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“To build an industry, you need to build an ecosystem, but also then start to trust organizations and institutions in the Global South to be the ones leading the capacity development that’s needed.” “There isn’t enough of a recognition of the need for institutional capacity development,” says Mungwe. To create a sustainable documentary industry in Africa requires a shift in the traditional way of doing business, with financing flowing from north to south, but little energy being put into the development of institutions at the local level. While global streaming services have upped their documentary spending elsewhere around the world, in Africa, for the most part, “we haven’t felt it yet,” says producer Tiny Mungwe of STEPS, a non-profit media company based in Cape Town. “ broadcasters are more interested in African-based directors and producers, but there hasn’t been a huge surge in commissions or co-productions with African-based producers and directors,” says Markovitz. Still, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a gold rush for African filmmakers. Recent festival standouts include “ Downstream to Kinshasa,” a 2020 Cannes official selection from acclaimed Congolese documentary filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi Kenyan director Sam Soko’s “ Softie,” which won a Special Jury Award at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and “ Talking About Trees,” Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari’s 2019 Berlinale prizewinner. Festival programmers, increasingly on the lookout for a broader and more diverse range of storytelling perspectives, particularly from long overlooked and marginalized communities, have given African filmmakers a vital global platform. That work is being recognized more widely than ever before. You invest in developing the voices and the talent, and you’ll see the incredible work that they’re able to do.” “What we’re seeing is where resources are directed, the talent is following,” says Hot Docs director of programming Shane Smith. Founded in 2011, the fund has awarded grants to 78 projects from 24 African countries. “We’re starting to see more financing coming out of Africa, which is contributing to more independent filmmaking, more original filmmaking, and also African producers having more ownership over their docs.”Įuropean and North American institutions and film funds, such as the IDFA Bertha Fund and the Hot Docs-Blue Ice Docs Fund, have also played a key role, and remain instrumental in supporting African documentary filmmakers hamstrung by limited local and regional capacity.Įarlier this month, the Hot Docs-Blue Ice Docs Fund unveiled its eight latest recipients, who will receive a total of CAD$120,000 ($96,000) in development and production grants, while also announcing an additional CAD$1 million ($960,000) in support over the next four years that will bring the fund’s total to CAD$3.35 million ($2.7 million). “If you look at the last 50, 60 years, most African documentaries have been financed out of Europe,” says Steven Markovitz, the South African producer behind docs such as Toronto players “ Beats of the Antonov” and “Silas,” and this year’s Hot Docs premiere “The Colonel’s Stray Dogs.” Collectively they’ve helped to bring together filmmakers from across the continent, building a far-flung network while also bolstering opportunities for African filmmakers to tell their own stories.
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Recent years have seen the emergence of grassroots efforts to grow the African documentary community, such as the Nairobi-based DocuBox film fund, the Ouaga Film Lab, in Burkina Faso, and the pan-African DocA initiative. Despite the hurdles they face, it stands to reason that African filmmakers would also reap some rewards.įor the continent’s documentary filmmakers, however, it’s a movement a long time in the making. These are widely hailed as boom times for documentary filmmaking, driven in part by streaming platforms’ relentless appetite for content, as the coronavirus pandemic has left millions of homebound viewers across the globe glued to their screens. But perhaps it should come as no surprise. The unexpected Academy Award run of “ My Octopus Teacher,” Netflix’s hit, heartfelt documentary about a filmmaker’s unlikely relationship with an octopus living off the coast of South Africa, marks a rare Oscar nomination for an African documentary.