Film schools, training programmes

Most universities and polytechnic colleges in Zimbabwe offer courses in what is called media. These are mainly theoretical. There are quite a few of these institutions, although no audit has ever been done of the precise training offered. An attempt by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe around 2008 ended up providing little more than a base line study of Zimbabweans engaged in the arts.

Apart from fairly non-specific education at such tertiary institutions, several specialised institutions also exist. These include Zimbabwe School of Digital Arts (ZIDA), Zimbabwe Film and Television School of Southern Africa (formerly a project of UNESCO sponsored by the Danish government, now taken over by the Ministry of Media Information and Publicity) and several others that one reads of in the papers from time to time. There is no full time professional training.

Many organisations such as the Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ), the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA) Trust (which incorporates Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe/International Images Film Festival for Women (WFOZ/IIFF) and Nyerai Films), the Book Cafe, the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and other arts organisations conduct ad hoc documentary film training. These courses depend on the availability of donor funds and the commitment of the organisations.

ICAPA was formed from two film centred organisations to guarantee its survival during the depression in Zimbabwe, and as such has offered the most intensive and coherent practical training in recent years in the form of workshops and in the form of taking on interns. A documentary production workshop with American and Spanish facilitators, Rabia Williams and Alba Sotorra, conducted in 2009 has now led to the establishment of ZIM.DOC, a training initiative for documentary production and its consequent dissemination and marketing on the web.

Recommendations

Business management, technical and journalism schools interested in being involved with this initiative

ICAPA with its two departments, Nyerai Films and Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe, is definitely interested in this initiative.

Christian College of Southern Africa would probably be interested, as WFOZ has established a relationship with them through screenings at the college.

Cooperation with government institutions such as Harare Polytechnic and ZIFTESSA, is difficult because of red tape, although they would probably be interested. However, we are yet to see any productions from ZIFTESSA, although the school has been running for several years.

The Women’s University in Africa has expressed great interest in setting up a film department and has approached the Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe to join in this venture. This could be another chance to set up professional training.

Festivals

There are two film festivals: the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) which is the flagship event of Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust ZIFFT (not to be mixed up with ZIFF – Zanzibar International Film Festival).

ZIFFT has suffered severe mismanagement in recent years. It is held sometimes in August and sometimes in October.

IIFF is held in the second half of November in order to coincide with the UN 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. It is in its 11th year and enjoys considerable popularity and international recognition. The festival has a strong documentary segment and has included a Mini-Input programme run by the Zimbabwe German Society in the last two editions. ZIFFT tends to have short workshops during the festival while WFOZ endeavors to do separate training and exhibit the products. IIFF holds the Centre of the South venue each year, which screens southern films and mainly documentaries. Good southern documentaries and in particular African productions have proved extremely popular with audiences.

Recommendations

Professional, peer mentorship group: creative producers, line producers, directors, writers, editors

There are no professional peer mentorship groups.

Non-professional groups do exist, and it is not always their fault that they have not been able to become professional, as this is due to lack of resources and training. These organisations include film industry associations, like the Actor’s Union or the Film Producer’s Association. There are no writers, directors or editors associations. Mentorship is carried out on individual bases, with people generally meeting at workshops or on productions, which provide on- the-job training, or through internship programmes. Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe, which mentors women, is the most functional.

Recommendations

Camera, computer hardware, software and other tech-related companies in film

The economic meltdown resulted in equipment hiring companies relocating or closing down. Former employees have endeavored to take on the functions.

These include L & L lightning, who now supply most of the lighting and power requirements. However production, houses, which are small, tend to have their own basic semi professional rig, and to make do with the minimal equipment hired from many different small sources.

Lack of equipment is one of the limiting factors in the development of the sector. However, due to the lack of training, there is also a shortage of skilled crew to utilise the equipment. With the very few large productions undertaken in Zimbabwe, most skilled crew have left the country.

Recommendations

Sales companies, distributors advisory group

Media for Development Trust has a more or less functioning distribution of development-based videos. They target predominantly NGOs and donors and are therefore too expensive for the ordinary public.

There is a very active and successful distribution network for pirated DVDs by a group called “Jack Sparrow” and there are discussions among filmmakers to engage them for a possible legal distribution of local productions.

Recommendations Advocacy partners

The Ministry of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture administers the film sector along with its parastatal National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, and the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity. They do not do a great deal of film advocacy as interest in the arts, including film, appears to be determined by political expediency.

