Earlier in June Cameroonian Chevening scholar Zigoto Tchaya Tchameni and 14 fellow postgraduate film studies students from Kingston University travelled to Zigoto’s homeland on a film-making mission.
After a nine-hour drive from Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, the crew of 35 film-makers and actors arrived in the muddy little village of Babessi, having survived police harassment, food poisoning, the Cameroonian jungle and several breakdowns.
This was the culmination of months of fund-raising, hard work, sheer determination and plenty of frustration.
The film crew of MA students had teamed up with a mainly Cameroonian group of amateur actors from the Yaounde-based Zoomers film company. Their assignment was to jointly shoot a film for their end of course project and set up a humanitarian NGO to train underprivileged children in film-making and support them through school and in their communities.
While at Kingston, ‘We raised funds and saved our stipends to make the trip of a lifetime to this remote little village in the middle of nowhere in Cameroon,’ says Mikihiro Kara from Japan. ‘Zigoto inspired us and his dream became our dream,’ says Namrata Kamiga from India.
The group also handed over a computer and film-making equipment worth about £3,000 to the Zoomers film company, donated by various Kingston students. ‘I am a product of the British Council and I want to give something back to the organisation, especially for young people, given my own experience as a street kid’ said Zigoto to Paul Norton, the Country Director of Cameroon at the donation ceremony.
This is Zigoto’s second expedition to Babessi. The first visit saw him making a film about the newly built dam that has caused flooding of homes and land, leading to migration and land conflict. ‘Since good films emanate from true stories, I did not hesitate to adapt the Babessi problem into my final year project,’ says Zigoto.
Zigoto’s love of the cinema began as a child when he was homeless and found shelter in a cinema hall in Yaounde. Years later, at the age of 25, he became involved with our Storylines project, which involved young film-makers from West Africa and the UK working together to make documentaries. Says Zigoto: ‘We were encouraged to use film to look at the UK’s relationship with countries in West Africa and to critically evaluate cultural stereotypes by looking at what can strengthen relationships in the world.’
Drawing on these experiences and his participation in the Interaction Leadership programme, he applied for a Chevening scholarship, awards funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and administered by the British Council that enable overseas students to study in the UK.
The hope for the current film project is that it will be replicated in the 11 other countries from which the film crew came (including Portugal, Taiwan, China, Norway and Jordan). The network plans to collaborate on joint projects aimed at helping underprivileged countries worldwide.
There are plans to return to Cameroon to collaborate with a UK-Swiss couple, alongside other Cameroonian organisations in a major film project later this year aimed at building capacity and connecting the Cameroon film industry to the outside world.
Zigoto intends to continue working with young people, using his life story from the street to generate a sense of trust: ‘I’d like to make sure that kids in underprivileged communities use film as a means of self-employment – teaching them how to fish rather than giving them fish,’ he affirms.
To find out more about our work in Africa visit our Africa web pages.
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