South African filmmaker and producer, Kutlwano Ditsele, takes pride in re-telling the African narrative in a way that empowers and represents the continent as progressive. There’s also always a twist in the plot. 



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“A Japanese man on holiday with his wife in South Africa falls in love with a…”



An incomplete idea is stored and filed away in the digital
pages of a smart phone. 



The author is not only a creative director but also the
co-founder of South African production company, Seriti Films. 



By merging his passion for celebrating African stories through film and television with entrepreneurship, Kutlwano Ditsele’s story is on its way to a happy ending. 



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He debuted his career as a filmmaker with a music video for
South African mega-star AKA in 2010, shot in the heart of Johannesburg’s
Central Business District.



The initial production cost was a humble R20,000
($1,360).&nbsp; 



A serendipitous bicycle race on a Sunday afternoon saved
them from paying heavily to close off certain main roads and public areas
downtown, during the filming of the music video. 



Ditsele recalls the silence and how the emptiness edified
the aesthetics of AKA’s song, Victory Lap. 



An artist owning the streets of the country’s economic and
financial hub for a day, even if it is by chance, opened a world of
opportunities for Ditsele, who was propeled into the limelight after the video.




Today, ideas constantly fall on his lap, even when he is on
the move. 



As he scrolls through his phone, he stumbles upon a
never-ending list of ideas he forgot existed (such as the one at the beginning
of this story). With surprise, he recites various plot lines. 



“Crime family show, three sisters and a kid brother with a grandmother… Whenever I am on a train, plane, car or even a jog, a small idea will come into my head,” he says.  



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Kutlwano’s relationship with film goes back to when he was
eight years old; setting up a make-shift cinema for his cousins at their family
home in the mountainous parts of Rustenburg, in the North West province. 



Despite limited resources (television and electricity), what
little exposure they had to the enchanting effect of those screens would
inspire the young Ditsele and his cousins to re-enact those scenes, with him
assuming the role of the director. 



“Your responsibility is for that single mother who wakes up
at 4 o’clock in the morning, who has to get water outside, boil that water, get
the kids’ food ready, get on a train for an hour or two to be the first to get
into the office and having to leave at three or four o’clock, to sit in front
of the television at eight in the evening, to forget about her problems for the
hour,” he says. 



Intellectual property is a commodity in the local film
industry that leaves filmmakers like Ditsele working twice as hard to build a
name and fix the misrepresentations that were previously normalized before
African filmmakers had the means of production. Globally, the industry has
created more opportunities for black filmmakers. 



In 2005, Ditsele was awarded the opportunity to study at the
New York Film Academy. 



The cultural exchanges he shared with students from
Singapore, Indonesia, China and Brazil taught him that filmmaking is not only
about learning in class but exploring one’s environment. 



Learning in Hollywood placed him in a privileged position when he returned to South Africa in 2008. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> “Your responsibility is for that single mother who wakes up at 4 o’clock&#8230;to forget about her problems for the hour.” </blockquote>



He took it upon himself to re-tell the African narrative by
documenting positive representations of the continent. However, this becomes a tightrope
walk for local film producers who need to ensure their work has commercial
appeal. 



A contemporary challenge is that story-tellers, like
Ditsele, have to compete for a seat in the mainstream industry.



“It is more about the African narrative other than just the
South African narrative. I think that it is hard for us to ignore that the
biggest propaganda machine, America, is in the films. How we view America is
from everything they have done. 



“Aliens are coming, and America will save them (humans). They have told this incredible narrative about themselves and it has gone out into the world. The narrative around Africa has been quite the opposite. A narrative of poverty, jungle, primitive and they keep telling that narrative and they shy away from progressive stories,” he says. 



The filmmaker highlights that although the local industry
developed over the last 25 years, the number of those waiting in line remains
high, and those who fortuitously manage to float to the top and become brands
are few and far between.&nbsp; 



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Despite being behind the camera, Distele says there are
industry inhibitors that prevent creatives from owning their intellectual
property. 



In a bitter twist of irony, many local stars who are
celebrated far and wide will die without a cent to their name to the extent
that their families are forced to crowdfund for burial costs.



