adminRaisedon Baya, Arts Focus
LAST week the Zimbabwe digitalisation meeting took place in Harare. We hear over 500 filmmakers attended the meeting. We are using the term filmmakers generously to include anyone who thinks they have anything to do with films. Everyone was invited. Now 500 people in one meeting is a scary number. That number alone tells you about the amount of disorganisation in the sector. It tells you there are no structures and no sector representatives.
Honestly speaking we have never heard of any Minister or Permanent Secretary in other sectors calling everyone to one meeting. Imagine the Minister of Education calling all teachers, including ancillary workers, to a meeting about curriculum changes. Imagine the Permanent Secretary of Sports and Recreation calling for a meeting with everyone involved in football and every “Jack and Jill” attending that meeting. Yes, imagine your boozer’s coaches, players and “team-owners”, your community youth clubs coaches, players in one meeting with your so called professionals — the premier league coaches, chief executives, players, player agents and all. That would be chaos.
The truth is that a meeting like that will only be a rally where only a few people will be telling everyone what they want and what they expect from everyone else. The whole arts sector need to be organised if anything meaningful is to come out of it.
Anyway the big meeting took place. Zimbabwe filmmakers were once again told digitalisation is coming soon. They were also told about the six channels that are on their way because of digitisation. These channels are to be launched in March. By the way March is just around the corner. Where will six 24 hour channels get the content from when currently the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, with its one channel, has no content to talk about? The reason why very few people are watching Zbc-tv is the absence of appealing content. And this is not rocket science.
During the same big meeting filmmakers were also told about a $120 million fund to create or purchase content from local filmmakers. $120 million is good money for a sector that has never received any direct funding from Government. However, experience tells us to be very cautious about this fund. The wise say once beaten, twice shy. We have been told the same story before. We remember big meetings in big hotels where digitilisation was talked about and filmmakers promised more channels for their content. Sadly nothing happened after these big meetings.
Flashback to early 2000, there was exciting talk about digitilisation. Talk about Bulawayo hosting Zimbabwe’s second national television station. The station even got a name. National Television (NTV). Noel Sibanda was appointed chief executive officer of the new station. We were all excited. Then suddenly everything was abandoned.
During the same time there was talk about refurbishing Montrose Studios. State-of-the-art equipment was to come from Iran.
Many in Bulawayo were excited. But visit Montrose Studios today and see if you will leave that place without shedding some tears. So the questions that arise are: What happened to NTV? What happened to the equipment from Iran? What happened to the idea of Bulawayo hosting the second television station in the country?
Fast forward to 2015. Big meetings were called both in Harare and Bulawayo. Filmmakers from all walks of life congregated.
Digitisation was on the agenda. We were told about the six coming channels. We were told how desperate Zbc was for local content. Soon after these meetings the National Broadcaster called for concepts and stories from locals, some were approved, companies were registered, tax clearance sought and some contracts signed. It seemed everything died with the year 2015.
Now it is new meetings, new venues, same people, and same agenda. And we are all expected to be excited. Pardon some of us if we seem ungrateful and unexcited this time around. The March deadline means nothing to us, so is the $120 million if there is no clear plan on how it is going to be distributed and what strings are attached to it. But more importantly the sector needs to be organised and united to make things happen. Working as individuals makes all of us vulnerable and leaves room for others to come into the sector and take advantage of our disunity.
Online Reporter