Paper short abstract:

This paper will look at the transnationalisation of the Tanzanian film industry and its consequences for local film production practices and aesthetics.

Paper long abstract:

Through the liberalisation of markets and media in the mid-1990s a viable and fast growing video film industry has developed in Tanzania. Starting with film distribution on a national level, movies soon entered the whole of the East African market and, with the use of English subtitles, via the South African Pay TV channel Africa Magic and now also Swahili Magic, can be watched all over Africa. Always on the lookout for alternative sponsoring, through the Internet and local film festivals, filmmakers aim at presenting themselves and their work to a global audience. With these globalisation strategies local film production has received growing recognition not only in their respective countries but also by international cultural and development institutions.

In this paper, which is based on extensive field work and participant observation in the Tanzanian film industry, I want to discuss the consequences of this growing transnational tendency for local creative practices. I will firstly trace the development of the Tanzanian video film industry and the film maker's strategies for looking for sponsors and gaining a global market. With the example of two development film projects in Tanzania and in Kenya I will show how, through these initiatives, elite spaces are created which have a severe influence on local creative practices and aesthetics. In showing how these foreign initiatives try to use the industry for educational and development aims, as with colonial cinema in the past, I will argue that film production is a battlefield over power, control and contents.