John Clement P.O. Box BR-40037, Gaborone Tel: 395 7642 Cell: 72868082 Email: john.clement.storyline@gmail.

com

Approximate Word Count: 1500

Shared by permission of Lapologa Magazine published Dec '11/Jan '12 double-issue

STOP WHINING AND MAKE YOUR DAMN MOVIE: THE SHORT HISTORY AND HOPEFUL FUTURE OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING IN BOTSWANA

by John Clement

Flashback three years ago, I was minding my own business, reading a local newspaper, when I was ambushed by a headline: What chance of a film industry in Botswana? Dead certain about what the author meant by film industry my answer was immediate: No chance. Now get over it.

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If you go into the woods today you're in for a big surprise We see film industry we imagine Hollywood, maybe Bollywood or Nollywood. It's a conditioned reflex. So it seems almost unpatriotic not to think Botswood! Reality check: Film and television are mass media, by definition and in fact. Let's look at the masses: USA, current population over 300 million; India, over 1.2 billion; Nigeria, over 150 million; Botswana, less than 2 million. As Big Bird says: One of these things is not like the other. Each wood started out nourished by a large internal market (in India, many markets), and each is the product of a unique time and place in history. Hollywood was created in the early 1900s mostly by outlaws fleeing tough enforcement of monopolistic patent laws in the Eastern US. India was already producing more than 200 films a year by the 1930s; Bollywood refers to only a part of the multifaceted film output of the country, Hindi films, and the brand gained currency in the 70s when India overtook the US as the world's largest film producer. The legend of the birth of Nollywood credits a lone entrepreneurial spirit who figured out what to do with a shipment of thousands of blank VHS videocassettes true or not, I like it. African independence filmmaking Documentaries and dramas were produced in Africa about Africans since 1900 (five years after the Lumire Brothers invented the motion picture film camera) but they were not made by Africans. It was in the 1960s, as African countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers, that African cinema was born. Before 1960 there was no such thing as an African film one produced, directed, photographed and edited by Africans and starring Africans who spoke in African languages.

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It was Senegalese director Sembne Ousmanes early 1960s film dramas Borom Sarret and La Noire de... (Black Girl) that marked the beginning of African narrative cinema. Malian filmmaker Souleymane Ciss returned to Mali at independence. In 1987 Ciss was the first African to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival, the prestigious Jury Prize. In September, 2011 Ciss received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 7th Montreal International Black Film Festival. Filmmakers like Ousmane (dockworker, bricklayer and mechanic before he became a filmmaker) and Ciss (who started as an assistant projectionist, then as a cinematographer for the Malian Ministry of Information) set social and political agendas as well as craft and artistic standards for African film of which most Batswana filmmakers seem blissfully unaware. Watch Ousmanes Moolaad or Ciss's Yeleen and you'll see that there is no such beast as Hollywood standards, just authentic, well-crafted cinematic storytelling. Filmmaking is an international craft, occasionally an art, and no one culture can claim a monopoly on it. Hollywood is a figment of your imagination. Botswana's independent filmmaking history began last Tuesday Botswana's independent film and television sector really is very young, as are it's people. It wasn't until the mid-90s that a few Batswana in their 20s went abroad to study filmmaking. Those first-generation pioneers in the sector are not yet 40 years old, and the sector itself is a teenager, with all the scary stuff that entails, such as self-centredness, lack of focus, not planning for the long term, and a messy bedroom.

