“CAMEROON FILM INDUSTRY, for Before, for back” BY Tanwie Elvis “De dadies”

The film industry is one of the biggest sectors in most economies around the world which greatly contributes to the country’s GDP. The movie industry as we know it today originated in the early 19th century through a series of technological developments namely:- the creation of photography, the discovery of the illusion of motion by combining individual still images, and the study of human and animal locomotion.

 The first ever motion pictures were projected in Paris in December 28^th 1895 by the Lumier Brothers which ignited what we today refer to as the motion picture industry (film industry).   The purpose of making a film usually is either for education, information, entertainment or above all serve as an archival material for historical benefits. Which direction we look at it, commercialization of films today has priotise the minds of its makers by using the former purpose to sustain livelihood.

But in real terms, what is an “industry”? As defined by the advances learners’ dictionary, it is an economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacturing of goods in factories. With that said, it implies a story is a potential raw material which could be transformed into a “film product” (goods) with the direct involvement of the script writers, actors, technicians, directors and producers who form the chain of competencies to accomplish its purpose of an “industry” referred to in this case as the film industry. Probably, partly the reason why a huge amount of finances is involved in this whole film making process to cover the huge cost of managing these many different artistic disciplines.

In most countries, the state is directly or indirectly involved in policy regulation, structuration and direct support through subventions due to its cultural and economic benefits to the state. Hollywood referring to the American film industry is the oldest and largest in terms of revenue. Most research has acknowledged the fact that Hollywood is the major global player in the film industry, providing evaluations of economic, political and cultural nature. Hollywood films have become an integral part of daily cultures and have greatly impacted viewing habits of audiences for the past decades worldwide; whilst by 2009, our closest neighbor Nigeria’s Nollywood was also recognized to had surpassed Hollywood as the world’s second largest movie industry by volume, right behind India’s Bollywood.

Nigeria’s recognition in the world of cinema could only have been possible through some boys and girls who are today men and women who ceased the opportunity of the advent of the digital age in the early 90s to embark into this lovely craft of making low budget films. Their individual and collective sacrifices over the years colonized the African mindset with a “Nigerian way of life” (culture), cultivated from the widely exposition of their local realities through their movies.

 Despite government’s blind eyes towards the sector, stakeholders steadfast with unity in diversity towards one goal of building an industry which at the time to many was an illusion   comparatively with the giant productions from Bollywood and Hollywood.

 Nollywoods’ recognition came naturally like the law of osmosis; “the stronger solution draws the weaker one” similar to 2010 when the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan launched a ₦30 billion (US$200 million) “Creative and Entertainment Industry” Intervention Fund, financed by Bank of Industry (BOI), in conjunction with Nigerian Export and Import (NEXIM) Bank. This grant, although dubbed as a spin-off of “Project Nollywood”, was for the entire Nigerian Creative Arts and Entertainment sector. The vision of the grant for the film industry however was to help more Nigerian filmmakers in training, funding, and also help in creating necessary infrastructure for the industry.

The stakeholders made realist films at the time that were educative, informative, trans-formative and entertaining with local African realities which most Africans could relate with. This extended the Nigerian cinema across Africa and the world, giving a huge visibility to African cinema at the same time changing the monkey-western perspectives of who an African truly is. The industry’s contribution alone has been the motivation to many African countries who got inspired by the Nigerian film syndrome to startup a local film industry which Cameroon wasn’t left out.

It is true that French Cameroon commenced film production barely two years after independence in 1962 and has had five decades of film making culture whilst the English film-making commenced in 1986 with independent film-making within this period till June 2008 when stakeholders of the sector mobilized themselves through the Nigerian influence cinema  to put up a structure which could serve as a platform for  practitioners to associate and share common goals and challenges in a quest to better their arts and bring sanity within the milieu. Unlike their brothers in the East, cinema has mostly been championed by independent filmmakers with relatively no unique structure to identify with.

June 2020 exactly marks twelve years since the creation of the CFI (Cameroon film industry) in Buea. So far the CFI has greatly evolved but contextually has the CFI been able to meet up with its original goals? Probably not quite due to enormous internal and external challenges which has emanated as a result of structuration issues within the two systems, leadership strings, government’s unwillingness to fully step in and support the sector, fraco-anglo cultural divide. These challenges amongst others have greatly retarded the smooth evolution of the sector.

The able boys and girls in their youth who have put up good contributions into the development of this sector may end up snatching their teeth if care is not taken. How can these filmmakers be putting in so much and the returns so little? Filmmakers can’t contain the harsh and unfair treatment they receive with how the state handles important policies which could help improve the lives of these cultural contributors.

 The proliferation of cable networks within the country over the years has been one of the greatest setbacks of the entertainment industry. It has drastically helped to kill our culture by freely distributing foreign contents for relatively no price thus inhibiting the growth of the local industry whose audiences’ attention is abroad as opposed to next-door Nigeria which has built a huge market by regulating foreign contents into the country while encouraging local productions hence local consumption.

Today, despite all the strides advanced by the sector to lure the state for subvention and stakeholders to align under the existing structure, most of these once passionate filmmakers are going solo as a result of the existing structure not able to guarantee the common interest of its members. There is no consistency to guarantee livelihood in the domain thus capital flight, constantly creating space and giving room for the “to and fro” nature of the industry; always a baby.

However, how can we encourage investors without prior visible financial return possibilities? That’s why filmmaking within the sector in this country has been more of a passion than a career reason why the sector needs to prove its worth as it has been doing for a messiah somewhere to rescue it from completely drowning.

Unlike in the past where enthusiasms were high and passion to its peak, there has been a great tilt away from the current status quo. Strangely, more productions have emanated recently prior to the dormancy of the administration; meaning the stakeholders have taken upon themselves to propagate the industry despite no concrete financiers to help producers make high quality movies that could withstand international competitions.  Are we still going to keep on with just the “show”? How about the “biz”?

Comparatively with how Nigeria gained national and international recognition despite her cultural divide, the front liners trampled on tribalism, ego-centrism, power mongary, linguistic divide and focused on their main goal of structuring and implementing  fundamental basis on which the subsequent generations are adhering on today to make the Nollywood we all envy at some point.

The ill luck the entertainment domain in this country has is that the policies which governs the sector are so loose that most companies either local or international barely respect their social cooperate responsibilities which could have been a means of financial returns to artists within the entertainment sector as a whole as it obtains elsewhere. To add salt to injury, the current cultural bill on federalism which further narrows integration of stakeholders and limit their sphere of influence within the national triangle is alarm to the stakeholders in the film sector with CFI hardest-hit.

This sequential rise and fall of the film industry can only pick steam at this point only if the state steps in or the industry decide now to invert the paradigm by developing a bankable long term sustainable project and lobby for funding to either individuals or companies ready to invest with interest.

Conclusively, dear Cameroonian filmmakers, the social and economic discrepancies that already exist within our milieu which forms the fundamental repulsive force will not take us near successful achievable margins which other African countries with lesser social, economic and cultural potentials have already attained.  It will be of our interest now, to unanimously come together like osmosis, leaving out our common differences and unite in diversity with a strong  focus like  illegitimate children and together find the path of our common destinies since we can’t wait for our father for eternity.

                                                                                                                                                   By Tanwie Elvis De dadies