mweshi

Back from a semi-self-imposed boycott of my laptop over the four-day weekend, blogging drought, and continuing along the conversation of film, here’s a link to a short animation project Patrick Algaé of Treelion had talked to me about during TED Global called “The Return of Liaram.”

The Return of Liaram is an animated short film project directed by awarded Caribbean director Joel Cimarron who won in 2003, the International Competition Project Award of Annecy International Film Festival.

The film has a duration of 9’30 and will use a special animation paintings technique created by Joel Cimarron.

The influence comes from “Notebook of a Return to my Native Land” (1939), the early master work from surrealist Caribbean Poet Aimé Césaire Godfather of the Negritude movement whom surrealism movement’s founder Andre Breton said of “Notebook of a Return to my Native Land” : “this poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times”.

The Return of Liaram is an attempt to make him a tribute.

To get a feel for the special animation paintings technique, it’s best you watch the film’s teaser trailer. I was fortunate enough to get an amazing explanation from Patrick that had my imagination doing acrobatics from the sheer passion in his description of the project!

Hat tip to Afromusing for the Return of Liaram link

Coincidentally, Pictoon is an animation outfit based in Dakar, Senegal (founded by Pierre Sauvalle, an animation director from Cameroon and Aïda Ndiaye, a Senegalese businesswoman) and under Patrick Algaé’s Treelion distribution umbrella that produced Africa’s first ever animated television series, Kabongo the Griot. Pictoon’s currently working on a project that will coincide with Africa’s hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa called, “The Invicible Lions.” True African superheroes in the making!

While getting my weekly dose of Studio 53 on MNet’s Africa Magic this evening, I learnt of the passing of one of Africa’s greatest artists (film director, producer and writer) and the man considered to be the “Father of African film,” Ousmane Sembène (1 January 1923 — 9 June 2007).

I read Ousmane Sembène’s God’s Bits of Wood (originally written in French under the title Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu) while attending high school in Addis Ababa. At the time, it was one of the best African books I had ever read and till today it remains on top of my list.

It’s books by writers like Ousmane, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Camara Laye, Chinua Achebe, and others that have influenced the strong desire in me to be part of the African Cheetah Renaissance and what I hope to accomplish while I live, breathe and traverse this boat we all call life.

To M. Sembène Ousmane, I say, rest in perfect peace Sir and thank you for putting Africa on the world’s map in your own unique way.

PS: Be sure to read this great article on the man and his work.

Armed with a few thousand dollars, digital cameras, and some lights, Nigerian directors have created a $250 million industry, thousands of jobs, and a sense of hope on a continent better known for blight and despair…

- This is Nollywood website

While at TED in Arusha, I had an interesting conversation with three film directors from Nigeria about the state of Nollywood and what may done to improve the quality of film making on the continent. Andrew Dosunmu (photographer and filmmaker) and Newton Aduaka (winner of the grand prize at FESPACO 2007 for his film “Ezra”), both based outside of Nigeria and making films of a different caliber than Nollywood and with bigger budgets, and Bond Emeruwa a Nollywood-based filmmaker featured in Franco Sacchi’s documentary “This is Nollywood.”

The question put on the table was whether Nollywood movies can be made with a higher quality of production; Andrew and Newton challenged Bond that they could produce good quality feature films with the same budget, equipment, crew, and actors.

Now, I have watched a number of Nollywood productions some good-some poor and I appreciate the fact that a lot of them have showcased stories of concern to Africans by overcoming several barriers and embracing digital film production. Granted, Nigeria is a 10lb. gorilla in terms of the number of films produced every year and no country on the continent can compare. However, I still believe the production quality can be improved and streamlined even with the budgets some of these films are made on.

In an earlier discussion with Bond, we talked of some sort of capacity building projects for aspiring film makers from around the continent to travel to Nigeria to learn from Nollywood and with the experience of Nollywood and perhaps an improvement in production quality, we might have an extremely powerful pan-African film movement highlighting all of this rich continent’s great stories, kingdoms, cultures, languages, and civilizations.

