Film industry role players eye international market

Botswana Opportunity held a stakeholders’ workshop this past Thursday at Maitisong to bring together role players in the local film and television industry, including producers, animators, scriptwriters, mixers, production designers, among others, to encourage them to attend DISCOP and showcase their content to the rest of the world.

According to the spokesperson for Botswana Opportunity, Aobakwe Sentle, about 50 candidates will be selected to represent our country at the annual DISCOP conference festival next month. The annual DISCOP festival is a revered week long film and television industry spectacular, which attracts thousands of international broadcasters, distributers and producers for several engagements that include meetings and workshops.

Sentle explained that this would give local film and television roleplayers an opportunity to showcase their content to a bigger market and make connections. He said that they would accept content in conception, production, post production and estimation level. Sentle said they had noted the artists’ concerns but conceded that they had to solve their own challenges by regulating their industry and working together.

“Sometimes there are too many politics in the industry but we are saying to these artists, ‘We can help you find platforms and grow your craft.’ We are not looking at who is better than the next or who is leading but are rather focused on joint effort because at the end of the day every person will benefit if we present ourselves and sell our talent as a group,” he said. He further said that they wanted to develop a touring pavilion and also attend conferences and festivals in Nigeria and Dubai, among other destinations.

Botswana Opportunity has received sponsorship from Botswana Innovation Hub and Brand Botswana but they need more support. Sentle noted that they needed approximately P120, 000 to cover costs for the DISCOP trip. Sentle further said that they have several initiatives under their sleeve, which include creating a database or online portal for people to source local content and information on local technical professionals in the film and television industry.

“It would be easier to see what Botswana has to offer and for example, for people to look for local producers and scriptwriters and so forth,” he said. Sentle lamented that Batswana still consume international content than local but this is because of poor availability of local content. “Some of our professionals in the creative industry have content but there are limited platforms to showcase their work. We want to create those platforms and work with established content air companies to include Botswana material in their programming,” he added.