Realness Institute together with partners the Southern Africa Locarno Industry Academy Film Festival, and FAME Week Africa, this week announced that the Southern Africa-Locarno Industry Academy, its 7th Realness Screenwriters’ Residency edition as well as a new initiative, Episodic Pitches will be hosted for the first time at FAME Week Africa in Cape Town, South Africa from 3 to 9 September this year.
“We’re thrilled to see the Southern Africa Locarno Industry Academy getting ready for its first onsite edition during FAME Week. This will continue to boost young and emerging professional into the local and international film industry network,” say Markus Duffner, Head of Locarno Pro and Marion Klotz, Industry Academy Project Manager.
These three programmes housed by Realness Institute, which now has its permanent homebase at The Coot Club in Stanford, Western Cape South Africa, provide opportunities for African filmmakers to develop film and television projects, widen their international networks, and strengthen industry skills.
“I had the pleasure of keynoting the inaugural FAME Week last year and immediately recognized the powerful market it presents for African creators. This is the forum we have all been waiting for on the continent and having a formal partnership with the Realness Institute provides the talent we work with an effective on-ramp to secure deals in the global entertainment business,” says Mehret Mandefro, co-founder and Director of Development and Partnerships.
The Southern Africa-Locarno Industry Academy, a Locarno Film Festival initiative is dedicated to the development of young film professionals working in sales, traditional and online distribution, theatrical exhibition and programming for festivals, film clubs and archives. Nine film professionals will have the opportunity to enjoy a focused programme of networking meetings with international professionals, masterclasses, workshops, panel discussions at FAME Week Africa, as well as playing an active role in curating its short film programme, to be screened at The Labia Cinema in Cape Town, from 7 to 9 September.
Realness Screenwriters’ Residency is an incubator for African screenwriters in which six participants are given one-on-one practical support through mentorship, focusing on the creative aspects of their work. They are also mentored through the rigorous pitching process to enable them to find potential partners, funders and producers leading up to their market debut.
Episodic Pitches will have its first edition this year, bringing to market the best of the series concepts developed across all Realness’s Episodic efforts from 2021 to 2023. A cohort of 10 creators will be invited to present their well-crafted and developed ideas on stage.
FAME Week Africa provides a development and networking platform for the African creative industries, namely film, television, animation as well as music and entertainment technology. The three Realness programmes will be housed within the MIP Africa event at FAME Week, which is a B2B market for film, television, digital content distribution and co-production business in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mentors for these programmes include Ayanda Halimana, Cait Pansegrouw, Denis Ruh, Eddie Bertozzi, Elias Ribeiro, Frank Spotnitz, Femi Odugbemi, Mehret Mandefro, Mmabatho Kau, Ozi Menakaya, Pauline Fischer, Selina Ukwuoma and Thandeka Zwana to name a few.
“FAME Week Africa is pleased to partner with the Realness Institute,” says Martin Hiller, Portfolio Director of FAME Week Africa. “Through this collaboration, we aim to ignite African storytelling flare by supporting programmes of, and providing platforms for, the Realness Institute to increase the diversity of voices in the film industry, and lead to more interesting, varied, and nuanced stories. It will also give African filmmakers a chance of securing funding, distribution deals, and other resources that can help them bring their stories to life.”
“We hope to expand this partnership even further and to continue to supply the best talent and stories incubated by the Realness Institute, with an aim to stimulate the appetite of buyers and investors to return to FAME Week Africa for more quality projects in the future,” says Elias Ribeiro co-founder and Executive Director of Realness Institute and Regional Manager of Locarno Industry Academy. “Zoom was a great place to keep things running but nothing will ever replace the power being in each other’s presence. We thank FAME Week for holding the space.”
Realness Institute strikes major partnership with FAME Week Africa
UN in Ethiopia marks Chinese Language Day
The United Nations family in Ethiopia on Wednesday marked Chinese Language Day with an aim to promote the Chinese language and culture.
