For selected participants only
Last year New York based film maker Kimi Takesue shot
and completed a documentary feature in Uganda which
will now be premiered at the film festival. Kimi will host a
2 day workshop in which she will share her specific style
and views on filmmaking. Participants will be introduced
to observational documentary filmmaking and will be
invited to “see” and document their familiar surroundings
in a “new” way. The goal will be to present lived human
experience in a way that respects the context in which that
experience takes place, while still presenting an artistic
point of view. The production seminar will consist of
screenings, as well as a production workshop culminating
in a 5-10 minute observational-styled documentary.

For selected participants only Last year New York based film maker Kimi Takesue shot and completed a documentary feature in Uganda which will now be premiered at the film festival. Kimi will host a 2 day workshop in which she will share her specific style and views on filmmaking. Participants will be introduced to observational documentary filmmaking and will be invited to “see” and document their familiar surroundings in a “new” way. The goal will be to present lived human experience in a way that respects the context in which that experience takes place, while still presenting an artistic point of view. The production seminar will consist of screenings, as well as a production workshop culminating in a 5-10 minute observational-styled documentary.

Writing for the screen is a unique discipline quite different
from the work of playwrights or fiction writers. The
screenwriter thinks in ideas and images. The Maisha Film
Lab was founded with an interest in developing writers to
capture the rich terrian of experience and stories in East
Africa. American writer Matthew Bell, who graduated in
2005 from USC School of Cinematic Arts after which he
moved on to write screenplays for TV drama’s and feature
fillm, is brought by Maisha Film Lab to offer a seminar on
writing for film.

Belgium cinematographer and film director Philippe
van Leeuw, who shows his directorial debute, The Day
God Walked Away at the festival, will present a seminar
on the importance of silence in his filmmaking. For Van
Leeuw cinema is first of all the expression of emotions
and sensations through images, a way to express tales
without words. Silence permits us to understand and see
what we would not grasp otherwise. However, because
of television, silence is often neglected and its powers
overlooked. For Van Leeuw silence allows for the creation
of a more poetic and intimate cinema. In this seminar
he will share his views on the true art of cinema, a visual
language.

Originally from South-Africa, Lindiwe Dovey is a senior lecturer in African Film and Performance Arts at SOAS University of London and the founding director of the Cambridge African Film Festival. She has published widely on African film. Her current research concerns film festivals in Africa and their relationship to African film and filmmakers. In this seminar she will present her research giving an overview of the history of African film festivals.

Murad Rayani is a Kenyan filmmaker of political engaged documentaries such as Mo and Me and his recent film Kikulacho, presented in the festival, which examines how corrupt systems and policies in Kenya have impacted on the common people. He will offer a seminar on documentary genres, their evolution and their importance in shaping narratives and creating new languages and paradigms in telling stories in the African context

The festival will open with an introduction to the
festival theme in the form of a symposium for Inevitable
Transition. This theme references the magazine Transition
which was published in Kampala from 1961 to 1969 by
Rajat Neogy. In those energetic years prior to and after
independence Transition gathered a unique ensemble of
critical writers and artists, many of whom part of the new
African intelligentsia who gathered around Makerere
University, among whom renowned names such as
Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Julius Nyrere, to reflect on the
form and content of an independent Uganda. After
Neogy’s imprisonement in 1969 and his subsequent
move to Ghana he re-established the magazine there in
the early seventies together with Wole Soynike, Nobel
prize winner Nigerian novelist. In the late eighties the
magazine experienced another rebirth in the United
States where to date it is a major magazine for black
diaspora culture.
This Forum intends to look into the remarkable

American screenwriter Matthew Bell shares his
experiences on writing for the screen