“What you create is owned by someone else and they can make
as much money as they want. I think it is wrong because Picasso should decide
how much his painting is worth, not somebody else,” he says.



A simple idea, like the 2018 South African Film and
Television Awards (SAFTA)-nominated production, The Herd, achieved immense
commercial success as the story lines are often merged with the topical issues
of the day.&nbsp; 



For Distele, South African productions about love, power and
wealth are an example of how the production company keeps the African narrative
relatable to all viewers. For instance, the plot twist of a young girl thrust
into power in a modern world; cultural ceremonies are portrayed in a way that
the millennial audience can immerse themselves in.



The proliferation of social media and digitalization has
given the audience agency to comment in real time and engage and be critical of
the content given to them and directors like Ditsele are paying close
attention.

KutwanaD_GL

Owning The African Narrative

As in a sibling relationship, Natascha Jacobsz is extremely protective of her continent and its people. She describes herself as a typical white South African child, who’ll deal with anyone who dares to chastize Africa.
The 32-year-old started her career at CNBC Africa in 2008 and says she was a wet-behind-the-ears business features producer, with no business news experience. She’d previously worked in current affairs and general news.
Even though Jacobsz studied law at the University of Pretoria, the journalism bug bit her when she joined the local campus radio station, Tuks FM, as a newsreader.
In 2005, Jacobsz joined CNBC Africa and worked as a business news producer for seven years.
In 2015, Jacobsz relocated to the Netherlands with her family and joined the Dutch media NGO, RNW Media as a project manager for This is Africa, a website dedicated to providing an alternative, non-Western narrative of Africa.
“I am innately curious with a passion for Africa, people and story-telling. In the words of [former South African President] Thabo Mbeki – I am an African. It’s who I am at my core and it plays a huge part in my sense of identity, especially since relocating to Europe,” she says.
Although she admits business news is a tough but extremely gratifying industry to work in, her career has given her first-hand experience of the untapped potential of people in Africa.
“We have some of the most innovative men, women and youngsters on the planet. However, when it comes to economics, I’m hesitant to blanket Africa as a whole. Unlike the European Union (EU), our sense of ‘oneness’, at least on an economic level, is a lot more complicated,” she says.
Living in Europe has made her aware that financial challenges, especially those at a macro- economic level, are the same everywhere.
“Economic growth has all but stalled across many developed nations and, according to reports such as the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) recent World Economic Outlook, which highlights projected GDP growth levels above 5% in more than 10 countries, one can’t help but get excited about Africa as a whole,” Jacobsz says.
It hasn’t been all work and no play for the travel enthusiast. One of her fondest memories includes a Mt. Kilimanjaro expedition with CNBC Africa Vice Chairman, Rakesh Wahi, who led it in 2013.
“It was an incredible bonding experience and a great lesson in humility,” she says.
Jacobsz foresees Africa’s full potential being unlocked, along with the hope that every African woman will be able to pursue any dream without restriction, be it personal or professional..
&nbsp;
– Thandi Xaba

