Eye Film Festival at The Watershed in Bristol, UK last year.

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Kichwateli

Kichwateli is a short poetic film set in a post-apocalyptic African slum and city. The film takes the viewer on a spiritual and metaphorical voyage through a young boy’s dream, mixing imagery of the boy wandering inquisitively with a live TV as his head to show the effects of media on a young generation.

The short film features music by Just A Band, Modeselektor ( a breakbeat duo from Berlin) and Maasai Mbili (Nairobi-based Art group). The music is a metaphor for the way we are now all plugged into the same images of global anxiety while at the same time we ourselves, are subjects of scrutiny by the all-seeing ubiquitous cameras. The director of Goethe-Institut Nairobi Johannes Hossfeld said this of the project,

Muchiri made one of the best music videos I have ever seen in my life.

Kichwateli was Studio Ang’s contribution to the BLNRB project, a cooperation between Kenyan and German musicians initiated by Goethe-Institut Nairobi and Gebrüder Teichmann. Learn more about the filmmaking process for Kichwateli and the inspirations that led to it’s production by clicking here.

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Portrait by Allan Gichigi

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Our World Is Round

Our World Is Round  is a short film that celebrates the life-time achievement of veteran Kenyan cyclist David Kinjah and his award winning team Safari Simbaz. The film details how Kinjah discovered cycling and what brings him joy in this activity. Having raced and won medals in prestigious races around the world, Kinjah also mentored Tour De France 2013 winner Chris Froome.

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Kinjah, the first black African rider to sign for a European cycling team, trained Froome as a cyclist when he was a boy while his family was living in Kenya. The film also delineates Kinjah’s strong desire to transform the lives of the people in his village through his passion and the power of cycling. This is an initiative which has taken form in the Safari Simbaz Trust,

Most of these young boys are school dropouts who would have ended up being gangsters. But through Safari Simbaz, they’ve learned a lot about life, gone back to school and most of them [now] have a career in pro-cycling, representing Kenya in international races globally.

In this film, the advantages that new technology has provided are also brought to the fore. When Kinjah first started cycling professionally, he mainly relied on magazines and newspapers. Now, with the help of web developer Fady Rostom, Kinjah and his team have an online presence that can be reached globally. Read more about the film and view more photos at a previous feature I wrote here.

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Film Critic & Journalism Workshop | One Fine Day Films

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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.

 

About One Fine Day

The One Fine Day Film Workshops is concept and partnership project between the DW Akademie, One Fine Day Films and Ginger Ink. It is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development , the Film & Medienstiftung NRW, the Goethe-Institut Nairobi and ARRI Film- & TV Services.

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).

Connect with One Fine Day Films on Twitter, Instagram main website and Facebook.

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GoetheOnMain | Call for Proposals

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Photo credit: Lerato Maduna

Photo credit: Lerato Maduna

GoetheOnMain was developed by the Goethe-Institut South Africa and launched in May 2009 at Arts on Main in Johannesburg as a non-commercial, artist-run project space. The multi-disciplinary GoetheOnMain has since hosted a wide range of exhibitions, workshops, events and performances; including visual art, literature, film, music, dance, and theatre projects.

The GoetheOnMain space itself implies a certain conceptual frame – that of the city, or a sense of ‘urbanity’: a focus on the human relation as much as built environment. Previous projects at GoetheOnMain have dealt extensively with politics of space, noting the stratified city, gentrification, issues of access, and a loss of the ‘center’ so typical of many world metropolises, but also of the personal as political – focusing on private narratives, identities, eccentricities, and broader global issues affecting the city dweller.

Project realisation: March to December 2014.

Find the application here. Deadline for submissions: 15 August 2013

With thanks to ContemporaryAnd.

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Encounter the World’s Best Documentaries

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The 15th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival runs from 6-16 June 2013 in Johannesburg and Cape Town.  

Africa’s premier documentary event will screen the most-talked about documentaries from around the world, including two 2013 Oscar nominees (The Gatekeepers and How To Survive A Plague) and winners from Berlin (Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present; In Heaven Underground), DOK Leipzig (Colombianos), and Sundance (Queen of Versailles; The House I Live In). 

Documentaries broaden our experience of the world, showing us places few of us would otherwise see. We’re incredibly excited about this year’s streamlined lineup. Every year, most of the screenings sell-out, so we recommend booking early. 

– Festival director Lesedi Oluko Moche


 

 

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Events | TEN CITIES

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Ten Cities, is a global and culturally revelatory project that is documenting the social practice of going clubbing. It is the brainchild of Goethe-Institut Kenya in partnership with Adaptr and C/O Berlin. The project spans two continents, 10 countries and three disciplines (music, photography and writing).

The cities involved are Berlin, Bristol, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kiev, Lagos, Lisbon, Luanda, Nairobi and Naples. The criteria set down by the project: cities with highly developed club cultures with outstanding musicians, cities with specific local forms of music and characteristics in terms of urban development, or home to well established subcultures and subaltern public spheres and voices. About 50 DJs, producers and musicians are teamed up therefore enabling them to produce music together and exchange their knowledge about the club scenes in their countries.

The European guys are not teaching anything to the African colleagues. That would be ridiculous. The bridges are built by producing music together. The symmetrical and equal exchange is crucial here. — Johannes Hossfeld, Director of Goethe Institut Kenya

As a culture, clubbing is one of the most dynamic cultural forms worldwide with regards to space and the public sphere. It is also a space for experimenting with identities and lifestyles. Musicians today keep in touch with global pop culture viathe Internet which in turn, inspires local creativity and finds its way back into the Western world. However this Eurocentric attitude, often leads to a lack in both the appreciation of the African cultures within which all western styles of club music have their roots, and in the physical exchange between musicians and activists between the two continents. The Ten Cities project answers these concerns through a combination of music production, photography, and interdisciplinary research.

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TEN CITIES Luanda – DJeff, DJSatelite, LucioAquilina, MarcoMessina

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TEN CITIES Luanda – Concert Luanda

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TEN CITIES Luanda – MC Sacerdote

A research project comprising of 23 researchers will use the perspective of club cultures to explore and investigate the term of the public sphere. They will work on essays and studies about those partly unknown music scenes and their sub cultures; ten photographers will capture the same on an artistic level.

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Talent Campus Durban 2013

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Talent Campus Durban is a 5-day intensive programme that runs during the Durban International Film Festival. It seeks to provide selected participants with an opportunity to meet with international industry professionals and experts in various aspects of the filmmaking business through a programme of masterclasses, workshops and industry networking events.  Under this year’s theme of “Memetic Africa”, Talent Campus Durban calls for African filmmakers to participate in this programme and be inspired by stories shaped by varying innovative patterns, ideas, customs, traditions, practices and skills that enforce the legacy of the African film context.

Talent Campus Durban also calls for participants for Talent Press, a mentoring programme for three African film critics in collaboration with FIPRESCI and Goethe Institut, which makes a welcome return in its second year. Talent Press mentors will offer their expertise to guide selected participants in the art of film criticism with access to all the screenings of the 34th Durban International Film Festival.

Held in co-operation with the Berlinale Talent Campus, and with support from the German Embassy of South Africa, Goethe Institut of South Africa, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Talent Campus Durban runs from 19 to 23 July 2013. Apart from the main event in Berlin, Talent Campus partnerships also take place at selected festivals in Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Tokyo and Sarajevo. Opportunities for participating talents are enhanced through Talent Campus networks and the Berlinale’s global information platform.