The Status of filmmaking education in Tanzania

The word status in the title heading this article is misleading, some would say. Some would ask, are you speaking about how much filmmaking is covered in our education curriculum at least from O - level, A - level to Higher learning institutions? Or how many schools/colleges, whether public or privately owned, are training people in filmmaking? Or how many Instructors, Lectures with PhDs or Professors are specializing in teaching this subject? Or how many graduates so far have come out of the school with such education? It’s too many questions to be asked and addressed in just one article.  More acceptably I will just survey, discern and provide an indication on both of the enquiries I have mentioned above to the best of my experience as an instructor, scholar, analyst and future practitioner in Video-Filmmaking. My intention is to analyze the status of film education in building the professional capacity of Filmmakers at the local level.  And so I decided to use the word status. However I intend not to rank the Tanzania Video-filmmaking education, but I will look at its position and conditions towards the growing Tanzania Video-filmmaking industry.  

When Major L. A. Notcutt and Geoffrey Latham, established the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) in Tanganyika in 1935 and experimented the use of cinema with the minds of our frontiers to see if they can conjure and understand the language of film, I bet they never had a clue that we would be interested and engage ourselves today in making our own films as well.  In 1948 the colonial film unit started producing films at local settings which were meant for education and propagandas of the colonialists. When we took matters into our own hands after gaining independence, still the position and significance of films in propagating development ideas was ascertain. The establishment of the Tanzania film company in 1968 and the 1974 Audio Visual Institute that replaced the film unit was a leap towards the development of the local filmmaking capacity. However the question of education in filmmaking might have been given less attention since then.

It’s in the milieu of our country that when we think of developing education programs, we embark first on infrastructural development. I do the same and discuss first if we have film schools/colleges specifically or with tailored courses in video production and film production. Lucky enough we do have them. We have managed to establish, again in response to the growing needs of such education, video – filmmaking Institute/colleges/ departments over the years. Such departments as the department of Fine and Performing Arts (FPA) at University of Dar es Salaam, the unit of Art, Media and Design at University of Dodoma offers courses in film production as well for Bachelor and Masters Degree students. Institutes such as Institute of Arts and Media Communication (IAMCO) at Ilala Sheriff Shamba, Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT) and Kilimanjaro Film Institute (KFI) in Arusha, these offers tailored courses in Video/Film production for certificate and Diploma students. A quick survey on the graduation statistics entails that a good number of aspirants have graduated with very good grades. Do the math.

However, who qualifies into degree, diploma or certificate programs in such colleges, institute or departments is one seminal factor. I am an alumna of FPA department, and I had a privilege to teach at IAMCO for the past two consecutive years. My experience as a student and with the students is troubled with the issue of foreign language as a medium of instructions in teaching and thereafter during the private-self reading in books and via the internet. Despite the fact this is mentioned as a setback in every sector, education in media is suffering a hundredfold. Most of the texts for instance on video production and film making are written in English and other foreign languages. I have hardly found a book in Swahili on this subject. In such a situation I have always wondered how we can help the enthusiastic – eager to learn students in different colleges/institute who are seeking this knowledge but who find difficulties in the language of video/film production and technology which is in most cases English. However I should insist that everything about this subject is written in books and still new editions are released everyday in response to the changing technology and the newly generated knowledge of film production.

The filmmaking education as an art, technology or practice is not covered, at least at the moment in secondary school’s curriculum. One finds it at the college or university level. Probably, it’s not the perfect timing for someone to start from scratch and reach a point that he/she understands what filmmaking art and technology is all about. Few of us whom to a certain extent have indulged in such studies at degree level we have enjoyed the benefit of the theoretical part of it, and we can give criticisms, analysis and evaluation very well. Are we ending up as such? It’s obviously no, as I have been observing my colleagues such as Amanzi Ali (Rudi Africa, White chair), Gervas Kasiga (Fake pastors) who have made their mark already by producing or co- producing features that enjoyed distribution in the market. But we could have done better with the government support to advance and promote the status of filmmaking education in Tanzania by providing the necessary learning facilities, technological gadgets and teaching aids to such schools and colleges. Other than that, sponsor instructors, lectures to go and further their studies and skills for the brighter future of the film industry which is growing in demand of human resources to handle its production, distribution/marketing and exhibition activities.

We do have frontiers/teachers and experienced people in academia who teach this practice. Mr. Richard Ndunguru at FPA/UDSM has played an inspiring role in mentoring and nurturing the younger generation (including me) who find interest in filmmaking. Lately, we have had Dr. Mona Mwakalinga graduating for a PhD in the same subject. Prof Martin Mhando (Yomba Yomba 1985, Maangamizi 1996, Ron Mulvihill), Prof Amandina Lihamba, Dr Frowin Nyoni have availed in major early 90s feature filmmaking, and today’s trainings, research and consultancy. Still there is a need to encourage more people to get into this field. Use the little resources we already have and face up to the challenges that the academia in this field is subjected to in this era. Need I appreciate also the role of the local and international organizations such Goethe Institute in Tanzania, Alliance Francaire in Tanzania, Zanzibar International Film festival, Maisha Lab in Uganda who have been organizing seminars and workshops intended to reallocate knowledge of filmmaking to the local practitioners in Tanzania. Such efforts have created a platform that helped in exposing the local filmmaking aspirants to the art, practice and technology of filmmaking.

I bet and as it appears, that a theorist can stand and happen to be good at theory only and so is a practical person who does more than theorizing. The merging of the two is a deadly weapon. Few with gifted talents get the best and benefit of it all such as Professor Elias Jengo who is the renowned professor in Tanzanian Arts and Culture. Professor Jengo has managed to paint, draw and sculpt state of arts painting, drawings and sculptures and at the same keep an excellent and undisputed standing at Lecturing. It’s the battle to find the niche between the two extremes that most of the intellectuals in this field should be engaged to. We may need as well to start training students how to merge the fine art motives and values that are demanded in academia, intellectual and professional world of film art with those commercial motives that are demanded by the Industrial capitalist world which enjoys the neo-liberal economy where art is now a commodity and it needs to appeal to a majority of population in order to make profit.  More appropriately media entrepreneurship should be taught along this discipline as well so that we get high skilled – enterprising producers who are profit and fine art makers.

Chemi Chemponda, a Tanzania’s seasoned women journalist, legal assistant, news writer and an actress based in Massachussets, USA, in an interview with Issa Michuzi, December 2010, when asked what should be done to make Tanzania’s film industry grow to the likes of Nollywood (Nigeria) and other successful African countries? She maintained that “let me say it’s become much cheaper to make a film than 20 years ago because of the advent of digital media. I’d like to see people get the proper training in filmmaking. We need people willing to learn from the experts then go out on their own and make their own films”. Education is the greatest blessing bestowed on human kind. Despite the challenges we are facing, let’s seek it and come another season, another trend, and another realm will be that of the gurus who have sought of education and knowledge as a priority.