Report of The 4 Edition of Slum Film Festival

Report of The 4th Edition of Slum Film Festival 5th January 2015 1. Summary The local film industry in Kenya has shown tremendous growth and vitality in recent years as a result of introduction of policies related to supporting local film industry by the government of Kenya. Key among these policies was the formation of the Kenya Film Commission and capping of local content aired by local broadcasters. As a response to the need of showcasing and growing an audience for stories done by local film makers, there has been a rise in the number of festivals organized in Kenya. These festivals have narrowed down to supporting specific groups of filmmakers. This year 2014, we have seen the celebration of six film festivals: Slum Film Festival – celebrates stories by and about the informal settlements. Riverwood Film Festival – Targets low budget filmmakers Coast Film Festival – Targets filmmakers from the Coastal region of Kenya Lola Film Festival – Celebrates films made by children Udada Film Festival – Celebrates films by and about women Human Rights Film Festival -­‐ Films about human rights and human dignity Slum Film Festival 4th edition has received increased support both cash and in-­‐kind from local and foreign organizations. World Friends, Africalia, Alliance Française, FilmAid, The Spanish Embassy, Kenya Film Commission, the Italian Institute of Culture and Cinemart were its key supporters. Mwelu Foundation and Slum TV were SFF’s key implementing partners. Significant achievements of 2014 SFF included registration of an independent organization, increased number of submissions, increased number of partners, expansion to a new location, involvement of Kenya government through the Kenya Film Commission, increased media coverage and involvement of key figures in Kenya’s film industry in a mentorship class for young film makers. The main challenge facing SFF was lack of dedicated staff to plan and coordinate activities. SFF highly relied on members of its management committee who are volunteers and who have fulltime employment. This affected the quality and delivery of some activities in this edition. The future outlook seems very good and the key focus will be to intensify outreach to media organizations in the slums, recruit a dedicated film festival director and increase engagement with media organizations in the slums as well as our partners who include World friends, Spanish Embassy, Africalia, Alliance Française, Italian Institute of Culture, FilmAid International, Cinemart and the Kenya Film Commission Activities carried out during the festival 1.1 Opening Ceremony The SFF opening ceremony of SFF 4th Edition was held at Alliance Française on the 29th September. The purpose of the ceremony was to unveil the nominees for the Winners of the Awards in Documentary, Drama, Community Journalism, and Judges Award. The event was presided over by the Kenya Film Commission Board chair Chris Foot, who represented the Cabinet Secretary for sports, culture, and the arts. The ceremony was attended by a big audience from the slums, the nominees, key representatives from World Friends, Spanish embassy, the French embassy, Alliance Française and the Kenya Film Commission, as well as, many film makers and cultural operators. The ceremony also featured a key note address from the Festival Director and entertainment from H_art the Band who were on stage. In total the opening ceremony was attended by about 250 people. 1.2 Film Makers Master Class Workshop The SFF workshop was designed to last for four days. They were more of master classes for young film makers. The workshop was meant to inspire them to continue with the passion they already possess, and exchange ideas among themselves and with leaders in the industry. Criteria for recruiting the applicants was first prioritized and sent to the young filmmakers who made submissions. Other applicants included artists who were nominated in SFF and referrals from Slum TV, Mwelu Foundation, and Hotsun Foundation. The workshop attracted 20 young film makers and was held at the Alliance Française between 30th October and 3rd September. Participants to this workshop (see appendix 2) were drawn from the following organizations. G-­‐pay, Mwelu Foundation, Slum TV, TSU films, Hotsun Foundation, Konoinia Community K-­‐youth Media Sisimka and MKT There were seven classes for the entire four days: Film Pre Production – Mercy Murugi a renowned film producer took the participants through the topic. She spoke in detail about proper