By Ogova Ondego
Published May 27, 2007

Gaston Kabore, a former secretary-general of Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) is the founder of IMAGINE Film Training InstituteAn institution to train audiovisual practitioners in Africa has been created in West Africa. The school, Imagine Film Training Institute, will provide training in all aspects related to cinema, television and multi-media sector in Africa, Gaston Kabore, the founding director of the institution, said in 2005 at Sithengi Talent Campus where he held a master class. OGOVA ONDEGO reports.

“At Imagine we place emphasis on training playwrights, writers and scriptwriters because any theatre or television film begins with a well written story,” says Kabore. “We will also train keen, creative and efficient producers who will in turn bring together talented creators and technicians around a project.”

The brainchild of Burkinabe Kabore, Imagine will also train directors of photography, camera people, sound engineers and designers, set designers, composers, wardrobe masters and mistresses, make up artists, film editors, actors, and film promoters and distributors to contribute to what Kabore refers to as contributing to “the emergence of new trends that combine inspiration, innovation, inventiveness, sensitivity and rigours in content and form.”

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Students will be carefully selected on a mentoring basis so as to help create other ‘imagine-style’ institutions all over Africa.

But the training will be organised in the form of workshops and professional fora conducted in English, French and Portuguese, Kabore says.

During special sessions, storytellers in languages like Kiswahili, Bambara, Fulani, Arabic Hausa, Yoruba, Zulu could be invited for performances.

“The institution could request the patronage of world-famous playwrights, writers, scriptwriters and university professors, directors of photography, actors, set designers, composers and cinema critics,” he explains.

Students will enter the school at three levels with the first part targeting 18-20-year-olds seeking to consolidate the technical knowledge and skills. Level two will target experienced professionals who need to acquire proficiency in the use of specific equipment. A minimum of five years of professional experience will be required. And this phase of training is made up of master classes.

The last section is aimed at training course facilitators. “This type of workshop will seek to place educational tools in the hands of talented and well informed professionals, and to develop their ability to become ‘knowledge and know-how communicators’,”Kabore says.

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Course facilitators, he says, must “have an original approach to their profession, to artistic expression and to the process of creation in general.”

The institution will have an advisory committee of professionals renowned for their skills and commitment to training in Africa, Madagascar, Indian Ocean Islands, and the Caribbean.
These professionals will also act as contact people for the dissemination of information on scheduled workshops and foster further applications.