Digital blackhand stifling bongo films

From its humble beginning that featured Bishanga Bishaija, Richie Mtambalike and Waridi as the earliest screen stars, Tanzania film industry’s road to the present level owes much the arrival of TV.

As ITV marks its 20th anniversary, film industry had to wait longer after ‘Muhogo Mchungu,’ a film that featured former premier Rashid Kawawa and Yomba Yomba, in the late 1970s.

With over 50,000 registered players at the moment, the industry is still very far behind Nigeria’s Nollywood which employs more than a million people to become the third-ranked industry after Hollywood and Bollywood.

Richie Mtambalike, who is still active today, 20 years since he and his three colleagues won appeal on ITV screenplays, has been one of the key players whom the industry owes for whatever they can lay their hands on.

Mtambalike, however, notes that despite the official figures, the number of people involved in the industry could triple due to the unspecified number of people who are involved illegally in the form of digital piracy.

According to TDFA 50,000 members solely depend on the film industry for their livelihood.

And just like Mtambalike, the governing body also admits that there are thousands who benefit from the industry, thus labelling their act as a big crime that inflicts a big loss to filmmakers.

The federation’s president, Simon Mwakifwamba, points at digital piracy as the industry’s arch enemy.

“Majority of Tanzanians who buy pirated copies of latest movies at just Sh1, 000 are hard to convince that piracy is a big crime which if eliminated it would do the country a lot of good,” says Mwakifwamba.

He says in Nigeria, where film making alone employs about a million people, the industry is the country’s biggest employer after agriculture.

“For Tanzania to make the desired strides in film making we may have to take inspiration from a country like Nigeria, but piracy continues to be the industry’s biggest hurdle at the moment,” he adds.

Robhi Mwita, a resident of Bunda told The Beat that the easily assailable digitech has given him an opportunity to get whatever he wants from the local film industry.

“I don’t think this is “piracy?” I downloaded a movie from a file-sharing site instead of paying for it. I can now watch it free,” he says.

Mwakifwamba insists piracy is a crime.

“Unfortunately, several youth and adults think sharing software, games, music, e-books, pictures, is just a convenient tool to help reduce costs. In fact, digital piracy is often portrayed as a victimless crime, but that portrayal is false.” Prior to the advent of a vibrant film industry, piracy was mostly associated with music only for film makers to realise that they too were faced with the same ugly foe.

“The industry in the beginning did not take piracy seriously, as a result the losses that we are incurring both at local and international levels are significant,” notes Mwakifwamba.

He adds that copying software or digital content without permission of the content owner is theft in simple terms and therefore punishable by the law.

“It is not that different from shoplifting. It doesn’t matter whether you copied the material from a friend, illegally downloaded from the internet, or purchased from a person who was selling illegally made copies; it is all theft.”

Dar es Salaam which is the biggest film producing centre in Tanzania is also reported to be in the lead in terms of piracy followed by Arusha and Kilimanjaro.

Mwakifwamba says that though most of them are licensed by Cosota (The Copyright Society of Tanzania), with valid licences that authorize them to sell only original work, some indulge in unscrupulous business.

“The government is also losing billions of shillings from the film industry as the money goes to people who evade taxes with an unrivalled passion,” he adds.

According to a recent survey by Polygram Records Ltd, tape piracy is one of the major problems in African music distribution.

It is estimated that the total cassette market is at 2.5 million per year of which 90 per cent is pirated.

Cosota is a statutory body established in 2001 to promote creativity and protect the rights of owners.

Celebrating its 5th anniversary, Tanzania Film Federation (TAFF) admits to be deeply affected by business acumen of those at the helm of the industry.

“We lack a business acumen, a situation that gives distributers an upper hand in profit making,” he points out.

He says that though the industry has made remarkable strides since its formation in 2009, lack of a business mentality has hampered the achievement of some of its basic goals.

When it launched its services five years ago, TAFF had the following members in its first cabinet.

Chiku Mchome was the first president aided by Jacob Steven and Monalisa as first and second vice presidents respectively.

Others included Dotnata (treasurer), the late Steven Kanumba(Administrative director) while Richie Rich was its academic master.

Mwakifwamba says the federation’s top members, except Monalisa left it later, whereby most of them have become movie distributors, a move he said later fuelled conflicts and setbacks the industry faces today.

Big boost

Despite several challenges it faces today, TAFF has received aids and financial boosts from various organizations since it officially opened its offices in 2010.

“We can’t mention all of them, but we owe a lot to the National Arts Council (Basata) Copyright Society of Tanzania (Cosota), TRA, TCRA, Film Board, the government. Without them we wouldn’t be here today,” he says.

TAFF, according to Mwakifwamba, has since January this year completed a film policy draft after getting financial assistance from a non-governmental organization, Best AC. “Best AC first injected $40,000 and later added $23,000 to enable TAFF to conduct a research that would facilitate creativity in film production and management,” he concludes.

Additional notes by Miguel Suleyman