What is the role of cinemas in promoting Bongo movies?

Going to the cinema to watch a local movie is something that’s not so common in Tanzania. But in recent years, we’ve seen a number of bongo movies taking the bold step of premiering in cinemas in major cities in Tanzania.

Local movie fans were this week treated to a unique experience as “Kiumeni”, the much anticipated bongo action, drama movie premiered at Mlimani City’s Century Cinema.

The captivating movie which tells a story of a young man coming from a rich family, who then falls in love with a girl from a poor family, will show the struggles encountered as love tries to conquer it all.

This is one of the few Swahili movies set to change the movie industry across the country following its unique and authentic way of showing the real challenges that exist between communities of different social classes.

Directed by Nicholas Marwa, the movie included famous names in the movie industry such as Ernest Napoleon of Going bongo and Idris Sultan, Big Brother Africa winner. The movie also featured other actors such as Antu Mandoza who took the role as lead actress. It took almost three months to be complete and cost more than Shs40 million.

Tanzania’s Bongo movie industry is considered to be the second largest on the continent in terms of quantity with over 500 productions being released annually; however, few local movies get the chance to be premiered in local movie cinemas due to various reasons, quality of production being among them.

Ernest Napoleon, a writer and movie producer who’s had two successful movies released says it takes a lot of hard work and creativity for any move to have a big audience and a successful platform. “The case of Going Bongo was different, the movie theatre didn’t want to show it at first but after they reviewed it, they accepted to show it for few days at the cinema, but later had to extend the days after the turnout was good. It was shown for two weeks,” Napoleon says.

After the success of Going Bongo, Napoleon and co didn’t face a difficult time finding a cinema to premier “Kiumeni”. “This time the cinema easily accepted to premier our movie and they gave us a theatre to do the premier at a price which is almost free,” he notes, adding, “So what other artists need to do is try and come up with good movies that will build their credibility.”

One of the things Napoleon wanted to do through this film was to take the movie industry to another level by setting a higher standard and also promoting the young and upcoming actors in the industry. He’s also struggling to change the mindset of people about bongo movies.

“It is an undeniable fact that gone are the days of producing poor quality movies and expecting the consumers to enjoy watching them. People feel like they have been watching the same old stories over and over again,” Napoleon points. One other thing which he stressed is the tendency to copy ideas that is common in bongo movies. “I believe we have a lot of stories to tell coming from places we live everyday. It is easy to look at someone else’s work and copy it than sitting down and coming up with your own storyline. I think we need to be more original,” he explains.

Napoleon believes movie writers, directors, producers and actors need to step their game up if they are to perform at an international level. “Having an opportunity to show a movie publically is a step forward towards achieving international recognition,” he says, adding that showing a movie in a theatre proves that the quality of work has improved. “If people support our local movies which are of good quality, it will act as motivation to other actors and stakeholders in the movie industry to invest more and produce movies of high quality,” he noted.

Taking pride in Swahili

Kiswahili language is spoken by almost 200 million people across the world and therefore there is a great opportunity for our movies to make it beyond national borders.

Explaining why most bongo movies don’t make it to the theatres and whether film festivals can help boost movie sales, Daniel Nyalusi, manager of Zanzibar Film Festival (ZIFF) says film festivals help a lot to support the artistes financially because of two reasons; one being the fact that when they submit their work and compete in the film festivals they get an opportunity to get awards, monetary rewards, but most importantly; recognition.

“Those who produce short films for instance can win say up to $2000 dollars. The money they get can help them continue doing other productions, this is one of the benefits. Apart from that, film festivals and even movie theatres open room for actors to meet buyers and even other stake holders such as film directors,” he says, adding, “this assures that the work of actors is in safe hands because they get to meet directly with the buyers. This year for instance, ZIFF plans to open the first film market where actors will be able to sell their work and meet with other people in the movie industry.” Nyalusi went further saying that movie theatres can also play a major role in promoting the sales; however, if there are few theatres then festivals can remain the best and only option.

Despite the role played by movie theatres, however, the number of movies being shown in the theatres has been low. According to him, the issue of poor quality is what makes many Bongo movies not get space to be shown in theatres.

“The biggest challenge is the quality and storyline of films which are made by our local producers and artistes. Most of them happen to be of poor quality and they are very long. You cannot make someone sit down for two hours watching a movie. Basically it needs to at least be 75 -100 minutes or one and a half hour for a standard movie, a condition which most of our Bongo movies have failed to meet,” Nyalusi states.

He noted that most movie theatres show Hollywood movies and it’s very rare for our local movies to compete with them that’s why our local actors need to work extra hard to at least earn the trust of the theatre owners, showing them that their works deserve to have such a platform.

Seko Shamte, a writer, producer, director and managing director of Alkemist Media is of the opinion that many Bongo movies have failed to appear in movie cinemas not because they don’t contain good storylines, but stresses that the quality of many of them is below standard.

She says since most movie cinemas are business oriented, it’s logical for them to desire showcasing movies which can sell and not otherwise. “In order for our local movies to be played in a movie theatre, then the owner needs the guarantee that people will come to watch the movie, instead of having a blank theatre,” she says.

The challenge

The movie director says the industry is faced with shortage of funds to enable the production of good quality movies. “There is no enough cash to invest in the movie making business, there are good producers and directors and even actors with good vision and ideas but they cannot make it big because it is expensive for them to do so. It is not possible for a movie cinema to agree to showcase a local movie with low production quality and even poor sound and not show a Hollywood production movie which normally attracts great audience,” Shamte explains.

According to the director, the local film industry is one of the industries which need enough money to make it stand out. “A film may need a lot of crew members; it can be up to 100 people. This may include producers, directors, and actors, to name a few. It’s unfortunate that very few governments across African nations can afford to support the industry. A good example is countries like Kenya where the government campaigns for its local actors when they are nominated for international awards. Those in the industry are paid per diem when they represent their country at international platforms,” she notes.