Slum Film Festival 2012

Date of Festival: 3 – 12 August

Filmmakers will be notified of acceptance by 1 July 2012

FILMMAKERS accepted for Slum Film Festival are eligible for two special events:

*  Master workshop  (must apply by 20 July.  Maximum 20 participants)

*  Short Film Project Proposal (Short Drama, Short Documentary, Music Video) to enter in a competition for a cash award courtesy of Hot Sun Foundation (Must apply by 20 July)

All filmmakers who are accepted will receive an email with instructions how to apply for the Master Workshop and how to submit their short film proposal.

ENTRY FORM Please TYPE or PRINT your information clearly

 DEADLINE:  DVD and printed copy of entry form MUST be received by Hot Sun Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya

BY 15 JUNE 2012

Download Entry Form

The Kenya Film Commission in partnership with Department of Film Services & Kenya Institute of Mass Communication is hosting a screenwriting workshop in Mombasa, Sunrise resort apartments & spa from 9th -11th May 2012. Film Industry stakeholders with a minimum qualification of form four certificate or equivalent are encouraged to register to attend. Registration is free and can be done by sending an email detailing your motivation to info@filmingkenya.com.

Space is limited so register now.

The workshop is an introduction to Screenwriting and will cover Idea Development, Mind Maping, One line story/Character Profile, The film script structure,Dialogue writing, cinematic rendering, Pitching etc.

Kenya Scoops Two AMAA Awards, Amid Drama

By Laura Walubengo, 24 April 2012

http://allafrica.com/stories/201204240992.html

Kenya only scooped two awards from a total eight nominations at Sunday’s Africa Movie Academy Awards, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Kwame Nyongo’s animation The Legend of Ngong Hills beat competition from Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana to take the gong, received on his behalf by animator Alfred Muchilwa.

“Kwame could not be here to receive the award, but he sent to say that he is deeply honoured to be feted,” said Alfred, revealing also that Kwame’s wife was expecting a baby any time soon.

Kenyan Sarah Wanjiru was awarded for Achievement in Make-Up for the film Shattered; a Nigerian flick shot in Kenya in collaboration with local talent.

Jimmy Louis from TV series Heroes was the host for the evening, and he was accompanied to venue by Rockmond Dunbar (Soul Food, Prison Break), Morris Chestnut, Maya Gilbert and Lynn Whitfield (Thin Line between Love and Hate). The stars each presented an award much to the delight of the audience.

But despite the Hollywood muscle it is Nigerian actress Rita Dominic who completely stole the show. From the moment she set foot on the star-studded red carpet to her eventual victory, she struck one pose after the other for photographers.

Rita bagged the best actress award for her performance in the film Shattered, and she received it in a stunning pink dress with a black bow at midriff. Popular Ghanaian actor Majid Michael scored top marks for his double role in comedy Somewhere in Africa.

“I must say I didn’t see it coming,” he said fawning over the wooden black AMAA statuette. “I have been nominated four times! Now I finally have it!”

Michael, whose mother and sister accompanied him to the awards, looked suave in a navy blue tuxedo when he went up on stage.

Musicians Asa and 2 Face also performed at the arena, a neatly decked out auditorium at the Eko Hotel and Suites at Victoria Island, Lagos.

Kenya was represented at the event by Rugged Priest Director Bob Nyanja, Rugged Priest Actor Lwanda Jawar, Cinematographer Martin Munyua, Costume Designer Sophie Oprisanu and Wanjiku Njendu for short film Look Again, which was put together in the US.

“The industry is growing and for me it’s a booster. Being nominated shows me that I am getting better and better. Now we’re waiting for the Oscars,” he told Capital Lifestyle.

But the event also proved to be a logistical nightmare. Guests and journalists complained that the organization of the event was poorly done.

“The communication was not very good. By the time the event started the Kenyan team was still standing, waiting for a table. It’s like they had forgotten us,” stated Munyua.

The team was also not served or given dinner until the four-hour event came to a close. Tickets were also handed to the team with just hours left to the trip.

Kenya’s AMAA representative Ogova Ondego promised to look into the matter saying all the mishaps experienced in the trip including lack of food, transportation and communication were a first.

The event was sponsored by Airtel, whose top officials hailed the African movie industry as having ‘grown so big’.

The rest of the winners for the evening were: Best Short Film, Braids on a Bald Head; Best Documentary: African Election – Germany/Nigeria; Best Diaspora Feature: Toussaint Loventure – France and Best Diaspora Documentary: The Education of Auma Obama – Nigeria/Germany.

The Best Short Film in Diaspora was: White Sugar in a Black Pot; Best Film by An African Living Abroad: Mystery of Birds – US/Nigeria; Best Achievement in Production Design: Kunle Afolayan’s Phone Swap; Achievement in Costume Design: Adesuwa; and Best Achievement in Soundtrack: Alero’s Symphony (soundtrack done by ex-Plantashun Boiz star, Faze).

Prize for Achievement in Visual Effects: Adesuwa; Best Achievement in Sound: State of Violence – South Africa; Achievement in Cinematography: Othello Burning – South Africa; Achievement in Editing: How to Steal 2 Million; Best Child Actor: Tshepang Mohlomi (South Africa);Achievement In Screenplay: Ties That Bind – Ghana and Best Actress In A Supporting Role: Terry Phetto – How To Steal 2 Million.

Best Actor in A Supporting Role: Fana Mokoena – Man on Ground; Best Film: How to Steal 2 Million (South Africa); Best Nigerian Film: Adesuwa; Best Promising Actor: Ivie Okujaye; Best Film In An African Language: State of Violence; Best Director: Charlie Vundla For How to Steal 2 Million and Special jury Award: Akin Omotosho.