film production planning and keeping within the budget when doing pre production. Script Writing – Damaris Irungu who is known for her numerous programmes on local TV channels and many films she has scripted spoke about script writing and different ways of making this a full time career. She also shared about market acceptable ways of writing scripts and how one can market a script after completion. Damaris also shared with the participants a list and contacts of various producers that the participants could approach. Film Distribution and social Media marketing – This was a covered by Wangari Mwaniki, a social media consultant at Millenial consult. She took the participants through the ‘nuts and bolts’ of social media marketing. Wangari encouraged the participants to start using social media to market their short films and also market themselves in their area of expertise. Casting and Directing – Gerald Langiri, an actor, acting coach; casting director and a blogger mentored the participants on casting and creating oneself as a brand. It came out clearly that for one to be successful in the film industry branding is very paramount. Cinematography -­‐Benson Kamau-­‐ an alumni of Slum TV and now one of the best directors of photography in the Kenyan market (Spielworks Media), spoke about ways of lighting and how light can be used to create moods and illusions. He stressed that camera skills are very important. Directing –This was covered very well by Gilbert Lukalia one of the best film directors we have in Kenya. He has also featured in Lost in Africa and The First Grader, both award winning films. Sound class: The class was to be covered by Brian Gitahi is a sound recordist at Kibanda pictures. The participants were not able to cover this class as the mentor fell sick and was hospitalized. 1.3 Screenings The highlight of Slum Film Festival is the screenings when the festival hosts in the slums, giving an opportunity for people here to watch award winning films. This year was no different and screenings were done between 6th to 10th October in Mathare, Kawangware and Kibera Slums. For 4 days, the slum communities were treated to a repertoire of films -­‐ some that were nominated in the festival and others that had been pre-­‐selected for screening by the organizing committee. There was good partnership with Film Aid who provided equipment for screening in Mathare, and Cinemart in Kawangare. Screening equipment in Kibera was provided by Edmix sounds, a private company. As a tradition, the screening program included artist performances from the local community and screenings. Performing Artists Kibera: Kibera Messengers – This is a team of young acrobats Shaddy Chipuka Messenger Dancers Kawangare Mainly featured funny emcees serving as continuity announcers provided by the partner Cinemart Mathare Tremax Group – with a mix of musicians, acrobats and Emcees The following was the schedule of the screening SFF Screening Tuesday 7th Wednesday 8th Thursday 9th Friday 10th programme all October 2014 October 2014 October 2014 October 2014 location 4pm – 6.30pm Open Microphone Open Microphone Open Microphone Open Microphone & Entertainment & Entertainment & Entertainment & Entertainment Performances: Performances: Performances: Performances: 6.30 pm – 7. PACKAGE 1 – PACKAGE 2 – PACKAGE 3 – PACKAGE 4 – 30pm Short Short short Films short Films films films Angles of Ghost About Ndugu -­‐ I've Just Had A Thandi -­‐ 4m – town -­‐ 5m 15s – 16m – Kenya Dream -­‐ 7min – Kenya Kenya Spain Severino's Dreams Machizi -­‐ 2m – Invisible Scars -­‐ -­‐ 8m 34s – Brazil E-­‐Wasteland -­‐ 20m Kenya 4m 29s – Kenya – Ghana The Biggest Fear -­‐ 10m – Italy 7.30 pm – 9pm Contac t Person The Land between -­‐ 1h 17m -­‐ Morocco Mathare Ephantus Kariuki 0720578327 Nairobi Half life Kibera Roy Okello 0721806267 Women We Marry Strength Woman -­‐ Kawangare Ephantus Kariuki 0720578327 of A Most screened films were well received by the audiences based on the reflections after the shows. As noted in earlier editions, the audience did not relate well with foreign films in a foreign languages. Hence this year, we limited the inclusion of these foreign films. Estimated cinema audience for each location was as follows: Location Estimated Audience Mathare 4000 Kawangware 340* Kibera 2200 Total 6540 The screening programme for 2014 Edition faced some difficulties in Kibera and Kawangware . This is attributable to poor organisation which resulted in low turnout generally and most severely in Kawangware. In Kibera the screenings were done for 2 