By Berio Mbala WINDHOEK A former NBC employee, Sylvester Simubali (31), has banded with six other creative youths with a knack for shooting domestic and corporate movies, sending a ripple of waves into this untapped sector. Simubali, previously employed by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) for ten years, managed to start an own film company from scratch and employed six other Namibian youths to venture into this lucrative market, which in the past was mainly the domain of whites and foreigners. According to Simubali, who doubles as the Director of Photography of the Zambezi Film Production and Consultancy, the company was formed in 2000 and was only registered in 2004 with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It soon became operational and eventually gathered steam. He said the Zambezi Film Production Company specializes mostly in video production to which any company or the public at large could enlist their services to shoot any social event anywhere within the country’s borders. These activities could be anything ranging from weddings to anniversaries, conferences, drama, music videos and even soapies, he told New Era. Initially, putting up the capital needed for buying equipment for the outfit proved prohibitively expensive, but Simubali persevered. He said the vision of fully working independently in this industry was encouraged by the time he worked at the NBC from 1996 to 2001. From there, he moved to the Parliamentarian Channel, the then National Democratic Institution for International Affairs (NDC) and now called the Constituency Channel which is under the Democracy Support Centre and was formed by the late Foster Mijigi together with the late Speaker of the National Assembly, MosÃÆ’Æ‘Æ‘ÃÆ”šÃ‚© Tjitendero. Simubali said the duo helped him grow in the industry by facilitating his travels to regions and outside the country as a personnel cameraman for the late Speaker. His company has so far acquired three PD Sony video cameras and two AVD machines, sound equipment, a projector, screens and other technical equipment that clients could also hire from his company. He insists clients are free to either hire only the equipment or they are welcome to also hire his crew together with the equipment. Even though the company has been operational since 2004, it has also encountered numerous problems mainly because Namibia’s film production industry is still wet behind the ears. “I call upon donors, government and NGOs to help us with financial assistance so that we may be able to move from one step to the next,” he said. Simubali used own savings and donations from members of the public to set up his company. Some companies have also responded positively. Prices to hire equipment are apparently affordable to everyone wishing to make use of Simubali’s services. Charity Mwiya, production manager of the Namibia Chamber of Commence and Industry, said NCCI once hired Simubali’s company. “When a small company approaches you for some help, one cannot resist but make use of it and help them. They approached us, we accepted their proposal and they produced for us a DVD for the conference we held with the Malaysians,” stated Mwiya. The production was very good and the price was acceptable, she said. Simubali said, apart from hiring equipment out to clients “we are currently working on touring the regions in order to produce local programmes and dramas which will be sold to local TV stations and for us to get rid of international soapies and programmes.” Simubali feels it is up to producers like himself to produce local programmes and to promote local culture and home-produced programmes. Meanwhile, Simubali calls upon whoever has a local script which needs to be shot, to contact his office so that he may be able to shoot it for them.