The Chinese language commemoration event was co-hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in collaboration with the Chinese Mission to the African Union (AU) at the UN Conference Center in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
Acting Executive Secretary of UNECA Antonio Pedro said on the occasion that the celebration offers an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of the Chinese language to the achievement of the objectives of the United Nations and the fulfillment of its mandate.
He said the Chinese culture, of which the Chinese language is a reflection, pertains to a vast and complex set of achievements in a wide range of fields. “That continuity, which has facilitated the dissemination of practices, objects and ideas, means that certain elements of Chinese culture can transcend regional and historical differences.”
“Today, many people around the world who are not of Chinese origin want to learn Chinese,” the UNECA chief said.
Pedro said the UNECA, in collaboration with the Chinese Mission to the AU and the Confucius Institute at Addis Ababa University, has recently started offering Chinese language courses. “That initiative reflects the ever-closer cooperation taking place between the UNECA and its multilingualism partners.”
Participants attending the UN Chinese Language Day celebration emphasized that the event could be seen as an important platform for creating awareness of the Chinese language in particular and Chinese culture in general to the rest of the world under the umbrella of promoting linguistic and cultural diversity.
The event was marked with different activities showcasing the Chinese culture and language, including Chinese calligraphy, art performances, as well as presentations on Chinese culture, tourism and history, and traditional Chinese medicine and healthcare.
Various performances were also displayed by students from the Confucius Institute at Addis Ababa University and the Confucius Institute at the Federal Technical and Vocational Training Institute.
Head of Mission of China to the African Union Hu Changchun said that the Chinese language in recent years enjoyed growing demand among people in the African continent and the rest of the world.
“As one of the languages with the longest history, the most elegant structure, and the deepest ideological connotation in the world, the Chinese language is attracting more and more people to explore and feel the essence of the profound Chinese culture behind it,” he said.
Figures from the Chinese Mission to the AU show that as China actively engaged in cooperation with other countries, Confucius Institutes and Classrooms have been set up in 159 countries, among which more than 70 Confucius Institutes and Classrooms have been established in African countries.
In Africa, 17 countries have included the Chinese language in their education system, and over 600,000 African people are using or learning Chinese, according to the Chinese Mission to the AU.
“The learning and use of Chinese serve as a bridge of mutual learning between civilizations, allowing more and more friends all around the world to feel the beauty of poetry in Tang and Song Dynasty, the profound philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine, the rapid development of China, and find the key to the success of Chinese path to modernization,” Hu said.
The Chinese language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The other five are Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
The United Nations family in Ethiopia annually commemorates Chinese Language Day in line with the decision by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2010 to mark Chinese Language Day on April 20. The decision envisaged celebrating multilingualism, cultural diversity, and promoting equal use of all six of the UN’s official working languages throughout the organization’s structure and activities.
China’s role in the Yemen war ceasefire should not go unnoticed
Beijing deserves some credit for bringing the end of one of the most brutal conflicts in history closer
Eight and a half years of the Yemeni civil war has seen the Arab country torn into shreds.
Estimates suggest at least 350,000 people have died from the war or its consequences, which began in 2014. This includes approximately 85,000 children under the age of five who have died of starvation. Basic civil infrastructure and supply chains have collapsed, and typically treatable communicable diseases like cholera have claimed countless lives.
The war is primarily between the Yemeni government of Rashad al-Alimi, who took over in 2022 from Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Houthi armed movement. The conflict escalated significantly when Saudi Arabia became involved in 2015 by backing Hadi (and now al-Alimi) in what is seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran, who is rumored to be supporting the Houthis.
Some of my first memories as a writer and college radio host was speaking to victims of the war and learning about the situation on the ground.
Fortunately, it now looks like the war might come to a close. US media reported on April 6th that a ceasefire had been struck between warring parties at least through the end of this year. Then, on April 7th, Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen reported that Riyadh had informed the Yemeni presidential leadership council of its decision to end the war and close the Yemen file once for all. This was further corroborated by a Reuters report, confirming that Saudi delegates would travel to the capital Sana’a to discuss a “permanent ceasefire.” And indeed these talks just wrapped up on April 14th and are expected to have a follow-up.
