FORUM: Cameroonian cinema in the spotlight – filmmakers at work, today for a better tomorrow.
A forum supposes impassioned encounters, aiming to come out with conclusions and proposals accepted by a qualified majority of people concerned by the meeting. Encounter is one of the things that characterizes and embellishes our experience. She is the most enjoyable thing in our lives. Also, it offers us many possibilities to rethink ourselves permanently, to renew ourselves constantly. If there are several types of encounters, the one that interests us is the encounter of the filmmakers and the cinema, the filmmaker and his profession, and in this case the encounter of filmmaker with other creators and professionals of Cameroonian cinema.
One might wonder what would be the opportunity of such an initiative when we all know that similar activities have already been organized in Cameroon. First, it must be said, the last meeting of this type dates back to 1988 (The general states of Cameroonian Cinema initiated by Minister Henri Bandolo and coordinated by Bassek ba Kobhio), therefore, with regard to technological and structural evolution of cinema, a long time ago, too long ago. Since then, a few sectoral and limited meetings have been held that came close to it, but not one at the national level. However, such a formatting and focus are necessary, urgent, especially as in the context of the pandemic of the corona virus, we have been able to observe that the field of culture, and its actors in particular, have been completely left to themselves, even through many actions carried out by the public authorities or the reflections of employers’ organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises in order to support certain sectors of activity in Cameroon. Based on this observation, the urgency of organizing a meeting between filmmakers was essential for Ecrans Noirs film festival.
The originality of this initiative lies in the fact that it is organized by the filmmakers for the filmmakers. It aims to bring filmmakers around the same table so that they themselves can reflect on the contours of the organization of their profession, the regulation and financing of their sector of activity. It will not be about rehashing the problems of cinema in Cameroon, much less bringing back nagging subjects a thousand times already put on the job, that is to say, coming back to the same subjects, in the same way. On the other hand, it will be a question for them, for us should I say, of reflecting on the new approaches which would allow us to apprehend the profession under a prism other than the one which we experiment since; this by finding solutions that are in line with the aspirations of our time, especially in a concrete and realistic way.
For this purpose, five working sub-committees will be set up: creation, organization, financing, regulation, and finally, training. They aim to identify the problems facing each of the sub-committees and to provide some possible solutions which will be recorded in a book that we call The white book of proposals on Cameroonian cinema / le livre blanc de propositions sur le cinéma camerounais.
Goals:
- Bring filmmakers together around issues related to the organization of their profession,
- Help filmmakers to find themselves solutions to the problems that plague their sector of activity,
- Raise awareness on the legal aspects related to their sector of activity,
- Find endogenous solutions to the financing problems of Cameroonian cinema,
- Keep a book entitled The White Book of Proposals on the Cameroonian Filmmaker in which will be recorded all the measures and proposals suggested by the Filmmakers and which are necessary for the development of the profession