Managers of audiovisual events in Africa pose with Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick (in red scarf), Deutsche Welle TV Academy course director Padhraic O’Dochartaigh (third from left, back row) and International Forum of New Cinema’s Dorothee(fourth from right). These Africans, who received theoretical and practical experience in film management at the DW Academy and at the 55th Berlinale, are expected to play a crucial role in Africa’s audiovisual

Kizunguzungu, a 35-minute feature film screened at the fourth Lola Kenya Screen Film Forum in Nairobi on March 27, 2006, shows how the emergence of mobile phones, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and imported western lifestyles contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, writes Bobastles Owino

The annual film calendar in eastern Africa kicks off with the second Rwanda Film Festival (March 16-30, 2006) before going to South Africa where the African Film Summit will be held in Pretoria (April 3-6, 2006).

Uganda will be next with the third Amakula Kampala International Film Festival (May 4-14, 2006) that will usher in the 27th Durban International Film Festival in KwaZulu-Natal (June 14-23, 2006), the ninth ZIFF Festival of the Dhow Countries (July 14-23, 2006) in Zanzibar, the inaugural Lola Kenya Screen in Nairobi (August 7-12, 2006), and the Zimbabwe International Film Festival (August 25-September 3, 2006) in Harare. Winding up the year in November will be the Southern African International Film & Television Market (Sithengi) and the cape Town World Cinema Festival.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Berlin International Film Festival is shifting gears in an attempt to accommodate pre-schoolers and pensioners.

The 56th edition of the festival (February 9-19, 2006) not only introduced the Berlinale Kindergarten but also indicated that it would launch a special section to cater to people aged 55 and above in a city that counts culture as its most important asset.

Among the highlights of the 56th Internationale Filmfestpiele Berlin were no doubt the Berlinale Kindergarten, and festival director Dieter Kosslick’s allusion to the creation of the 55plus sidebar.

The Berlinale Kindergarten, explained Kosslick, was meant for the next generation of filmmakers and any one not old enough to attend the Kinderfilmfest whose viewership recommended age starts at four years.

Second Rwanda Film Festival

Founded by the Rwanda Cinema Centre of producer/director Eric Kabera in 2005, the aim of the Rwanda Film Festival is to “open up the landlocked country to the world besides exposing it to the realities of the outside world,” according to festival director Daddy Youssouf Ruhoroza.

"The annual Rwanda Film Festival’s objective is to create two weeks of audiovisual entertainment and education for the citizens of Kigali with the satellite screenings in all the four regions of Rwanda," says Ruhoroza. "We want to circulate positive and optimistic stories among the Rwandan community from all over the world and expose our country to other realities."

Among the highlights of the Rwandan event will be the premiering of three films in Kinyarwanda that were produced from a training workshop funded by the Swedish Institute in November/December 2005.

Berlinale Palast draped in its full spleandour

The festival is divided into three sections--Films on Youth by Youth Training Programme (FY²), Rwanda Hillywood/Films in the Hills, and The Festival in Kigali.

The Rwanda Hillywood/Films in the Hills will screen 60 educational and entertaining films in seven rural locations—Umutara, Kibungo, Byumba, Ruhengeli, Gisenyi, Kibuye and Butare.

The Kigali screenings run March 23-30 and will feature drama, thriller, comedy, animation and documentary genres alongside exhibitions, workshops, and special night events.

All Africa Film Summit

At the African Film Summit in South Africa, representatives of national film associations, guilds and unions, national and continental governmental organisations, audiovisual professionals and other players in the film sector in Africa, African Diaspora and the world will deliberate on the development of Africa's audiovisual media sector in Pretoria.

Their recommendations, according to project manager Lebone Maema, will be tabled at a meeting of African culture ministers with a view to adopting them as part of African Union and the New Partnership for Development of Africa (NEPAD) initiative.

Maema says a legally binding pan-African agreement among member states of the 53-member African Union will be born and help provide the impetus in the various countries across the mother continent to implement the resolutions and recommendations of the Summit.

Lola Kenya Screen

Film entries to Lola Kenya Screen—the international film festival for children and youth in Nairobi—continue to be received ahead of the April 15, 2006 deadline. So far many award-winning films from the Nordic nations—Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway—that take children seriously and, to quote Kinderfilmfest/14plus director and Lola Kenya Screen advisor Thomas Hailer, “avoid romantising portrayals of childhood and adolescence”, have come in. Other equally strong films have come from Taiwan, India, Philippines, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Estonia, Iran, Japan, Zanzibar, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, and Kenya.

