Abuja Int’l Film Festival partners Canon to train young filmmakers on cinematography

By COLLINS IKENNA




The organizers of the 13th Abuja International Film Festival are pleased to announce a partnership that will see the festival train young Nigerians in the basics of Canon DSLR filmmaking techniques and Photography.
The is in collaboration with Canon Central and North Africa office. This training workshop scheduled for Abuja Nigeria will see 60 shortlisted Nigerians trained over eight days in the fundamental rudiments of cinematography and Photography.

The 60 successful applicants were selected from the 927 applications received by the organisers.  The training will start from the 28th of September to the 3rd of October in Abuja Nigeria.

According to Katie Simmonds the Strategic Operations Professional of Canon, the Initiative comes under Project Maraisha Initiative which is Canon’s expansion into the greater continent of Africa. Quoting her “we have established Project Miraisha, a sustainability initiative looking at providing education and training for young people in the areas of professional photography/ filmmaking and printing. The objective is to train groups of young Africans in the skills required for them to find sustainable employment or indeed to establish their own business.

According to Fidelis Duker, The Founder of the Abuja International Film Festival, he reiterated the vision of the Abuja International Film festival which is to build capacity within the creative sector and also act as a catalyst and platform for economic empowerment of those working in the creative sector. In his words  “there is no way majority of this applicants will ever remain the same after completing this training workshop as we are simply teaching them how to fish rather than giving them fish to eat. They will ultimately garner skills and also become self-sustaining creative entrepreneurs”

On completion of the Cinematography training, 5 short films will be made and screened during the festival while the photographs of those in the Photography class will be exhibited during the Festival.
According to Temitope Duker, The Executive Director Events of the 13th Abuja International Film Festival; this year’s edition scheduled for 4th to 7th of October, 2016 promises to be a bumper package as there are several masterclasses and workshops for the Industry stakeholders.