By Jeoffrey Mukubi
The film industry is slowly rising to the occasion to rival the music industry and eventually will be a driving force with in the local entertainment scene with the help of local production companies like the Optimistic Media Group which is determined to produce proudly Namibian films.
The film director at the company, Mr Blos, has already produced a number of short films that include the now infamous short film titled Short-Cut, which is currently available on Youtube.
However, his more recent productions include a film titled Brief Case, which is set around a character named Tom, an American businessman that came to finalize a business deal in Namibia. On his way home, his brief case gets high jacked by thugs and the desperate race to retrieve his important documents and cash begins. Mr Blos says that, although they try to do their best in getting the content out, there are many challenges that are still rampant when it comes to the local film industry.
“When producing films, the challenge we encounter the most is time. Most of the actors are employed on a full-time basis and we have to work on days when their off. Th weather also becomes a contributing factor when shooting a scene that requires a continuation to the next day, which means you need to have the same weather as yesterday.
“So, we shoot in January and it had rainy days and some days the sky would clear so if we wait for another weekend, we can’t ask God to bring back the same weather but to just hope and pray for the similar weather as a continue shoot or otherwise we are forced to re-shoot an entire scene, which cost time and money,” he says
Mr Blos however say that, the biggest challenge is definitely funding. “Not enough money for production nor for larger props to compliment the films. For example, we wanted a fire burning but that requires petrol and the fire fighter to be on site,” he added.
There is however light at the end of the tunnel as the Namibian film commission supported some of their productions.
“The commission is of great support in Namibia film developments and the commission did provide funds for production of Shortcut part 1 and we thank them for their support. They should continue with their objective and one day we will have a fully functional film industry which hopefully will generate millions of dollars and jobs for the country,” he said.
Mr Blos added that every production is different and provides its distinct pleasures to the viewers. “It’s always best not to describe how different the films are, because you can have a big budget but your film can still come out bad. As we progress, we will achieve to have films that are not the best but are accepted internationally and are appealing. For now, that’s why we start with short films, to prepare us for greater work,” he said.
He also added that the films that they produced will be entered into local and international film festivals “As we speak, some international festivals have already responded positive to our films and their ready to show case them,” Mr Blos ended.