Building from the Animation Expo!

By Mukhula Were

The Animation Expo that went down this year engineered a new breed of rapturous talent. Whether your animation tool is Maya 3D, 3D Max or Toon Boom for your 2D platform, it serves to say of Kenyan animation that it’s finally coming of age. Last year, participants used shortcuts to achieve their animation unlike this year where passion and creativity could be seen in everybody’s work. The event was steered by the Kenya Film Commission and brought about 25 film and animation exhibitors in a one day digital adventure. To those who have been keen on this creative faculty you would know Andrew Kaggia of Digital Definitions, the man behind ‘Wageuzi’, the political satirical animation that created a buzz on the internet.  You would definitely know Homeboyz’s Allan Mwaniki of Tinga Tinga tales and without a doubt you would know the character – Makmende although the flipside is that it is now in process to bring it live in animation.

Anthony Mwangi is working on this ‘viral’ character at the lab and as he says it will take at least one and a half years to bring to the fore this acclaimed Kenyan hero. In a pilot of the motion picture showcased at the expo, the hero has a small team clothed in combat, bare-chested and stamped with the danger sign skull at the back while moving in soldier-like processions. While it was fascinating to see metamorphosis of new creativity, it was also obvious that all animators were under pressure to buy into all kinds of worldly worldviews as opposed to attending to local insights.

Many other new creatives could not be overlooked either. Harto’s Muhato Macharia just landed on the scene with an attitude the size of Everest. ‘I can tell you one thing about animators, we have this characteristic where we are very hardworking and we don’t give up easily!’ He showcased his film ‘Soul Lion’ at the expo and he got many likes. He was humble enough to say that a lot of 2D at the expo was not at his level and he applauded Billy Funniel of Digital dialect for a good backdrop animation and Andrew Kaggia of Digital Definitions for appeasing high levels of art.  w people that it can be done.e done.. passion a good backdropmething unless you enjoy it.

Michael Mburu from Chomoka Media Productions had his team defined by teamwork.

Cliff Nyaberi had the ultimate answer towards post-production which seemed to be the biggest challenge for animators. His company Virtual Designs has 30 eight cloud enabled servers that can be able to support a variety of software packages in post production rendering. Rendering is simply combining the computing power of several machines to be able to produce creative work quickly. Currently they are using auto-desk software which they use to offer services to the architectural industry. They are however planning to extend to film and animation. Clients can be able to remotely rent out servers depending on the number of cores they are looking for on their desktop via the internet so what they will require is a good bandwidth. And with issues of filmmakers meeting them at their physical place raising questions of intellectual property rights Virtual designs are collaborating with service provider companies to utilize their kiosk hotspots to offer this rendering service. More to it, Nathan Asiago from KFC asked the animators to come up with a good write up about the render firm.

Like any other budding industry the animators were worried that someone might take advantage of them. Questions were asked as to what happened to the Animation Association that was created in 1996 to cater for the animators’ voice. However, just a week before the Animation Expo, Kwame Nyong’o an animator and an illustrator and a member of the Animation Association held a workshop together with Mwara Kung’u of Multimedia University at Ol Lerai BOMA dubbed, ‘Possibilities in Animation – Animation across Africa and the world’, and except for Chomoka representatives, animators were nowhere to be seen.  ‘Only 11 guys, two from Chomoka appeared, three or four were very green so we had about 8 and I know there are around 300 animators or computer graphic designers in town’, said Nathan Asiago head of content at KFC. ‘What about if we arrange for five workshops in year? It will be uneconomical’, he concluded.

Ian Njuguna of Sigi Tolo media Inc. commented that they should also look at why all this other associations failed before they start another one. ‘We could start and be another one in the pile of failures’ he forewarned. Communication was one of the failures in the old-guard of animators. They wanted to bring their efforts together to enjoy public funds. the animators’ happened to thenimatorsion. ‘If we want incentives from government then it’s upon us to come together to challenge the government’, Mburu reiterated on the matter that as a team they can live it out much better.

Like the ICT Board Tandaa fund, Partrick Kioko from Chomoka urged the government to come up with a competition where they can sponsor an animation project that furthers a particular message. There were not many filmmakers in the expo and so the animators’ questions towards tailoring a product to suit the market could not be fully addressed. Ian thought it would even be better to embrace distribution of labor like a merger of writers and animators.

Nathan expressed that there are no do not hawe do not hav writers for animation while animators insisted that playwrights who write for films are the same for animation ors say tobut Nathan seemed to differ in terms of the way you structure and pace animation. ‘We need to look into writers who are trained in animation’.  Nathan went further to speak about the Script Writing workshop which only 24 writers turned out in Nairobi. ‘Many guys know how to write scripts yet they don’t’ he said. ‘A Kenyan who knows how to write a bit says he is a writer. You can never tell me that there is anybody who is an accomplished scriptwriter who cannot be trained because in the US, even those who are experienced pay for workshops’.  He finished by saying the problem is not communication but annot communication it is the attitude and that the fact that a writer has written one script means that we will end up getting poor quality.

Timothy Owase from KFC marketing department however, said that they are building strategies to bring industry investors, filmmakers and animators together to understand the story behind the efforts industry players put to arrive at the final product. Most of the animators knew about the expo through word of mouth and a few were alerted through an email post from Kenya Film Commission. They congratulated KFC for the Expo platform and urged for more workshops within the year.