Tasch

A Sibling Of Africa

It was a warm day in Sandton, Johannesburg. As we meet, Vital Sounouvou crouches, leaning heavily on his cane, as he greets us. It is a bad day for him, he is in pain. Pain has played a big part in his journey to entrepreneurship.
“When I was six years old, I had malaria and the doctors gave me an injection that cures it but it also attacked the bones and killed the nerves. I was almost paralyzed on my left leg and had to use a walking stick since then,” he says.
Treatment didn’t help. Life was never the same; his peers mocked him and his elders pitied him.
“I had to go to school with metals attached to my body. This had a positive side though because instead of playing outside I was forced to be indoors, read books and daydream. This had an impact on the man I have become.”
Time opened his eyes and he saw opportunities for entrepreneurship. He graduated from high school at 16. A year later, he opened his first business.
“I feel I was blessed to be born in Benin. Poor country? Yes, but it is the most stable in the region. All our neighbors were in war but not us. We are blessed by nature. Trade is part of our culture. There is a shop in front of many houses and most people from my city (Porto-Novo) become entrepreneurs of some sort,” says Sounouvou.
The 25-year-old says 85% of the youth in Benin are unemployed.
“When I started college, the first thing the professor told me was that I won’t find a job after completing my studies.”
The gloomy professor’s sobering words spurred him on. Sounouvou founded Exportunity, a site that promotes export opportunities for Africans by connecting producers with traders. It allows a farmer in Benin to sell his produce to a buyer everywhere from South Africa to the United States through a cell phone.
“There was a huge information gap between the offer, demand and the market. We wanted to promote products made locally. It was very hard to find producers but it was even harder to compete with international brands locally,” he says.
Sounouvou built a mobile application that works on all types of devices, including non-smartphones. Farmers are the target.
“Almost 70 percent of whatever crop is produced in Africa is wasted because the producers have no way to get the product to market. There are many problems ranging from the costs of locating a buyer, to dealing with middle men in cash, to suffering losses due to scams,” he says.
The computer science graduate was inspired by eBay.
“We are like eBay for wholesale. Imagine if Alibaba conducted a proper due diligence on every stakeholder before accepting them on the platform. People don’t just come on Exportunity and just register and start trading, they apply and we do due diligence before allowing them on. We had to adapt to the producer in Africa because some don’t use a lot of technology. We had to create Exportunity trader tablets for people without access to high technology so they can have access to international trade,” he says.
Buyers and sellers pay a membership fee to trade.
“People traditionally have to travel with large sums of money to trade but this site cancels the travelling costs and the risks associated with carrying large sums of money.”
Exportunity has externalized most of its management to Temple Corporate Services in Mauritius and has 17 permanent staff.
“In May 2014, global rice prices plunged to a historic $403.59/metric ton, the lowest since January 2008’s 393.48/metric ton. Jumping on an unprecedented opportunity, Exportunity-Benin, acting as a middle man, helped Neodis Trading-Benin buy from an Indian-based supplier 1,672 metric tons of rice at a price of $413.59/metric ton, filling 727 20-foot containers. We made a net profit of $69,150 out of the deal,” says Sounouvou.
Through the trade events, Sounouvou claims Exportunity has engaged with over 750 clients, and built a database of 85,000 companies globally trading with Africa.
“There are currently 13 transactions in the pipeline, over 450 suppliers trading on the platform, over 120 buyers  and over 2 million others are immediately reachable through our deal with UBA Bank.”
Running a successful business is not Sounouvou’s only pride. He was one of 500 young African leaders chosen to be part of President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative in 2014, he was selected for the inaugural group of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme with a $10,000 grant, and has been recognized as the Ambassador of the Global Youth Innovation Network by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
“Every time my leg hurts, I remind myself that I shouldn’t let it be my story. My story is to be great. My disability does not define me,” he says.
If nothing else, Sounouvou’s story proves that what hurts you can make you.

