EDUCATING THE FILMMAKER, EMPOWERING THE STORY: FILM SCHOOLS AND THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN CINEMA

Abstract

The number of films being produced in Africa, their visibility, and technological capabilities are growing, but the institutions trained to produce those people have not. It explores the function of the film school within the production of the new generation of African cinema, focusing primarily on Nigeria, where Nollywood is based and where the popular and literary theatre has a long history. This article, from a practitioner-scholar perspective and from a critical analysis of film studies literature, contends that film education in Africa must shift from the transmission of technical skills to the creation of artistically accomplished, culturally literate, economically resourceful, and ethically alert filmmakers. It offers the heuristic of the Four-C Framework of film education (Craft, Culture, Commerce and Code) as a proposal for designing the curriculum, partnering with institutions and running festivals. It then examines the responses of each pillar, including the transition from stage to screen in performance training, politics of African identity and language, economics of funding, distribution and intellectual property, and pedagogical implications of generative AI. It ends with a set of recommendations for universities, industry practitioners, policy makers and festival organisers and with an agenda for empirical research. The article participates in discussions on creative-industries education in the Global South, proposing that the film school should be seen not only as a training provider but as being an integral part of the infrastructure of the creative economy.