days instead of 4. In future, rigorous publicity-­‐ announcing the dates of the screenings early enough and actually letting the media partners in the slums be fully responsible for these events. Closing Ceremony The curtains fell on the Festival on the 11th October at the Alliance Française. The closing ceremony was a colorful event with the theme of honoring the young film makers from the slums who had submitted their films to SFF. It was attended by 156 people – mainly film makers, sponsors and partners. The climax of the festival was awarding the winners in each category – the winners were awarded with custom made Trophies that were crafted by a local artist Elijah Ogira of the Green Art Group a CBO that make their work from scrap metal making the experience authentically slum and environmentally friendly. In addition the winners received certificates for their participation. The awards were presented by several dignitaries amid sounds of drumbeats from U-­‐Tena music group from the slums of Mukuru slums Nairobi. As he closed the 2014 Festival Director Josephat Keya explained that it had been a great year for the Festival having gone solo and formally been registered as CBO. He shared that it has been challenging but very fulfilling run for the organizing committee which had run the Festival for the first time. He promised that 2015 was going to be bigger and better for Slum Film Festival. He asked the audience to look out for SFF outreach program. 1.4 Media and Publicity A press conference was held at the Italian Institute for Culture in Westlands, Nairobi, on 17th September. The objective of the press conference was to introduce the Festival to the media. The press conference was presided over by the Italian Ambassador to Kenya Mr. Mauro Massoni. Various media houses were represented and good coverage given. The conference was well attended by a total of 51 guests including 15 members of the press. Media Houses attending the press conference included Kenya Correspondents Associations, Media Policy Research Centre, Agencia EFE (Spanish media), People Daily, Ebru TV, Mtaani Radio, Home Boyz Radio, Kenya News Agency, KBC, DSTV/Daily Nation and Daily K-­‐News SFF was also featured in Television morning shows on NTV (Josephat Keya and Mercy Murugi), KTN (Josephat Keya and Lizzie Chongoti of the Kenya Film Commission). We ran a comprehensive story on KTN’s e-­‐curve, an art scene program. We got stories published in 3 dailies: the People Daily, the East African, and the Nation on Sunday. Generally SFF was able to create very good media blitz around the festival. Kindly follow the following link to see Kenya Television Network interview the Festival Director and the CEO Kenya Film Commission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuTGQIvFKMo SFF also prepared brand collateral that included T-­‐shirts, posters, press kits and the banners. These helped in publicizing the events and its activities. Although SFF used social media like Twitter, Facebook and the website, this was not up to scratch. It proved costly to hire a social media expert. A volunteer that we engaged did not perform as expected. This affected outreach to some of our key constituents. 2. Report on the submissions and award winners The 2014 call for entries was opened in June 2014. This 2014 call for entries was widely shared on Facebook, Website, and Twitter. It was also posted on a special website ‘Click For Films’, enabling filmmakers to submit films online without necessarily providing DVDs for their films. Filmmakers were also able to submit entry forms on the same platform which were easily downloadable. SFF 2014 still kept its tradition of short film entries. The entries were in 3 categories: Short Drama, Short Documentary, and Community Feature. These competitive film categories of the SFF represent the main tendencies of audiovisual production in the slums. As it can be observed, short formats are the most common creations in the slums, which can be seen as optimal starting points for larger and more developed projects in the future. We received a total of 80 film entries; 53 received via Click For Films website, 27 received in DVD format. 3.1 Summary of Submissions Genre Number of submission Documentaries 17 Drama 62 Community Journalism 1 Total 80 SFF received entries from Iran, Bangladesh, Brazil, France, Germany, Thailand, Australia, Spain, and the Netherlands among others, and in Africa entries were received from Uganda, Ghana, Morocco, and Kenya. It was noted that 80% of the total film entries were from outside Africa. This means that SFF has to publicize the festival with the upcoming film community in the slums of Africa. Establishing partnerships with media organizations is important as well as encouraging and reaching out to young filmmakers from the slum community to submit their entries. 