What is apparent from this situation, and what I had previously noted, is that the thawing of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia would likely lead to an end to the conflicts in Yemen and Syria. We are now seeing that play out. Most importantly, it was not US President Joe Biden – who had promised to end the conflict – but China that set the stage for this diplomatic achievement. And it’s not even a secret among US commentators since outlets like The Intercept, heavily quoting foreign policy experts, are giving China the credit.
It is difficult to compare such horrors but in my years speaking with victims of conflict, including Ukrainian refugees now, or previously with Afghans, Syrians and others, some of the most striking stories I’ve heard are from Yemenis. It is undoubtedly one of the most brutal and total wars seen in modern history, yet almost entirely off the radar for most Western media for nearly a decade.
Despite all of its diplomatic capital and links to the Middle East, somehow Washington managed – despite promising to halt the conflict – to be so anti-peace that it has driven perennial enemies to the table. And now, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, CIA Director William Burns “expressed frustration” with Riyadh over its rapprochements with regional adversaries. Apparently, the US feels ‘blindsided’ by the deluge of peaceful resolutions – things it could never even fathom, apparently – and it’s angry with Riyadh, hitherto one of America’s largest arms importers.
Of course, buried under this frustration is a sense of loss. Anyone with some degree of familiarity with US politics and especially US foreign policy knows it is dominated by big money. In foreign affairs, this is primarily the military-industrial complex, which thrives off war and hatred. Peace is bad for business. And thus, the owners of US officials – the people who bankroll their campaigns and/or their bosses’ campaigns – are probably ticked.
Such a reaction explains why US diplomacy is inherently antithetical to peace. The US has been involved in numerous conflicts in the Middle East for some three decades, arguably more. With all of this history between Washington and its ‘partners’ in the region, it has extraordinarily little to show for it. The truth is that the US has stoked, proliferated and literally profited from sowing discord and conflict.
On the other hand, China wants to do business in other ways. Beijing is, to be fair, the fourth largest arms supplier in the world – but, according to Statista, it only has a global market share of 5.2% compared to Washington’s 40%. Chinese companies want to sell their goods or services, develop infrastructure and sell affordable and reliable products. This creates a political environment where stability, predictability and orderliness are cherished values.
As such, Chinese diplomacy is largely to thank for the expected conclusion of the gruesome human tragedy that has been the war in Yemen. Counter to what Washington spews about their so-called “rules-based international order” that no one can ever seem to articulate, Beijing believes in the post-WWII status quo – international law, the United Nations, sovereignty and diplomacy. And that is precisely why a growing number of high-level European officials, including most recently French President Emmanuel Macron, believe China can also help mediate the conflict in Ukraine.
Bradley Blankenship is an American journalist, columnist and political commentator. He has a syndicated column at CGTN and is a freelance reporter for international news agencies including Xinhua News Agency.
Eyerusalem Tolecha
Name: Eyerusalem Tolecha
Education: 12th Grade
Company name: Meklit Balitina Spices
Title: Owner
Founded in: 2023
What it do: Prepares and sells different kinds of Ethiopian packed foods and spices
Hq: Addis Ababa around Gerji
Number of Employees: 1
Startup capital: 30,000 birr
Current Capital: Growing
Reason for starting the Business: To have my own sustainable income using my experience
Biggest perk of ownership: Always trying to give the best
Biggest strength: Never give up attitude
Biggest challenge: Customer satisfaction
Plan: Expand my business, and to get into the restaurant business
First career: Private sector employee
Most interested in meeting: Ambassador No one in particular
Most admired person: No one in particular
Stress reducer: Praying
Favorite past time: Time with my family
Favorite book: Fiction and history books
Favorite destination: Axum
Favorite automobile: Any kind, no particular favorite
