Kenyan-born film director Tosh Gitonga is passionate about taking Africa’s budding film industry to the next level and he’s convinced China can help.
Gitonga, whose representative work “Nairobi Half Life” was nominated for a foreign-language Oscar award in 2012 as well as for a Beijing International Film Festival award in 2014, says it is important to understand the huge role movies can play in generating further interest and investment in Africa.
“We already know this, especially in Kenya where the 1988 film “Out of Africa” is a direct result of the tourism boom we had in this country,” Gitonga says. “I think we are doing a lot in terms of developing our films.”
Gitonga says African film makers and producers have acquired more skills and knowledge and as a result, the overall quality of African-produced movies has improved tremendously since the release of “Out of Africa”. He goes on to say that even the level of acting has improved to the point where African films and performers are now on par with the rest of the world.
Gitonga says now that Africa has learned the art of making good movies, the time has come to master the art of marketing them – not only to global markets but perhaps equally important – to African audiences.
“Africa has never been a real market for film. We don’t know how to distribute or how distribution works and we are just trying stuff”, he says. “For example we make film and we are going to show it locally, we want to put it online so that people can access it from anywhere and its our film.”
Fortunately, says Gitonga, China has been willing to step in and help with that marketing effort.
“We are open to every possible way to get the film to travel,” Gitonga says. “So when we get interest from Chinese producers who want to work with us, we are more than open because the more we work together the better because we get a door in China and they get a door into Kenya and to Africa.”
Accessing the Chinese movie market will soon be extremely crucial to any film’s success. With big-budget American films opening better in China than at home and audiences declining in the U.S. and Canada, the Motion Picture Association of America concedes China will soon become the world’s top movie market.
Gitonga says he began realizing the importance of the Chinese movie market and its potential to help Africa’s film industry after receiving his Beijing Film Festival invite for “Nairobi Half Life”. He submitted the film for review but was unable to personally attend the event.
“I heard that the film did very well and people really came out to see it and I wish I was there,” said Gitonga. “I believe in collaborations and finding like-minded producers from China and working on projects together be it here or in China so that’s another thing I am really interested in.”
Gitonga says he wants to see more Africa film makers teaming up with Chinese producers in the future. He thinks the key to accomplishing that goal is developing stories that are common to both China and Kenya and then tying those stories together.
“How can we make a film that answers the questions to the Chinese and Kenyans because we all have questions and that is the purpose of film…to inform, to educate, to entertain and to progress your thinking because for every good film, there is a good research behind it.”
By Yang Yuting and Daniel Waweru
