A Creative And Intellectual Expression Of A People

Kenya Mon 02-07-2007

A Creative And Intellectual Expression Of A People
By Beatrice Ndungu

AC: What is Lola Kenya Screen?

Ogova Ondego: Lola Kenya Screen is an audiovisual media movement that seeks to place audiovisual media production tools in the hands of children and youth for the advancement of literacy, gender equity, self expression, and democracy in their world.

Lola Kenya Screen comprises a production workshop, film exhibition, and audiovisual media platform for marketing, promoting and distributing films all rolled into one. We at Lola Kenya Screen believe that the comprehension of moving images is a basic skill at par with what education experts refer to as the 3 Rs—Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic—that contribute to development of societies and nations. Lola Kenya Screen equips children and youth with the skills to understand, appreciate, and create quality audiovisual productions in particular and art in general.

AC: What is your take on art and culture in relation to film?

Ogova Ondego: Art and Culture, defined as the creative and intellectual expression of a people, not only enables the people concerned to make sense of their being but also feeds their artifacts. Film is an art, a communication medium. Consequently, film affects and is affected by other forms of art which include but are not limited to theatre, storytelling, dance, music, writing, and painting.

Unlike the other forms of art, film encompasses all of them and also readily connects with the audience as it tells stories using moving pictures without necessarily relying on words or writing. A vibrant art scene, especially that involving performance or performing arts, can spawn a booming film sector. Actors are honed on stage while screenwriters begin as scriptwriters for stage. Casting managers, art directors, costume designers who have worked on stage usually get into film much more easily than training new ones for film.

AC: You have won a number of awards?

OO: Yes! Best Animation, Best Experimental Film, Best Film by A First Time Director, Best Student Film, Best Kenyan Children's Film, Audience's Choice Award, Best African Film for Young People, Child Rights Award.

LOLa screen(grand prize)
LOLa participants receive the trophy won in South Africa

AC: What awards does Lola screen present to participants?

OO: The awards you are mentioning are those that Lola Kenya Screen presents to participants in our programmes during the festival. We have identified these categories for award as being primary to developing a film-making and consumption culture in Kenya and eastern Africa. Lola Kenya Screen not only challenges the status quo in the film sector on Kenya but also seeks to take destiny by the horns for the good of our children.

AC: What do you think about the international Kids for Kids Festival to be held in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), September 21-24, 2007, as well as Africa's First Audiovisual event for Children to be held in Nairobi?

OO: I am excited and humbled because the Lola Kenya Screen vision is being realised beyond our wildest imagination. When Lola Kenya Screen was mooted in October 2005 at a nondescript café on Tom Mboya Street, little did we know we would be taken seriously by the world?

I am humbled that our vision has not only been accepted by the world but that it is bearing reward as we are invited to talk about it and to showcase the creativity of children and youth in Kenya to the corners of the world. August 6-11, 2007 will witness the second, a bigger and more expanded programme for the filmmakers of today and tomorrow—children and youth—in Nairobi.

We are screening more than 250 films from 46 nations: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Taiwan, Thailand, Israel, India, Pakistan, England, Scotland, USA, Sweden, Czech Republic, Turkey, Canada, Romania, The Netherlands, Greece, Belgium, Palestine, Norway, Serbia, Croatia, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Australia, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, Philippines, Cyprus, Poland, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary, Mongolia, and Bulgaria. I am glad because Lola Kenya Screen is bringing the world to Kenya rather than Kenya having to always go abroad!

LOLa screen (Trophy)
Ondego, flanked by Antonia Ringbom and a jury member, holds the trophy that Lola Kenya Screen won in South Africa

AC: One of your objectives for Lola films is to produce at least five quality, low-budget, short films per year from training workshops. Where exactly do you hold these workshops, is it in Africa only or other places in the world?

OO: The production workshops through which we make the films are held during the annual Lola Kenya Screen in Nairobi. Last year participants made not five but NINE award-winning short animation films. In 2007 we hope to produce at least TEN shorts that we will then market across the globe. The shorts are made by the filmmakers of today and tomorrow—CHILDREN—and not those of yesterday (Adults!). In future we plan to hold workshops around Kenya, and eastern Africa.