3.2 SFF 2014 Edition Nominees Drama genre I have just had a dream –Javi Navaro, Spain The unclean – A production of Bahman & Bahram Ark , Iran Invisible scars – Michael Kuria a young filmmaker from Kibera, Kenya Documentary genre About Ndugu – David Munoz, Kenya The eviction – Shafiur Rahman, Dhaka Bangladesh E-­‐ wasteland – Davide Fedele Ghana Community Journalism genre Dagorretti Breath of Fresh air – Eric Sirama, Kenya 1.3 SFF 4th Edition Award Winners 1. Winning Documentary 2014-­‐ About Ndugu A documentary about a young boy(10 years old) who is trying to get a new wife for his 50 year sponsor/guardian who has just become widowed. He runs around the village looking for “older” single women asking them if they would be interested in getting married and gets a variety of mixed reactions. Some are amused, others give conditions and some actually take him seriously and consider his offer. The Kenyan film shot by Spanish Director David Munoz won due to high production values, and very authentic Kenyan script. Most importantly due to the superb acting by Ndugu who despite his very young age is able to carry the entire movie. 2. Winning Drama 2014-­‐ I Have Just Had A Dream ‘I have just had a Dream’ is a short film about two girls one white and one black. The white girl dreams that she was black, that she worked as a maid in a big grand house and took care of her sick mother who was paralyzed. This dream is nightmare to her. The black girl dreams the same dream; that she was worked in a big grand house, shopped in amazing malls, and also took care of her sick mother walking her to the park and having a great time with her. To her this is a fantasy. This movie also has extremely high production values; extremely well lit, shot and edited. More importantly was that the story of the two girls was interwoven beautifully showing the big contrast in lifestyle and expectations of two pre-­‐teenage girls due to their color and status in society. Also some great casting and acting from the two girls who gave character and certain beauty and grace to the film. 3. Winning Community Journalism-­‐ Dagoretti's breath of Fresh Air A story about how a community radio station is changing the lives of the people in Kawangware. People use the radio to air their views, to find lost children and mobilize the community to clean up the environment. The story succeeds in showing how community radio can change people’s world views and have an impact in a slum. It’s a moving and well told story. It was a lone entry in this category and so it was decided to give it the award. 4. Judges Award-­‐ Invisible Scars directed by Michael Kuria of Hot Sun Films The film is about two siblings (a boy and girl) who live in a slum in Kenya. They are orphans and their auntie throws them out after she gets tired to taking care of them. In an effort to get food for his sister, the little boy goes out to beg for money on the streets. He meets a friendly man who buys him a packet of chips and convinces to go with him to his house then brutally sodomize him. The film was chosen mainly due to execution; it was a silent movie executed in black and white (Charlie Chaplin style) and without dialogue yet it still managed to tell a powerful story of a very difficult subject that is hardly discussed in Kenya. 3. SFF Jury SFF organizing committee selected and requested key figures in the Kenya film scene to serve on a voluntary basis as members of the jury for the 4th edition. The jury was presented with criteria and very detailed Score Sheet. They watched all the films, scored them independently to have 5 nominations which were presented and deliberated at several Judges Meetings’ and reduced to 3 winners. Nominees were contacted directly and publicly announced during the opening ceremony on Monday the 29th September 2014. The judging process faced a serious challenge as one of the judges dropped out due to work commitments. The remaining 2 judges however had to put in more time to complete the nomination process. There is need to scout for additional members of the jury and make the jury completely independent of the management committee. The judges were: Mercy Murugi a noted Kenyan film producer. She was one of the filmmakers to represent Kenya in the biggest