The Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) will host the Southern region (SADC) Curriculum Symposium in Namibia, from 31 July – 01 August 2008. The purpose of the symposium is to provide a platform for regional training specialists, training programmes as well as government institutions in charge of education and training to come together under one roof to discuss film and television curriculums or the lack of them in the SADC region.
The objective of the regional symposium is to arrive at a common aim with regards to training of film and television practitioners. The countries that will take part in the regional symposium include, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“For a tree to grow properly, it needs several good things; good soil, good seed, and good rains. A lack or deficiency in any of these leads to a tree that does not bear fruit as it should. Our world class audio visual cinema tree requires nurturing in the same manner, that is, good investment in infrastructure, good investment in technical skills and good investment in technology. In essence, the regional curriculum symposium will became a discussion forum that will inform us of the technical skills required to ensure that we nurture our audio visual industries on the continent’, said Seipati Bulane–Hopa, Secretary General of FEPACI.
“In light of the need to establish the African Film Commission, FEPACI sees film training or curriculum as an important component that needs to be revisited so as to ascertain quality output in African filmmaking,’ said Mamokuena Makhema, Research and Education Manager at FEPACI.
The regional symposium is a pilot project which will give birth to other symposia which will be hosted in the upper regions of the continent.
It is expected that the regional symposium will yield the following results:
- National Film Schools and Stakeholder Needs Assessment report
- Coherent Recommendation and Resolutions
- Funding Support and African governments and investments
- Report to inform the strategy plan of other regional National Film Schools’ preparation for their perspective symposia
- Creation of corporate and strategic partner linkages with film schools
- Positioning strategy for new entrants into mainstream filmmaking
- Stakeholder relations in the areas of education management and benchmarking strategy
