Twenty-five-year-old Jane Mashao Moshi nurtures high aspirations for herself and hopes to be a scriptwriter and film producer, as well as the owner of a production house. “If money and talent wasn’t an issue, I would create the ultimate African story!” she says. “Imagine the year 2040: all the African nations have agreed to join forces, there is one president, one supreme government and one currency. This would be a kind of modern-day, African Game of Thrones. It would involve the endless hunt for power between the former nations.”
“In many parts of Africa, there are certain misconceptions regarding the creative industry, whereby people think of it as something of a hobby. It is, unfortunately, a misconception shared by both the audience and some professionals. This misconception has greatly diminished the creative industry to the extent that even government support for the creative industry in various countries is non-existent,” says 23-year-old Jamal. He has hopes that the MultiChoice Talent Factory will slowly but surely help to change that and grow Africa’s creative industries from strength to strength.
Since graduating from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication in 2017 – where he studied cinematography, photography, video editing and creative directing – Hillary Lanogwa Kilaho has been working as a cameraman. It has given him certain insights into the trajectory of east Africa’s creative industries and where it is heading in the near future. The 23-year-old admires Abel Mutual. “His creativity in scriptwriting and directing is on another level. He is very nice in real life and has a very good sense of humour. Abel is a humble go-getter, which I really respect,” he says.
It’s always been Hilda Monica Awori’s aspiration to be involved in the creative industry, which is why she studied a Bachelor of Arts in Drama and Film and works as a filmmaker and artist. Her qualification helped her understand that we can become better storytellers by taking from the example of Jerzy Marian Grotowski, the Polish theatre director and theorist, whose approaches to acting, training and theatrical production showed that you don’t need money to tell a good story.
25-year-old Fisehatsion Nibret from Ethiopia dreams of being a cinematographer among the likes of the great Roger Deakins, Gregg Toland and Vittorio Storaro. He is well on his way, as he studied Video and Photography at the Tom Videography and Photography Training Center in his hometown of Addis Ababa and already works as a filmmaker.
Fisehatsion enjoys reading Moviemakers’ Master Class penned by Laurent Tirard. “The book talks about various filmmakers’ experiences and teaches the many ways there are to make a good film. There is no right path.