In the same vein, the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity has been working closely with ZIFTESSA to develop a policy document for the sector (the entire sector, including but not limited to documentary filmmaking). The Prime Minister’s office, which is responsible for policy, appears to be taking an interest in art and this should include film.

Television also falls under the Ministry of Information, Media and Publicity, which is still completely under ruling party ZANU PF control and is seen basically as the main propaganda tool. All advocacy in this sector therefore is guided first by allegiance to the party.

There is little advocacy for documentary as creative film narrative.

Recommendations

• Existing documentary and news archives: there are
• The UNESCO Film and TV training project had a very useful and big film library on VHS, which vanished after
• ZTV uses all the old tapes, even master tapes supplied from the outside, for new
• National archives are so notoriously underfunded, that it is highly unlikely that they have much audiovisual
• The festivals have built up libraries but this has also been negatively affected by the economic meltdown and policy decisions of

All forms of distribution, including: broadcast, theatrical, internet, mobile TV, telecoms/mobile phone, mobile cinema, film/video clubs, etc.

Apart from the festival screenings at IIFF and ZIFFT, there are extensive outreach programmes organised by IIFF, where the films from the festival (often documentaries like Breaking the Silence – Rape in the Congo which had numerous showings in schools, universities, clubs, galleries and community halls) are shown throughout the year. These programmes have been going on for several years.

IIFF’s programme in the schools had to overcome lots of difficulties as it was denied entry into the government schools three times by the Ministry of Education Sports Arts and Culture, but has still managed to screen in several of them and has since been lobbying once more with the Government of National Unity. TV in Zimbabwe is controlled by the ruling party, and heavily censored, and none of the other mentioned distribution channels exist in Zimbabwe.

Cinema theatre spaces have been taken over and occupied by churches, thus venues are now a problem, and this is also affecting festival screenings, although the festivals have tackled the problem creatively.

Recommendations

Educational and non-profit distributors

Media for Development Trust is the only educational distributor, although with a limited reach.

Recommendations

Legal frameworks including any censorship issues

Theoretically filmmakers may operate as long as they have accreditation from the Zimbabwe Media Commission. Accreditation is easy to obtain for Zimbabweans, but is expensive for foreigners. It is also useful to have accreditation from the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe. It is in fact not so simple, and filmmakers are liable to be picked up at any moment either by the authorities or by vigilantes. Paying police for protection can be expensive. Films must be certified by the Censorship Board for public screenings. This is easy to obtain for festival films and small-scale exhibition, but is more problematic for commercial releases.

Recommendations

Audience cultivation strategies including publicity/ PR strategy

Zimbabwe needs, like most Southern African countries, a big effort to promote an appreciation of documentary films and the cinematic experience in general.

The two film festivals with all their limited resources are not enough for this task. WFOZ has been screening a selection of festival films throughout the year in its outreach programmes IIFF in the schools, IIFF in the clubs and IIFF in the gallery.

The initiative ZIM.DOC has also a strong outreach component with exhibitions, web-portals and blogs.

The country is plagued by bogus practitioners due to the lack of professional standards. A case in point is MaiJai Films, the company of a former ZIFFT director, which received a substantial grant from the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe to develop a website to promote the Zimbabwean film industry. The website was created once, but has not been updated since 2009 or loaded with the content it requested from Zimbabwean filmmakers.

Recommendations

Revenue strategies, including advertising, sponsorship, footage licensing, partnerships with news organisations

Documentary films from Zimbabwe have always been financed directly or indirectly by international donors. This led to a big majority of “message films”, often appreciated by the development experts only, who were happy that their message had been repeated through the AV-media.

Active film organisations were sometimes able to support no-budget productions with their infrastructure, often by building synergies with foreign TV-commissions or cultural funding to the organisation.

The new initiative ZIM.DOC is trying to explore the use of web-based distribution and marketing to find a means of funding support, or sales and rental revenues through the internet.

Social movements, civil society groups and other partners

• There are around 3600 registered NGOs in Zimbabwe who are all claiming to be civil society groups.
• Partners to potentially consider working with are: Padare Men’s Forum, The Book Cafe, Kubatana, the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe, African Father’s Initiative, Delta Gallery, Zimbabwe German Society and the Women’s Law Centre and Women in Politics Incubator Zimbabwe

Political sensitivities

Political repression and censorship are major issues in Zimbabwe.