film festival in the world; the Cannes. She is also a founder of the Kibera Film School and is currently a producer at Page83 films. Victor Gatonye is a director/actor full of passion to tell the African story in its context first, to the people then to the world. Over the years Victor has directed many famous TV shows that have graced most Kenyan and regional free to air and cable stations. He is also an accomplished actor with screen appearances in Makutano Junction, Mali, Shuga 2 just to mention a few. Cajetan Boy is the Products Development Leader for ET CETERA PRODUCTIONS LIMITED an independent Kenyan Film and TV production company. Cajetan is a consulting producer, Writer and Director with a rich portfolio of work which spans over 15 years 4. Future outlook It is very clear that SFF is a worthwhile endeavor that will need to be supported. SFF will endeavor to protect this brand as a vehicle of supporting young film makers in the slums to tell their stories, get national and international audience, and expert platforms to upgrade their skills and connections. SFF is a newly registered and independent Community Based Organisation and great efforts will be sought this coming year to reach out to new partners and numerous cultural operators and media organisations in the Slums. In addition, SFF will professionalize its management and enhance its event organizing capacity. In this regard SFF plans to 1. Build on the experience of 2014 to enhance the ‘festival in the community’ – in particular invest more time and resources in the screening programme and the young film makers workshops. 2. Build on the experience of the current jury, ensure it is independent from the management committee 3. Increase outreach of winning submissions to other festivals 4. Increase engagement with partners, including media organizations in the slums 5. Classify all films screened with the Kenya Film Classification Board 6. Employ a dedicated festival director and finance officer 7. Separate the roles of the committee and the staff 8. Develop proper and comprehensive policies and standards to guide the work of SFF including a media and communication policy 5. Appendices Appendix 1: SWOT analysis report of the festival Strengths Weakness 1. SFF is a good brand – need to guard this 1. Lack of a fulltime dedicated staff very jealously member 2. Goodwill from partners willing to 2. All committee members are fulltime support employees that led to delayed plans 3. Good knowledge of committee and actions. members in film 3. Management by committee was quite 4. Voluntary sprit was great – committee, ineffective, time consuming and ushers screening coordinators, etc caused lots of delays. 5. SFF has already well defined processes – 4. Poor communication to SFF audience thanks to the founders 5. Lack of clear policies and standards to 6. Registration of SFF as a CBO. guide SFF activities 7. Ability to run the SFF 2014 with the 6. Screenings were poorly organized current organizing committee which is and need a thorough review. quite inexperienced in running festivals. 7. Poor sharing of records; pictures, 8. Ability to have a reasonably good media video, and media content as the blitz and a few good events festival progressed. 8. Lack of sufficient funds Opportunities Risks / Threats 1. International festivals 1. Lack of professionalism may lead to 2. Many partnership opportunities: partner and audience apathy Sponsors and media organizations 2. Lack of registration of screened films with 3. To improve many of the 2014 Edition the Kenya classification Board may lead to challenges severe consequences 4. Hire a Festival Director who can start 3. There are lots of new Festivals cropping fundraising and outreach for the Festival up and SFF will be in competition for early enough. resources, partners, audience and even 5. Get entries and nominees early; film makers. announce them early enough for them to make plans to attend the festival 6. Get partners early enough to work out their funding on time; 7. Add at least 2-­‐3 new activities to the Festival besides the usual screenings in slums and workshops. 