Pain, Pity, Opportunity

Afrika Mkhize was raised in a small rural village on the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, protected and far removed. On his long walks to school, he listened to the songs of the sugarcane workers who toiled in the fields surrounding his community. Now, at the age of 32, he has become one of his country’s notable young jazz musicians.
“It was my first experience of music. The music that was sung by these workers has, to this day, never left me,” says Mkhize.
When his parents discovered his love for music, his father, Themba Mkhize—a multi-award winning jazz pianist and producer—gave his six-year-old son a keyboard. Playing around with the black and white keys, the boy soon realized that, like his father, he felt at home in the world of music.
“I immediately fell in love with the instrument. I always knew I was going to be a musician. I don’t remember doing anything else in my life,” he says.
From then on, his life was filled with melody and song. At the age of 11, Mkhize was enrolled to study classical piano at the Funda Centre Music School in Soweto, a township outside of South Africa’s commercial capital Johannesburg. Four years later, he was accepted at the prestigious National School of the Arts to further his musical studies. After graduating, he studied jazz, composition and arranging at the University of Pretoria.
South Africa’s music elite quickly noticed Mkhize’s talent. Straight out of university, when he was in his early 20s, world-renowned singer Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, appointed Mkhize as her pianist and musical director. On Makeba’s request, he also contributed to arrangements for the Rome Philharmonic Orchestra in Italy. Stints as a music producer for well-known musicians including Tlale Makhene, Sibongile Khumalo and Nokukhanya Dlamini followed.
“I like working as a producer because production, like playing music, is creative. The process of bringing different people, different talents together, is a bit like cooking, like mixing the right ingredients together,” says Mkhize.
It wasn’t long before South Africa became too small for him. He wanted to experience musical trends and techniques from other parts of the world and decided to move to France in 2005, where he played in cafés, bars and clubs with numerous European and African musicians.
“I chose to live in Paris because it is one of the cities in the world that has almost all of the African Diaspora, including the Caribbean, in one place. All the different styles of music were mixing here, from Senegal to Guinea and Algeria. I got the chance to be exposed to my continent’s music in a way that I had never heard before,” says Mkhize.
Four years later, Mkhize—now a father—decided to return to South Africa. This was a year after the global financial crisis hit Europe and reverberated in the rest of the world.
“It was a tough time. As a musician, you are affected by a recession, because if people have five bucks, they will rather buy bread than buy a record or go to watch music. Entertainment budgets are the first to be cut and all artists fight for a smaller… pie,” he says.
After struggling for a while to find his feet, Mkhize started to teach, compose music for television series, and do arrangements for the Johannesburg and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestras. As a pianist with the versatility to play a wide range of music—from Maskandi (Zulu folk music), to hip-hop and classic jazz—Mkhize, who is renowned for his excellent technique, was soon invited to play all over the world.
His career was catapulted further forward when he received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz in 2012. The honor officially recognized him as one of South Africa’s hip, new generation musicians.
“Winning the Standard Bank award gave me a lot of confidence and strength. For the first time in my life, I felt like all the struggles I’ve been going through were worth it; that what I’ve been doing has been recognized. It showed me I’m creatively on the right path,” says Mkhize.
With the prize money, he produced a jazz album that took him back to his childhood by integrating the songs from the sugarcane fields. Mkhize wanted to draw from his experiences and create something unique.
As an independent musician, Mkhize made a conscious decision not to be part of the music industry that he feels is mainly focused on doing business, often to the detriment of creativity. He feels that the industry has too much power over the artists and their product. This is why, he says, he started his own record label.
From here, Mkize wants to take it up a notch and put African jazz back on the international music map.
“My goal is to export the new generation of African music, first to Europe and then also other places, like Japan. I want people overseas to know that there are lots of creative musicians in South Africa and Africa, who do interesting things. We are at risk of losing ourselves, our heritage. I want to prevent that from happening,” says Mkhize.

