"Swahiliwood"! The take over of East African films by outside groups

In the last decade Swahili language cinema has taken off in Tanzania at the national level and then, through satellite television, to the whole continent. With this success has come the interest of outside interest groups seeking to shape this burgeoning industry. Claudia Böhme of the Department of Language and Literature, Leipizig, examines two of these efforts: the USAID-supported ‘Swahiliwood’, designed to produce popular films laced with pedagogical and developmentalist messages, and the Tom Tykwer project ‘One Fine Day’ committed to training young Tanzanian filmmakers. Böhme examines the implications of external intervention into this fledgling industry and their influence on local aesthetics arguing that film production has become a battlefield over power, control and content.

Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9REvMWD6v4

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