Botswana: The Film Office in the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport, and Culture hosted a stakeholder engagement with film makers in Palapye. The meeting was hosted on Tuesday at Desert Ponds Hotel as part of efforts to promote and develop the film industry.
The event was attended by a number of film industry stakeholders across the nation. The leaders have shared some images from the event on their social media.
The Ministry has been hosting similar engagements with creatives of various districts and encouraged them to contribute to filmmaking. The Ministry stakeholders are urging the people to come forward with their stories and make films on them.
MYSC Film Office Content Acquisition and Aggregator, Legae Digwaamajwe spoke at the district stakeholder engagement. He highlighted that Now! Channel is a developmental platform with no subscriptions that acts as an exhibition for the creative industries.
Therefore, he has encouraged creatives to utilize the platform in order to develop Botswana’s creative sector. He shared that the creatives should be given the opportunity to profit from their work.
He stated that a total of P150,728,332.00 has been used through Now! channel to procure content from local companies. To date, Now! Channel acquired One hundred and sixty eight (168) full programmes series and twenty-nine (29) sets of filler series.
Further, Mandla Mogomotsi, District Film Development Coordinator, stated that one (1) short film from Palapye has been funded under the 2023 district film development project. He instructed filmmakers in Palapye and adjacent areas to create scripts and adhere to the requirements.
He stated that scriptwriters should write compelling proof of concepts, even if they are shorter in length. This will ensure that they don’t forfeit focus and direction, resulting in a failure to secure funds to produce a fully-fledged series.
Lindah Moloko, Chairperson of BOMU Chapter 10, advised creatives to form groups and collaborate to achieve the goal of boosting the creative sector. Filmmakers appealed to the Film Office to conduct mentorship programs to train creatives in various film production roles and techniques.
He further pointed out that the majority of them are self-taught and passionate, rather than professionally trained. The district film development capacity building, short film screenings, and Now! upgraded IPTV Platform activations will continue in Selebi Phikwe from the 20th-22nd.