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In 2002 the first, and so far only, shot-on-film drama written and directed by a Motswana was produced Moabi Mogorosi's Hot Chili. On television to date, in order of broadcast in Botswana, there have been four television dramas: Flat 101 (GBC, Flave Productions, soapie, 2004), Re Bina Mmogo, directed by George Eustice (Btv, Camelthorn Media Trust, edutainment soapie, 2004), Thokolosi (Btv, 2004) a serial melodrama, written, produced and directed by Norman Moloi, and Morwalela (Population Services International, behaviour change communication, serial melodrama, 2010 ) which PSI contracted out to a South African production company. If you read the last paragraph closely you noticed the 50/50 split between independent producers and NGOs and the 100% soapie and melodrama. Not a good sign. Bubblegum: a gripping tale about love, greed, hate and betrayal They are for sale at the station stalls and at the cosmetic/cigarette counters in Choppies; they're distributed and sold out of car boots in South Africa, and their budgets are so small it only takes 10,000 copies sold to make their producers' money back; they're broadcast on and even commissioned by Mzanzi Magic. Audiences eat them up. They are Bubblegum movies. When I asked producers and distributors of Bubblegum movies where the term came from they gave it a self-deprecating spin: It's because bubblegum is just something you chew and throw away. But Howard Thomas of Busvannah, a South African Media and Entertainment consultancy, writes: First of all they are NOT rubbish. They are like bubblegum nice to taste, soothing, something to do if you have nothing else important on, relaxing.

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Robert Dargie is probably one of the most prolific and successful Bubblegum movie producers in Botswana. Starting in 2002 with straight performance music videos for artists such as Maxy and the Mokorwana Cultural Group Dargie began scripting narratives into the videos. In 2007 he produced his first Bubblegum drama, Chabdo. His company has 11 fulltime employees, has churned out more than 20 45-60-minute dramas, 13 of which were licenced by Mzanzi Magic. The case of the missing film commission ...the first studio was built in Hollywood in 1911. That same year, 15 more movie "manufacturers [added emphasis], as producing companies were called, arrived. La-La Land: The Origins by Peter Edidin; New York Times, August 21, 2005 Originating as a cabinet directive, the Film Commission remains a vague notion, and a mostly homeless one at that. Starting out at the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs it was passed on to Youth, Sport and Culture, then Communications, Science and Technology, before finally coming to rest at the Ministry of Trade and Industry. And every effort should be made to ensure that this lucky accident becomes a permanent state of affairs. Why? Because independent film and television production is where the rubber meets the road in the Creative Industries. the Creative what? Creative Industries 101 ...those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property. Google Creative Industries" youll get more than 3 millon hits (many with .gov in their addresses) and youll find the above definition quoted again and again. The Creative

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Industries include advertising, architecture, art, crafts, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, publishing, etc. Now, take a piece of paper, write film" in the centre and draw a circle around it; write down all the other sectors in the list in a circle around that; now draw circles around each one of those so that they overlap the circle in the centre. Thats an economic cluster. Why this is important The Creative Industries are inherently entrepreneurial; they are comprised mostly of small-to-medium enterprises (SMMEs); they output tradeable products created with an infinitely renewable resource: imagination and craft. And its the young, overwhelmingly, who are employed, under-employed and unemployed in the Creative Industries in Botswana. Yet, while government looks for ways to diversify the economy, the Creative Industries are overlooked as a potential source of economic and social growth, meaningful employment, and new cultural production. A professionally competent, industry-focused Film Commission with in addition to the standard job of facilitating foreign production in Botswana a sectoral development mandate could be a first step in the development of a small, sustainable, independent creative film and television production industry. Development media is not media development Ensuring that Trade and Industry is the Film Commissions permanent home could help to differentiate independent creative production from service production, disentangle the sector from agendas other than development of the sector, and wean the sector from its overreliance on government and NGOs not only for its income but for its ideas as well.

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Fade out It came out surprisingly perfect considering no one knows how to use film anymore. Moxyland by Lauren Beukes Within the last year all three major manufacturers of motion picture film cameras ARRI (Germany), Panavision (USA) and Aaton (France) ceased production of film cameras to focus on design and manufacture of digital cinematography cameras. Someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off a production line. Digital technology has removed most of the industrial obstacles that Ousmane, Ciss and other African filmmakers faced 50 years ago, such as lack of access to professional quality motion picture film equipment, film stock and film processing laboratories, sound dubbing and synchronizing studios, and editing facilities; the internet is opening new distribution channels and access to audiences they couldnt even dream of. In Botswana, we have one or two real cinematographers (not camera pointers) who have grown up exclusively as digital motion picture photographers and editors who have only worked digitally. They are in lock-step sync with the profound changes within the global film industry. What hasnt changed are the core competencies contained within the craft of cinematic storytelling. So stop whining, learn your craft, and make your damn movie.

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