adminpreservation of arts, cultural heritage and their history, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu said most African governments have not woken up to their responsibilities as authors of visual culture and arts.
He made the remarks in Harare yesterday while officially opening the 2011 Zimbabwe Film Industry Stakeholders Consultative Indaba.
The three-day workshop, that ends tomorrow, is running under the theme “A step towards films by Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans”.
“We are feeding from someone’s bowl, from someone’s palm. It is the responsibilities of our Governments to fund films. Donors and the private sector can only augment what Governments will have initiated,” said Minister Shamu.
“The future of the (film) industry rests with cofunding coming from the state and other national institutions.
“If the State funds education and education can use film as a vehicle, why is there a contradiction between funding the film directly and furthering the goals of education?” he asked.
He said foreigners should not be allowed to develop local films because the film industry is a sector of high politics and high global strategic goals.
“Any society that allows outsiders to develop a film for it is a society that has agreed to subcontract its consciousness to the outsider. You are a society that has allowed a foreigner to play nanny to yourselves, a society that has traded its own soul.
“Embedded in film are fundamental political goals and intentions, hegemonic intentions. So there is no philanthropist in film making,” he said.
He said the film industry was lagging behind due to lack of commitment from white players who played intermediary roles between donors and the local film industry.
In the late 90s, the land question surfaced and the relationship between Government and the donor community deteriorated. Government was left alone and its commitment became circumstantial.
While they were there, we never saw any skills transfer, let alone donor transfer because the money went with the white producers, he said.
Minister Shamu expressed the need for the country to have a film policy that would create a film industry.
In Zimbabwe we are not producers. We are consumers of foreign products. We are a typical symbol of a culturally consuming community as opposed to a culturally producing one.
Yes, we do have films and consumers but unfortunately we do not have a film industry, he said.
Namibian film commissioner Mr Vickson Hangula echoed Minister Shamu’s sentiments saying African films should depict its history.
We have an identity and many of us have got a history as we came from an era of liberation struggles and that is what we must concentrate on when acting, he said.
Other filmmakers attending the Indaba are from South Africa and Kenya.
Online Reporter