UTAFITI YAKINIFU JUU YA TASNIA YA FILAMU BONGO
mtandao 9:32 AM
THE world has continued to marvel at how Tanzanians “manufacture” and
“fabricate” scores of movies in a week. It is reported that but for
other African countries, Tanzania
produces more movies in quantitative terms than any other country in the
world except Nigeria. As joint stakeholders in the development of our
motherland, I hope that my presentation today on the “social economics”
of the movie industry will provoke processes that could move the
industry forward. In the course of this presentation, I will be inviting
you to join me as we journey through the past, the present and the
future of the Tanzanian film industry. There is a saying that today is
tomorrow’s yesterday, in other words, where we are today is a reflection
of our past and a foreshadow of our future.
The size of our
population and the diverse cultures within it combined with the raw
talents that abound within Tanzania makes the phenomenal growth of the
film industry inevitable.
It is heart-warming though to note
that Tanzanian movies already dominate TV screens all over Africa and
going even as far as Central and Southern Africa. There is also a
eastern dimension to this export market. According to sum Filmmakers of
Tanzania, every film in Tanzania has a potential audience of 15 million
people within the country and about 25 million outside. These statistics
may be somewhat conservative considering that half of East Africa’s 250
million people are Swahili speakers and according to the World Bank,
slightly over 10 million Tanzanians are scattered around the world, most
of them in the developed economies. There is a school of thought that
talks about the rebirth of the film culture in Tanzania. They claim that
like in a horror movie, the infant film market was gruesomely butchered
at the altar of the Bongoflavour together with other sectors of the
entertainment. The Indigenization Decree of 1972, which sought to
transfer ownership of about 15 cinema houses in the country from their
foreign proprietors to Tanzanians, did little to help matters. Though
this transfer resulted in the eruption of the latent ingenuity of
Tanzanian playwrights, screenwriters, poets, and film producers, the
gradual dip in the value of the Tanzanian shilling, combined with lack
of finance, marketing support, quality studio and production equipment
as well as inexperience on the part of practitioners, hampered the
growth of the local film industry.
At this juncture, I would
like to go back a little in history. Film as a medium first arrived on
our shores in the form of itinerant peephole hawkers of still
pictures. These were soon replaced with roving cinemas, which began feeding us with doses of American western films.
Most of us old enough to remember this era of the Tanzania society
refer to it as the good old ‘50s and ‘60s and it was perfect timing for a
love affair between Tanzanian film and Tanzanian music. Sadly, we had
neither the technology nor the means to do our own films and had to be
satisfied with mostly foreign fare. Soon vast acres of our urban
surroundings became flooded with wall posters of alien culture in the
form of American, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese films. Our kids caught
on to the Kung-fu and Karate culture. Tanzanians began to know more
about Bruce Lee, James Bond, and the travails of the American Indians
than they did about the Mbari Mbayo cultural group.
Some
significant successes were recorded after independence when for about
ten years after the Tanzania Kagera war, Tanzanian literature and
theatre got introduced to motion picture. Representative of this new
wave were the works of Late Hon. Rashid Mfaume Kawawa, a doyen of
Tanzanian art who understood that film and theatre were vehicles for
promoting indigenous language, art and culture. The Tanzanian nightlife
scene subsequently came alive. Highlife music was the in-thing and the
music of the Marijani Rajabu, Ottu Jazz Band, Sikinde ngoma ya Ukae and
others reigned.
This early example of Tanzanian art on celluloid
using the best of Western film techniques, was a breath of fresh air
even if it was a low technology, low budget experiment unable to impress
the market against the dominance of imports which though exotic did
little to promote Tanzanian art. Came to early 2000’s the film
Girlfriend, was another fair effort on celluloid, which captured
Tanzanians on film. Love Story, of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Nsyuka and
Mzee wa Busara was another first generation Tanzanian film by the duo of
Chief Amri Bawji and Sultan Tamba. Mtitu Game’s Johari was also another
valiant film which was unfortunately censored by the authorities.
Thankfully in the 2003’s, the TV serialization of Mambo Hayo, Kaole
groups
became hugely successful video culture in Tanzania.
The
Entertainment Industry was one of the worst victims and had to move
indoors. The few cinema houses existing either had to close shop or were
taken over by religious bodies. This accelerated the birth of home
video entertainment. Credit must now be given to our second generation
film industry pioneers such Stephen Kanumba (late), Jacob Stephene(JB),
Vyonne Cherry (Monalisa), Selles Mapunda, Vicent Kigosi, Blandina
Chagula, Issa Mussa, Mohamed Mwikongi, Irine Uwoya, Aunt Ezekiel, Yusuf
Mlela, Hemed Suleyman, Riyama Ally, and others – who inherited, without
hesitation, the commercial and artistic traditions of Tanzanian film and
theatre from the likes of Bishanga Bashaija, Natasha, Single
Mtambalike, Simoni Mwakifamba (TAFF president) just to name a few, and
began to tell our stories using the video format.
To be continued...
The Economics of Tanzanian Film, Art and Business:
Story by SELLES Mapunda
Posted by bongofilmdatabase
on 9:32 AM.
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