8. Focus activities more on the film makers Appendix 2: List of participants to the master’s class workshop Name Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 George Waweru Phostine Mwenge Steve Nuguna Gideon Sule Peter Nondi Sharon Ongayo Bernard Omondi Emily Onyango Stephen Ouma Shaffi Abdi Mary Muthoni Victor Odhiambo Emmah Akoth Eric Sande Albanus Mutua Lillian Ngugi Bade Aluoch Eddie Juma Lydia Katanu Elijah Gitau Steve Obaga John Mwaura William Magige Kabatila Musyimi Soyik films G-­‐pay K-­‐youth media Mwelu Foundation Koinonia community K-­‐youth media Slum TV K-­‐youth media K-­‐youth media Mwelu foundation Mwelu foundation K-­‐youth media Mwelu foundation Koinonia community Slum TV G-­‐pay Hotsun foundation MKT media TSU films Slum TV Slum TV K-­‐youth media Slum TV Slum TV Appendix 3: Judging Criteria and Awards of SFF Film Competition Judging Criteria Film and screenwriting critique is not an exact science. Powerful new ideas, expressions, and methods of communicating and effectively telling a story arise constantly, reshaping old ideas or paving over them completely. The official Jury will evaluate film entries based on several criteria as follows: 1. Originality -­‐ The uniqueness and originality of the story 2. Creativity -­‐ The effective use of imagination as evidenced in the entry 3. Plot -­‐ The actions, events, conflicts, and turning points that propel the story forward. How the story unfolds 4. Pacing -­‐ The timing of the action, unfolding of plot elements and character development 5. Structure -­‐ The framework of the film or script. Effective use of three-­‐act, odyssey, linear or non-­‐linear story progression. 6. Characters -­‐ Personalities that are distinctive, compelling, multi-­‐layered, and unpredictable. A protagonist and antagonist with clear and active goals 7. Cinematography -­‐ The quality of cinematography or videography demonstrated in the work 8. Direction -­‐The quality of direction exhibited in the work 9. Entertainment Value -­‐ Does the story keep the viewer's or reader's attention? It is fun, engaging, or thought provoking? 10. Dialogue -­‐ Voices that are natural, succinct, and unique to each character. Use of language that effectively reveals character and moves the story forward 11. Overall Quality of Production or Script -­‐ Is the entry well constructed and well executed as a whole? Categories There will be one main judge for each category as follows: Narrative Documentary Community Journalism Judges How Films will be judged Round 1 judging All entries submitted during the Call for Entries will be sorted according to categories and each judge responsible for a category will receive all the respective films for that category. Each juror will independently inspect each entry and rate them based on judging criteria. Each judge shall shortlist four entries that will be further evaluated by the full panel of judges to pick the final winners. Round 2 Judging The full panel of judges will further evaluate the shortlisted entries based on the criteria. Each film will be judged on the following criteria: 1. Cinematography 2. Screenplay / acting 3. Soundtrack 4. Technical production 5. Overall Impression Each judge will rate each category as a score from 0 to 10 (0 = worse, 10 = best) The overall score of each category will be determined by the average of the scores by the judges. For example, if for a particular film, under the category of "Documentary": Judge1 score = 7 Judge2 score = 9 Judge3 score = 6 Then the overall score for "soundtrack" = (7 + 9 + 6) / 5 = 7.3 For each of the 3 categories, the panel will determine the winner, the first runner up and the second runner up. The winner will receive the coveted SFF Award for respective category. The Awards Best Narrative Film Best Documentary Film Best community journalism feature Special mention – Judges award The jury reserves the right not to honor any film should the quality of work not meet standards set by the judging criteria. Disclosure Judges are strongly advised to disclose and not to vote for any entry with which they have a conflict of interest. Appendix 4: Judging Score Sheet SLUM FILM FESTIVAL 2014 Drama Film Score Sheet Judge: Email Title of film: A day out in Paris Duration:22:52 Language(s) French Date: 23 Aug 2014 Rate on scale of 0 (poor) to 5 (outstanding) 1.Story 0 1 2 1.1 Beginning * 1.2 Conflict 1.3 Editing 1.4 Dialog 1.5 Character development * 1.6 Interviews Subtotal 2. Camera/Cinematography 0 1 2 2.1 Lighting * 2.2 Focus focus 2.3 Aspect ratio 2.4 Shot steadiness 2.5 Creativity in shots Subtotal 3. Sound 0 1 2 3.1 Dialog Audible 3.2 Sound levels 3.3 Music * 3.4 Sound effects * Subtotal 4. Editing 0 1 2 4.1 Structure * 4.2 Continuity 4.3 Subtitles Subtotal 5. Credits 0 1 2 5.1 Logos, Websites, Contacts 5.2 Opening 5.3Ending Subtotal Grand Total Grand total: 59 3 * * * 4 5 TOTAL 2 3 3 3 2 N/A 13 3 * * * 4 * 5 TOTAL 2 4 3 3 3 16 3 * * 4 5 TOTAL 3 3 2 2 13 3 * * 4 5 TOTAL 2 3 3 8 3 * * * 4 5 TOTAL 3 3 3 9 59