By Frederick Philander WINDHOEK “Namibia has a small film and video industry, but all its stakeholders believe in its potential to create and maintain Namibian cultural identity, as well as to contribute considerably to the country’s economy.” This is the view of young Namibian filmmaker, Joel Haikali, in a study report on the local film industry. Haikali has interviewed a wide range of local filmmakers for this study. “The study was guided by the following research objectives: to assess factors which hinder the development of the film and video industry in Namibia; to detect the extent of influence that filmmaker and video artists have in regulating bodies; to evaluate the structural framework that Namibian filmmaker and video artists are working in and to make recommendations on how the Namibian society and film industry could benefit from the international productions that come to Namibia,” says Haikali in the study report findings. According to him Namibia is increasingly becoming a popular location for international film production companies, interested in making use of the country’s beautiful and manifold landscapes and the constant good weather conditions, the country and the industry itself failing to benefit from these activities. “The key findings of the study indicates that the industry’s structure does not make provisions to help local filmmakers to develop themselves, which results in a rather fragmented industry in which everybody is busy with individual projects without networking. “Moreover, regulatory bodies are not able to regulate the industry effectively due to a lack of procedures and resources. In addition, there is a lack of clear polices that could help the industry to grow in a positive and sustainable way,” Haikali argues in the report. A lack of funding and a missing platform for sponsorship is also affecting filmmakers, who therefore depend on making videos for NGOs and corporate sectors for survival. As introductory remarks, Haikali says:”The history of Namibian cinema started in 1919, when two colonial Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) applied for a license to build a native cinema in the Windhoek location in order to educate the ‘primitive natives’. The proposal was turned down because the administrator at that time felt that the natives were not yet ready (Gordon 1947),” he says in a historical overview on the local industry. Motion picture came to Namibia for the first time in the early 1920s when expeditions arrived. Most films made at that time in Namibia were “ethnographic films” about the San population. “During the apartheid era the South African colonial regime was actively involved in regulating the content of films, videos, television, theatre plays and publications. The same law was also implemented in Namibia, seeing that the then South African apartheid regime considered Namibia as part of South Africa. Since independence, a significant number of international features, television series and documentaries were produced in Namibia making use of the special landscapes, the constant good weather conditions and the good infrastructure, as well as the stable political situation,” he writes. In his opinion it seems that the local industry has failed to benefit from these increased activities, and transfer of skills. “Furthermore the government is supposed to allocate a sum of money every year through the “Film and Video Fund” to local productions since the year 2001. However, only one feature production with local content has been sponsored through the fund: the as yet unreleased film Nujoma: Where Others Wavered now renamed as Namibia: The Struggle For Liberation.” He further argues: “In Namibia’s’ Information Policy the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting acknowledges film as forming an important part of cultural identity and hence stressing the importance of the Namibian film industry. Conversely the government has not yet implemented the regulations and policies which have been approved and which would support the development of a local industry accordingly.” There are two bodies which are supposed to regulate the Namibian video and film industry: the Namibian Film Commission (NFC) and the Film Association of Namibia (FAN). Yet, these two bodies have seemingly not been able to boost the industry, he claims in the study of which Art/Life has a copy that will be serialized over the next few weeks.