Pan African Ben Zulu with Kenyan Bob Nyanja at Sithengi, South Africa, in 2003

Ben Zulu, director of Africa Script Development Fund, and producer of More Time, Neria and Everyone’s Child speaks to Bamuturaki Musinguzi in Kampala after the screening of Babu’s Babies, his latest film made in Kenya at 2nd Amakula Kampala International Film Festival.

Who is Ben Zulu?

Ben Zulu is an African who has had the opportunity to practise the art of film and television, collaborating with other Africans and appreciating the diversity of Africa without being limited to the experience of one country.

Where do you derive the passion and interest for filmmaking?

From the fact that film and television have become modern ways of transmitting ideas and culture and that our contemporary existence. And so if we do not create products that are consumed by our audiences that means that we are not going to be in charge of our destinies as it will be defined by the experiences and ideas of other people.

What has been the role of Africa Script Development Fund, ASDF, that is about to celebrate ten years?

ASDF was founded in 1997 after I had made More Time and Everyone's Child productions. I had come to a stage where I wanted to experiment with African storytelling. Up to that time I had worked only in Zimbabwe. ASDF was a forum meant for the entire continent so I was able to interact with writers from several African countries and through this I have been able to understand our African storytelling traditions but also the limitation of how these traditions can be transformed into cinema. Babu's Babies is the first product of ASDF.

You were behind Zimbabwean productions More Time, Neria, and Everyone's Child and more recently, Babu's Babies in Kenya. Which would you say is your best film?

Each of these films has got a life of its own, all served different challenges and appreciated by different audiences in ways that are similar but sometimes different. I like Neria because it was a culturally-grounded story although it was dealing with some issues such as the legal age of maturity and status of women in inheritance laws. More Time was dealing with HIV/Aids and adolescences, but again in a very creative way. Everyone's Child was a very difficult one because it was dealing with the increasing number of Aids orphans and the breakdown of the family institution and communities Babu's Babies is my recent project and I am very proud of the production because it is unlike the others; it was artistically inspired, having started with an idea and original story and developing into a movie.

You are currently based in Nigeria. What are you doing there?

When we started Africa Script Development Fund (ASDF) it followed that the scripts would have to be developed in particular countries because we had to be true to the cultures where these stories were coming from. But when the writers were through with the training and returned home, producers were not ready to take this kind of screen plays. So the frustration of not having any of this stories being produced made me to come back and function as a producer. That is how we made Babu's Babies in Kenya. I am in Nigeria using the same approach because we have a story there that is very good.

A scene from Babu’s Babies

The theme of this year’s Amakula Kampala International Film Festival was storytelling and yet this aspect seems to be dying on the continent.

Stories is our way of communicating about ideas so they come in different forms; traditionally stories were told by our grandmothers around the fire place, but today the stories are told and converged through the modern medium of film and television. Because we are urbanized and we want to reach mass audiences, so the art of storytelling is still going on.

How could we link African storytelling and cinema?

experiences and are passed on from one generation to another. They are based on the cultural environment that you live in, the experiences of people that you know. But to say they are African it means that we are telling the stories on the basis of the situations that come from our experiences as opposed to somebody else's. So this is how we distinguish stories that are told from a western point of view and those from the African perspective. One can easily predict the storyline of Nigerian films. What is your advice to Nollywood to make films that can compete for international awards and recognition? The growth and development of Nollywood was organic in the sense that people saw an opportunity to exploit. Many of them entered the industry with very little training. Once they got in they were able to develop a specification of a kind of product and that could be produced in a certain time and cost. There are some encouraging signs because the Nigerians themselves are the first to tell you that they would like to see their industry develop to the next phase. We are starting to see some filmmakers who are now taking a little more time mobilising more resources to make better quality films. And that is what is going to happen as audiences continue to demand and buy better quality products.

2nd Amakula Kampala jury members Silvia Maria Bazzoli and Ogova Ondego with Amakula director Lee Ellickson

African filmmakers and directors always lament about the lack of resources and distribution networks. What is the solution to this?

What we have to understand is that cinema is a business and it requires financial resources and it is not a cheap medium. It requires a certain kind of technology, an army of people working together to realise the vision of the writer and director so that the story is properly told for cinema. Unfortunately it is not yet a business in African countries that you can find people who are willing to invest in this enterprise. In countries like France where governments feel that cinema is an important aspect of their cultures they make sure funds are available for filmmakers.

Why do you think Nollywood is popularising African cinema?

It is because of the special circumstances of Nigeria as a country; it has an estimated population of 130-150 million with disposable income to spend on local films in sufficient quantities to make it an industry. When you have an industry that means you have people who are producing the movies, investors, distributors and consumers. And that is what has given Nigeria this achievement.

Television stations in Africa still demand for fees from filmmakers to broadcast their films. What is your comment?

When you look at Europe and the USA, filmmaking is an industry because broadcasters drive it as the main consumers. Television requires a constant supply of new material and what is supplied is highly perishable. In those countries where the industry is vibrant television does commission local productions. So this gives filmmakers the opportunity to continually hone their skills and become better because filmmaking is a craft. In Africa you take five years to raise the resources to shoot one movie. Then broadcasters demand you pay for airtime. Broadcasters are not even willing to buy the product; if they buy it, they offer a very ridiculous amount that does not help the producer to recoup his investment.

How is Africa to exploit the market, which seems to be available, evidenced by Nollywood?

‘Driving to Glory’ in Nairobi

The market is there but it should be qualified. The market that Nollywood has been able to achieve is got to do with the domestic market in Nigeria itself. Most producers make their money in Nigeria and what we see on television elsewhere doesn't go back to the original producers as most of it is pirated. Africans want to see themselves on their screens and Nollywood has demonstrated that if you produce the right product people are going to buy it. In Nigeria the film industry has got its own economics of production in that you are able to recover costs of production, make a profit, and pay everybody involved. In many African countries we do not have that.

Critics say that donors funding films usually dictate what kind of product to make. What is your comment on this?

Films that are made by donors and companies for the purposes of publicity promotion will come with an agenda because these people are not just giving you money; they need that product to serve a function within what they do. Donors are in the business of development and issues like HIV/Aids prevention and when they give you money they will want the product to reflect their theme. The challenge in that form of funding is that from an artist point of view it actually limits the artist. It says to the artist: ‘I don't want you to begin with your creative imagination to develop a story that will deliver this message’. And unfortunately many African filmmakers get their funding for making productions that way and this is why we see many non-inspiring films.

What are the prospects of African cinema?

The prospects are very good in the sense that every society or culture wants to preserve, share, and celebrate its own values and images. And to the extent that we have been a colonised people for a long time and that our confidence was undermined and we hunger for that cultural diet which gives us our identity and validity. To that extent, I think African cinema does have a lot of potential and other cultures are always curious to know what is happening about other cultures so we can exploit the foreign market but we have to make the product up to a certain acceptable standard. As much as there is potential we are still struggling to develop the capacity to make and tell our stories.

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