I can’t recall the last time a feature film was made in Zambia, but it seems we’re on the way to having our very first feature titled “Bad T!ming.” While doing some research online, I came across a project that was started sometime last year to document the production of Bad T!ming on the Film Zambia website and apparently the film is now in post production. One film every two years is certainly a far cry from the 1,000 to 2,000 that Nollywood would have produced during the same time, but I guess it is a start…

I can’t believe the conference is about to end in a few! This has been the most fulfilling, thought provoking, inspiring and educational event I have ever attended and as I mentioned this morning to conference attendees, thanks to TED for this wonderful opportunity of brining together so many progressive Africans. What happens after this conference now is entirely up to all of us who love our continent. To all TEDsters out there, let’s make this event the genesis of the cheetah renaissance!

Salim Amin is asking every African and those interested in the continent to help his for Africa by Africa 24-hour news channel, A24 come to fruition. With 900 million people on the continent, we continue to look to international news channels to provide information about our continent.

Amin’s channel aims to provide training for journalists across the continent as well as breaking news with 46 stations, offered to all terrestrial television providers free of charge and revenue will be generated through advertisements.

It’s time Africa got its own 24-hour news channel. Most of the talks and discussions here at TED this week have focused on the fact that we rarely have positive viewpoints on Africa from western media and this channel will definitely bring and help to paint a positive light on the continent.

James Shikwati just finished his talk and his main point is that we kick aid out and start thinking of new and ingenious ways of growing African economies, especially through business and youth empowerment.

Ory Okolloh, a lawyer, activist and blogger from Kenya gave a pretty poignant talk about reversing the brain drain and what can be achieved if Africans in the diaspora were to come back and simply take the plunge to help the continent.

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete also spoke to us this morning about uplifting our people by giving them opportunities and incentives. As a TEDster and an African, I would personally like to thank President Kikwete for the wonderful hospitality Tanzania has given to us through the week.

Tanzania is one country that in my eyes continues to work hard at political stability, economic growth and a solid succession path that has always looked for fresh ideas and new leadership especially in a time when most African states have political dinosaurs continuously imposed on them without a transparent process.

There comes a time in your life when you experience some of the really wonderful things life has to offer and non of those moments can be as fulfilling and rewarding as attending a TED conference especially one concentrating on helping Africa to move forward. This is a very exciting time on the continent and it couldn’t be more evident than what I have experienced in this, my very first TED conference.

Where else can one have the wonderful opportunity of meeting so many champions of innovative solutions to many problems that plague the developing world and more importantly Africa? As part of the TED pre-conference tours, we began with a visit to a farm that grows Artemisia annua, a shrub used to extract Artemisenin, a drug used in the treatment of multi-drug resistant strains of malaria. Now, for someone who’s taken the fall to malaria on the continent this was a really worth-while visit as it showed me what sort of plants where used in treating me when I had to bout the disease. As the tour was drawing to a close, we got quite a pleasant surprise from someone really championing the fight to alleviate some of Africa’s malaise when Bono showed up, yes!

The farm was only the first part of our half-a-day long trip. Following the farm visit, we saw how debt relief has helped to bring about improved health care and education in a clinic that provides ante-natal and post-natal services to mothers and would-be mothers as well as two schools located on the outskirts of Arusha. The morning trip was all organized as a package sponsored by DATA (debt AIDS trade africa) and the ONE campaign. Had a very good conversation with Jamie Drummond the Executive Director of DATA on the way to the farm about ways in which Africans can help to bridge the trade imbalance.

Here are a few pictures from the trips, will try to post most of them on flickr once I have enough time.

To cap it all off, the talks in the first day of the conference were amazing these included talks from the likes of Carol Pineau , director of the Africa: Open for Business documentary and a true inspiration to those of us doing business on the continent because she’s given us tools to use when looking for ways in which to develop the continent with real life examples! What followed at the end of sessions one and two was a performance by Rokia Traore, one of Africa’s true musical gems. Her performance was breathtaking and it was evident that she truly touched and moved the audience. It was a dream come true to listen to her live in concert and talk to her after the performance.