Cooking with Jazz

If you ever thought that Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry was only about directors with low budgets churning out films in a couple of weeks, which were shot in the streets of Lagos or in their lounges; think again. Nigerian producers and directors are stepping away from the generic Nollywood film mold; their films are emerging onto international cinema screens at film festivals.
The award-winning Michelle Bello is one such film director and producer. Bello studied visual media at Regent University in Virginia in the United States. In three decades since its establishment, the school has attracted distinguished faculty and guest lectures such as John Ashcroft, former United States attorney general; Vern Clark, former chief of naval operations and Steve Forbes, president and CEO of Forbes Inc. Over the years, the university has been the recipient of more than 267 national and international film awards.
During her time at the university, Bello had the opportunity to attend some of the biggest film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, which—since its launch in 1985—has been the launchpad for many films. Some of these films gained critical recognition, received commercial distribution and reached audiences eager for fresh perspectives and new voices.
Bello is dedicated to the film industry and was even an intern at the prestigious Cannes film festival. According to the official websites, “Ever since [Festival de Cannes’] creation, [it] has remained faithful to its founding purpose: to draw attention to and raise the profile of films with the aim of contributing towards the development of cinema, boosting the film industry worldwide and celebrating cinema at an international level”.
With these experiences she came to appreciate that successful filmmakers are those who are patient and passionate about their craft.
She lives by the fact that filmmaking is not about rushing into things and making millions of films; it’s all about taking the time to make powerful films. Small Boy, which was inspired by Will Smith’s Oscar-nominated Pursuit of Happyness, was Bello’s debut film about 10-year-old Sonny who has to learn how to survive in the slums of Lagos. She felt that there was a need for such a film in Nigeria.
“For me, the reason why I made Small Boy is because I was tired of seeing the world just having a negative image of Nigeria. I wanted to do something that was an inspirational story. At that time, I felt that we needed such kind of movies to uplift Nigerians and there were very few films doing that. I was not thinking about how much money I will make, I was just passionate about the story,” she says.
The truth is that while Small Boy might not have been a moneymaking blockbuster, nor was it launched at Cannes or Sundance, or gained recognition on a global scale, it has however made headlines in the industry. The film scooped two awards at the 2009 African Film Academy Awards and was screened at the American Black Film Festival in the United States, where it received
two nominations.
She has also opened the eyes of International Creative Management (ICM), one of the top three recruitment agencies, which believed in the skills that this young Nigerian filmmaker had to offer.
“I got to see Hollywood from the inside…” says Bello about her experience at ICM.
She discovered that although there is talent in Africa, recruitment agencies are not queuing up at Africa’s international airports to whisk away this talent to the promised land
of Hollywood.
“They work in a complete business end of it. Someone like Genevieve [Nnaji], for example, is our superstar and from their perspective they don’t see her as [being] bankable. They need to pick the big stars, whether it is Will Smith or Denzel Washington, who are bankable, whom if they are put in the movie are going to make billions of dollars… Unfortunately, right now, they are not at that level where they can get someone like Genevieve and say she can bring 10 million…” says Bello.
Despite this, Bello is optimistic. She was quoted in NigeriaFilms.com as saying, “The growth in the [Nollywood] industry over the next few years will be exciting because there are young people [of my generation] that are now coming up wanting to tell Nigerian stories to an international audience.”
With new cameras and editing equipment, it is now possible for African filmmakers to make films the same way a painter draws or novelists write.
Filmmakers, however, cannot avoid costs. A novelist can write a novel with a pen and paper if they like, they don’t even need a computer. A sculpturer or a painter can use worthless materials such as plastic to create a sculpture or painting, which may be sold for $200. But for filmmakers, it is different. Films inadvertently require money because of the number of people and processes involved in front of and behind the camera: food has to be bought for the crew; filming permits need to be acquired; music needs to be recorded and then there is editing. All these come at a cost, which filmmakers have to budget for.
The Nigerian filmmaker is currently working on another romantic comedy, which started shooting in August and is scheduled for completion in January. The budget for the film is $300,000—two times larger than the first film. She admits, jokingly, that the largest portion of her film budget goes to food catering and the generator.
“I called my brother and told him that the generator is eating into my budget. He was shocked to hear that I had to pay for the generator to film.”
Bello is working closely with her California-based brother who is an award-winning screenplay writer. She wrote the original script during her screenwriting classes at
Regent University.
“I was about to come back here [to Nigeria] whilst completing my internship at Cannes and I was thinking about what project I am going to do next. I thought about the script and talked to my brother about it… and now the script is now where it is today, we are making a movie,”
she says.
She knows how tough the film industry can be and so her intention with this new film is to create a platform for young and upcoming actors to shine and showcase their talent. At first, she was unsure about having auditions, owing to the fact that she had been away from Nigeria for so long. To her surprise the turnout was impressive. It attracted many actors from the popular Nigerian soap opera, Tinsel, which is an M-Net production known for its quality in West Africa. The film will feature stars such as Damilola Adegbite and Ghanaian actor
Chris Attoh.
Piracy is a big problem in Nigeria. It is for this reason that Bello has been careful of whom to give the film to. With her new project she is not concerned because the film is made for theatrical release and has managed to secure various international cinema releases before being released on DVD which is where piracy is most prominent. With this she is hoping to get her money back and make profit, only to invest it further in her passion for filmmaking.

Tag: Producer

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Owning The African Narrative

A Sibling Of Africa

Pain, Pity, Opportunity

Cooking with Jazz

The Sprightly Spirit Of Nollywood