Ahmed Olotu's (Mzee Chillo) influence in the film industry.
The film industry in Tanzania has evolved tremendously and a lot of artists have earned a living from the industry.
However the industry is grappling with a lot of challenges, and these have to be addressed if the country’s film industry is to compete favourably in the market.
Who’s who Tanzania spoke to one of the leading stakeholders
Ahmed Olotu (Mzee Chillo) about the film industry in Tanzania, and here are their excerpt.
The film industry in Tanzania has had a steady, tremendous growth right from the nineties to date. There is a significant increase in the number of production houses, and the increase in the number of bongo movies that are watched both here at home and internationally is evidence for this steady growth. Some of our own sons and daughters have been recognized internationally, and some have been called on to act with international production houses.
The young film industry has eveloved, but still faces major challenges that have to be addressed if the country is going to compete favourably. Some of the challenges facing the film industry include:-
Lack of enough Funding; There are so many scripts gathering dust and leaving screenwriters frustrated. Given that our economy is liberalized, there is hardly any government support and yet banks do not extend credit to such venture.
Perhaps crowd funding much like the wedding meetings model can come to the rescue coupled with filmmakers coming together and investing in a movie with a view to making profit through clever marketing and international appeal by way of universal themes.
Mediocrity - The absence of full-fledged film schools means that most talent is mostly copies and pastes.
Little pay for the artists - The producers want to invest less and harvest more. They over exploit the artists by paying them peanuts that can’t make them earn a living from the industry.
Lack of equipments like the Good modern cameras and computers. The communication and theatrical gadgets used are not up to date.
Piracy is very rampant; in fact this is a chronic disease. It cannot be easily solved though the government has tried to pass a law regarding this disease, but it’s still eating us.
Another problem is on marketing and distribution.
Producers don’t produce real good movies, with good stories and known actors. Hence when they try to sell, the price does not match with the expenses.
And the distributors don’ t pay much money because they have to sell and get profit.
And they take all the rights since they don’t want any future disturbance with the producer.
However with all those problems at hand, there are many new faces now and they are doing wonders.
The superstars are working with the junior artists in order to promote them. It is a very encouraging matter.
In order to solve most of these challenges and problems we need to unite strongly, have a powerful organization which will have a carrot and stick system.
One is benefiting by being a member and suffers when he is not a member or does not obey the law which binds him/her.
Secondly, a lot of institutions of film making and performing arts should be set up because Film has more entrepreneurship potential and the performing arts programmes at the universities would benefit so much from this initiative.
