Kenyan market opportunities, anti-piracy measures and the impact of artificial intelligence on the creative sector dominated discussions with Namibian filmmakers and industry leaders on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit in Kenya.
The discussions follow a High-Level Cultural and Creative Industries - Presidential Sequence, attended by Vice President Lucia Witbooi and other African and international leaders, including Emmanuel Macron, during the Africa-France summit last week.
The session focused on promoting African talent, preserving culture and expanding opportunities in film, music, fashion and other creative industries across the continent.
Executive secretary of the Namibia Film Commission (NFC), Florence Haifene, said Namibia is preparing to roll out a National Content Creation Plan aimed at boosting local storytelling and strengthening the country's film industry.
She noted that Namibia aims to expand distribution into Kenya and across East Africa to grow the reach of its creative content and reduce reliance on government funding by building a more sustainable creative ecosystem.
Haifene also said the summit offered an opportunity to learn how African countries are responding to artificial intelligence (AI) in the creative sector, particularly how Kenya is adapting AI while protecting jobs and supporting industry growth.
"So our interest is the Kiswahili market for distribution for our content. We're hoping that through presenting our content to the East African market. Also, we want to look at AI in the creative sector. How has that impacted Kenya, and what could we learn from them so that our content and our jobs are not lost to AI and we can come up with strategies for how to embrace this new technology and not see it as a threat?"
Chairperson of the Namibia Film Commission (NFC), Esther Beukes, welcomed France' renewed support for Africa's film industry, including a one-million-euro fund announced through France's CNC film body.
Beukes also highlighted piracy as a major challenge affecting African filmmakers.
"We need to put in stronger interventions to see how we can stop this so that we can make sure that local filmmakers are getting their money, and we can introduce streaming platforms where people pay, and we're actually paying for the content that's being created."
Namibian actor and filmmaker Armas Shivute said partnerships with countries such as Kenya could help Namibia strengthen its film industry.
If you look at the streaming networks around the world, when you speak of Namibia, they would not even listen because of the population. Now for us to be able to make an impact on those platforms is probably to collaborate with nations with bigger populations so that we can then find our spaces around those streamings."
The session at the summit brought together policymakers, investors and creatives to discuss ways of unlocking Africa's cultural collaboration and creative economy.