AC: Do you think you have attained all your objectives as Lola Kenya like producing at least five quality, low-budget, short films per year from training workshops?

OO: We have hardly scratched the surface; Lola is yet to achieve her objectives. Our progress is hampered by lack of funds. We are yet to make Nairobi the centre of audiovisual media business that we have set out to.

We are yet to develop the cinema resource centre. We are yet to come up with our own premises. You may not believe this but all we work with is passion, a desire to change things through our own sweat and blood.

Of course Lola Kenya Screen is grateful to Goethe-Institut, Prince Claus Fund, Finnish Film Foundation , Danish Film Foundation, Generations and Forum of New Film sections of the Berlin International Film Festival, DW-Akademie, Mike Auret of Sithengi and Cape Town World Cinema Festival, ComMattersKenya and many other friends across the globe who partner with us on this project in one way or another. I can only assure them that Lola Kenya Screen is doing its best with whatever resources they put at our disposal.

LOLa screen
Ogova Ondego giving a speech after the award ceremony

AC: How do you benefit students, scholars, researchers, journalists and other seekers of information as a film source?

OO: This will be fully realized once our anticipated audiovisual media resource centre is in place. But we currently provide information, contacts, film-making and discussion platforms for the up-and-coming filmmakers, publish articles on the local film sector in both ArtMatters.Info and in other publications abroad.

The annual Lola Kenya Screen trains children and youth in arts journalism and arts appreciation and in what to look for in a quality audiovisual production, and in not only developing a critical mind but also being able to express themselves without fear.

This year, some of the participants of the Lola Kenya Screen film production workshop are students and graduates of local media training schools. Lola Kenya Sponsor, ComMattersKenya, provides short arts and culture journalism and events management internship to students from local media schools.

AC: Lately I've read a couple of interviews with directors who have really big films coming out who are saying things like "film school is a waste, don't go to film school". There's a movement of young filmmakers coming from commercials, video, and television who are saying that. What do you feel about that?

OO: The answer to your question depends on what they term ‘film school’. For me, training in whatever way—formal or informal—is mandatory to filmmaking. One must master the rules of a game in order to bend, break, or go through them. “Film School’ training, however, does not necessarily guarantee one success in the audiovisual media sector. Filmmaking being an art demands that one must first have talent.

Then one must have the staying power, the determination to succeed. Kenya has not had a break though in the film business partly because many of the people masquerading as ‘filmmakers’ lack the talent or the staying power. Those not training are dealing the film art a blow and they should be made to reconsider their position as fast as possible.

Grand prize LOLa
A jury member, Ondego and participants, pose for a picture after the award ceremony

AC: Did you see it as a challenge, mentoring journalists from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya in arts and culture journalism, at the just concluded 4th Amakula Kampala International Film Festival (May 1-13, 2007)?

OO: It is always a challenge to mentor journalists. Since 2005, I have held such workshops in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania mainland, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Working through ArtMatters Critics Guild, my goal is to mentor journalists all over eastern Africa-- Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, eastern Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Comoros, Mayotte, Madagascar and southern Africa—Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa.

The challenges to the programme are always the same: lack of support from media houses, lack of interest among journalists, lack of facilities, inability to meet deadlines or travel from one country to another for training. But above all else, arts and culture do not seem to rank high among priorities in the countries where I have worked. In Uganda, we mentored not just print journalists but also those from radio, television and online publications.

But all in all it was an eye-opening experience on what ought to be done. In 2006 during Sithengi/Cape Town World Cinema critic’s conference, I became a curiosity with people loudly wondering that a black person can work as a critic. The panel that addressed festivaliers was wholly white with participants from Italy, France and South Africa. The only black face was mine, a Kenyan.

AC: What are you inspirational words for people who want to venture into the film industry?

OO: Any one interested in the film sector ought to know that film is an art first before being considered a business. As such, they should respect this ART first by learning as much as possible about it.

Once they have mastered the art and the rules than govern it, they can then advance to the next stage: that of making the art earn them a living through producing internationally-acceptable audiovisual productions that do not have to be categorised as ‘African’, ‘Nigerian’ or ‘Indian’ production but FILM.

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