Festival manager Bobastles Owino Nondih appeals to many filmmakers in Africa to send in their entries in order to ensure a well balanced film festival.

Enquiries about Lola Kenya screen may be made by telephone (+254 20 315258, +254 20 213318), by email (film@artmatters.info), physically (ComMattersKenya, Philadelphia House, 4th Fl, Tom Mboya Street/Hakati Rd junction) or online (http://www.artmatters.info/lola.htm).

Afrocine In-flight Entertainment

Also from Nairobi is news that a new company, Kikwetu Africa, has launched an African In-flight Entertainment project.

Heho Mbiru, Kikwetu Africa marketing director, says the company was founded by a group of "people who believe in the richness of cultural and creative talent that Africa has. One of the areas that we felt African talent is grossly under-represented is in the in-flight entertainment on commercial airlines."

A former product marketing manager with Kenya airways in whose docket was in-flight entertainment, Mbiru says he has teamed up with current and former airline executives with the aim of claiming a place for African music and movies on airlines and other travel media. It was during his tenure at the Kenya national flag-carrier that African content was introduced on the entertainment menu.

"From our study of the market, there are more than 20 major airlines (both

African and foreign) that fly to Africa, and together they carry more than 30 million people annually, into, within and out of Africa. Within their ranks, even the African airlines have their selection of onboard entertainment dominated by foreign content such as Hollywood movies. Their other main sources of movies are Indian ones from Bollywood and French movies from Europe."

Kikwetu Africa, Mbiru says, started by speaking to airlines and other In-flight Entertainment (IFE) providers from around the world.

"We are embarking on putting together Afrocine, our catalogue of African movies and music, that they can turn to us for. In the movie category we are looking for interesting feature movies as well as short programming," Mbiru says, appealing to African filmmakers to contact Kikwetu Africa.

Friends in high places: Berlinale head Dieter Kosslick with German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Back in Europe, there appears to be no stopping of Kosslick, a former head of the Hamburg Film Office and the Filmstiftung North-Rhine-Westphalia who has since 2002 used his experience to revitalise the Berlinale through additional sections like Talent Campus (2003), Berlinale Special (2004), Co-Production Market (2004), World Cinema Fund (2004), Perspective Deutsches Kino, the new 14plus in the Kinderfilmfest (2003), and the expansion of the European Film Market.

He now says that he would like Berlinale to have a section for people aged 55 and above as cinemas focus on younger people at the expense of senior citizens who do not feel at home in movie houses and hence keep away.

This appears to mirror the plight of adolescents that saw Kosslick start the 14plus section to serve teens who feel they are too old for children’s films but too young to watch the age-controlled sections of the Berlinale where one must be 18 to access admission.

14plus serves mainly coming-of-age-films from all over the world. Moderated post-screening discussions with production crew and cast encourage greater understanding among viewers.

If Kosslick’s plan for the 55plus is realised, Berlinale will become a truly full-fledged film conception, production, exhibition, distribution and financing system like none other. Here, films will be born, financed and presented to everyone from birth to the grave!

While the Berlinale Kindergarten targets pre-schoolers and 55plus senior citizens, the Berlinale Talent Campus not only makes Berlinale relevant to young filmmakers but also injects fresh blood into the international industry gathered in the German capital.

Since its launch in 2003, The Berlinale Talent Campus has grown in popularity with more than 3500 people from 121 nations applying for the 500 vacancies in 2006 and several Berlinale Talent Campus models springing up in 2004 in South Africa’s Southern African International Film & Television Market; Asia’s Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival in New Delhi, and the Pusan Film Festival in South Korea; Latin America’s Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires; and Eastern Europe’s Melodist fest in Kiev.

Black, Female and Talented: She must be a Berlinale Talent Campus material

The 2006 Berlinale Talent Campus focused on “Films on Hunger, Food and Taste.” The best shorts on this theme were not only screened at Berlinale but were also invited to Italy’s Short Film Festival in Bra in April 2006. This was through partnership with the Slow Food movement whose aim is “to protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenisation of modern fast food.”

The Berlinale consolidated its 2005 partnership with the Frankfurt in 2006 with the aim of helping successful books to enjoy a second life on the screen.

Kosslick was quoted as saying that partnership between two of Germany’s largest cultural organizations was to ‘initiate new projects through exchange between literature and film.’ The partnership is through Berlinale’s EFM and the Co-Production Market.

The Berlin International Film Festival appears to be growing beyond what its founders—the victorious Allied Forces—set out to achieve: showcase cultures of the free world in the vanquished and divided post-war Berlin.

All pictures by Berlinale Documentation. Report by Ogova Ondego

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