34-year-old Dar es Salaam-based filmmaker Seko Shamte is no stranger to creating visual works of art. From a young age, she admired journalists and filmmakers, and even in that formative phase, she knew what she wanted to be one thing – an artist.
“I always loved film, especially classic cinema, and really found my footing when I took an introductive module in the history of film in college,” Shamte recalls. “I had always loved music, I was the chairperson of the music club in middle school, I played multiple instruments as a kid. I also always loved writing, so the visual medium became a challenge and later on a passion and an obsession.”
Growing up in an academic environment, Shamte learned a lot from her engineer father and education specialist mother. She travelled with them extensively to different parts of the world including Asia and the U.S. where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BSc in Finance and a minor in Media studies from Marymount Manhattan College in New York, in 2005.
“I have just always been internally motivated,” she illumines. “I grew up watching my parents who have always had a serious work ethic and, either genetically or from emulation, I naturally work hard.”
That hard work saw her spending all her summers working at radio and television stations in the US during college and later in 2005, when she moved back to Dar es Salaam, she became the Head of Programming at East Africa TV for four years, a role that to this day allowed her to nurture her creativity and put her on the pedestal of shaping the future of Tanzanian mainstream media.
‘In EA TV, I was in charge of coming up with all the creative content, the shows, the programming, I am grateful to have initiated and introduced Ze comedy-the highest rated television show in the history of Tanzania during my tenure.”
Shamte founded Alkemist Media in 2008, after quitting her job in EA TV. The company produced content for CNN’s Inside Africa and later she produced Mkwawa, a feature documentary on Chief Mkwawa of Uhehe in 2011. The film tells the story of Chief Mkwawa, who hailed from central Tanzania. He’s regarded as one of the most brilliant military strategist in Tanzania’s history and one of the most successful chiefs of the pre-colonial time, who resisted the German colonialists.
‘Mkwawa was my dream project, I always wanted to do it and am glad and proud I did’.
Later in 2014, she produced and directed The Team, a series that ran for a year, and a Swahili-language cooking show for DStv’s channel 160 titled Jikoni Na Marion, translated in English as ‘In the Kitchen with Marion’.
Now she has completed her first feature film, Homecoming, a film she wrote, directed and produced. The picture is a coming-of-age story about Abel, a man in his late 20s, who returns home from studying in America and ends up working in a bank. While there, he unearths a conspiracy that puts his life in jeopardy and tests his ethical fibre.
“I wanted to take a snapshot of what Dar es Salaam life was like and also to explore how a person becomes corrupt,” Shamte says.
The film was shot with a RED Epic Dragon in 6k by Dylan Verrechia, an N.Y. based cinematographer. It is to be released later this year.
The question of morality is central in the film, Seko adds – in particular the idea of moral mutability, the question of how exactly one is able to sacrifice one’s moral standards. ‘Where is this turning point in our life stories? Does it happen so gradually that we hardly realise what or who we have become?’ Homecoming premiered in 2015 and Shamte is still seeking a distribution deal for the feature.
To Shamte, telling the African story to the world by Africans themselves is critical. ‘It is very important to me that we Africans tell our own stories from our own perspective and utilising our voice, we need to document them to save ourselves from internalising self-hatred and idolisation of foreigners’.
With a passion for the creative arts, Shamte works in other media apart from film.
“I love film so much that I don’t really think about an alternate life,” she says. “But if I had to, then I’d either work in music, be a writer or design furniture.” She still is able to pursue these avenues as a hobby.
Shamte, who regards legendary filmmakers Ousmane Sembene and Abderrahame Sissako as her role models, is focused on redefining Tanzanian film, which has been overshadowed by Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
‘I want to keep putting out interesting films and content on the Tanzanian experience to the rest of the world and Africa, and be the first Tanzanian woman to win an Oscar for best international film’. She also wants to give back. ‘I want to mentor young up-and-coming filmmakers in Tanzania’.
The filmmaker is married to Amour Shamte, a former telecommunication executive. ‘I always say that my husband is my biggest fan and inspiration, but there are also my parents and all the young Africans making their mark in the world.”
She believes every African has a chance to become anything they want to be. ‘No dream is ever too big. The only thing that can stop you, is you.”
